"orange"

Flashing my Halloween smile to Chris across the cafeteria table, I win  …orange you glad.

“On Reading On Writing Well”

                I live in the world of fiction and I don’t ever apologize about finding fiction truer than non-fiction.  Truly, I have never seen the human condition as adequately detailed in a memoir as I have in A Light in August or The Awakening.  But this book by William Zinsser has me wondering if William Faulkner and Kate Chopin pulled back the curtain for me to see such beautiful and disgusting truth because they understood and applied many of Zinsser’s rules for writing non-fiction to their works.  I read The Awakening for the first time during a summer in the Swiss Alps and, after five minutes of reading Chopin’s book, the mountains disappeared from my porch view.  I heard crickets.  I felt  mosquitoes nibbling around my neck.  I was in south Louisiana.  Zinsser dedicates Chapter 13 to writing about a place.  My favorite advice of his is “[I]f a phrase comes to you easily, look at it with deep suspicion; it’s probably one of the countless clichés that have woven their way so tightly into the fabric of travel writing that you have to make a special effort not to use them” (118).  Too many towns tend to be “nestled” and villages are too often “quaint.”  Have we ever seen an unnestled town in the hills?  There are neither quaint villages nor nestled towns in The Awakening, but Grand Isle, the beach village where Edna learns to swim and, hence, gain her independence is “delicious.”  Chopin uses “delicious” many times and because of that I often perceive independence and locations that foster independence as “delicious” too.  “Find details that are significant,” explains Zinsser.  I believe Chopin did and now I think I better understand why I so love her book.  She knows how to write about place.

                I would suggest placing On Writing Well next to your bed, under the novel you’re currently reading.   It serves me best when it is a 15 minute nightly read.  One topic to adequately digest is perfect for me.  Too much more and it becomes a textbook  read.  My all time favorite section?  Page 119 when Zinsser offers us two haunting paragraphs about place, specifically Banyan Street, written by Joan Didion.  After reading it, I realize I could never write with her fearless confidence with the written word.   Magic.  Delicious magic.

Fan letter to Dr. Vandiver

July 24, 2011

Dear Dr. Vandiver,

My students asked to read a comedy and, without flinching, I smiled and suggested Frogs—my personal favorite.  I purred the word “personal” just like you did in Lecture 23 on Greek Tragedy.  Never mind that I’d never read a comedy, never studied Aristophanes, never led a group of freshman through Ancient Literature, you dedicated five paragraphs and almost minutes to the topic.  With your voice in my head and your course guidebook on my desk, I knew my students and I would enjoy our journey to Hades as Dionysus sought a great tragedian to save Athens.  Dionysus needed Aeschylus to save his beleaguered, war weary city; I needed you.

I needed you from October to June, from The Iliad to the The Aeneid with months of The Odyssey, Greek Tragedies, and a touch of comedy in between.  During this time I possessed rare moments of original thought; surprisingly though, I could not only recite key passages in Greek, but I would shake my head with distress over poorly translated key passages.  Mênin aeide, thea, the first three words of The Iliad, introduced my maiden lecture on the text.  I had heard you say those three words on lecture three entitled “Glory, Honor, and the Wrath of Achilles” so often that my car’s CD player sometimes skipped at that point; I always wanted it to be repeated so that I might say with you, say it as you.  

As long as you provided a lecture for the day’s topic, we often sounded wonderful.  Your words, my flying hands, your organized outline.  Our success continued with The Odyssey, particularly in Book IX when I challenged the students to decide whether or not Penelope knew that the beggar was indeed her missing husband of 10 years, her beloved Odysseus.  We dedicated an entire class to a textual debate on the subject.  Surely you remember Lecture Nine, “Odysseus and Penelope,” where Penelope shares her dream of an eagle killing her pet geese and then asks the beggar for his interpretation of the dream.  Some swore this proved she knew and she was speaking code, asking him if he planned to kill the gaggle of suitors.  But vehement students pointed to her weeping over Odysseus that evening in her room to prove she didn’t know.  The “she didn’t knows” won.  I fretted over this decision; there were right, weren’t they?

Your students at the University of Maryland acted out one scene from a Greek tragedy; my students at Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy recreated an entire tragedy of their choice.  I should have followed your lead more closely.  After one week of three Medeas murdering Barbie dolls, baby dolls, or doll-faced freshman girls we all needed occasion to hear Aristophanes poke fun of tragedy. 

Alas, I was hired two years ago with the primary directive of creating a French program.  It was fated that French instruction would someday supplant my English classes.   Our French program has grown to the point where, this September, I will no longer be teaching Ancient Lit.   Please know that I will miss our daily diatribe on ancient literature as “an enduring form of dramatic literature that remains powerful today.”  I will miss your polumêtis; Dr. Vandiver, I will miss you.  In our daily travels from Spokane to Coeur d’Alene, I followed you from Troy to Ithaca to Hades to Thebes to Hades to Carthage to Hades to Rome.  Thank you for the ride.

Your xenos,

Lynda LeBlanc, D.A.

English and French

Coeur d’Alene Charter Academy

Top 10 Takeaways for the Act of Revision

1.     Students profit best from writing when teachers emphasize more than one writing strategy, and consequently more than one way to revise.

2.    Model asking questions about a text.  This encourages the student to ask him/herself questions about his/her text.  This effectively guides the student to revise his own work before asking help of others.

3.    Conferencing between the students and teacher is at the heart of the writing workshop and necessary to help students become critical readers of their own texts.

4.    There are different kinds of conferences, each with its own goal:  content conference (What do you think of the protagonist?) design conferences (Why did you decide to start your draft this way?), process conference (What problems did you run into while you were gathering entries?), evaluation conferences (What do you think of your essay?)

5.    One step of writing steps does not lead to everyone’s best writing.

6.    The process model is still helpful, for it gives teacher and student a common way of looking at writing, a logical procedure which can be adapted to the needs of the student once it is understood.

7.    Students like writing notes when someone answers.

8.    The spoken word cannot be revised.

9.    The four revision operations include:  deletion, substitution, addition, and reordering.

10.  The four levels of revision include:  words, phrases, sentences, and theme (idea).

"What She Can Do"

Listens completely.

Learns best from others’ words. 

Supports her community in listening too

Questions, many questions

Grandma, were you a good student in school?

What did you want to be?

When Grandpa dies, where do you want to live?

 in the car, at the table, on the phone

Smiles gently, sincerely

Hugs generously

Loves completely

Flowers daily

Camille

Response to Linda Rief's article, "What's Right with Writing"

                At this stage in our writing program, I finally feel I’m not learning new information and am much delighted to recognize the oft stated necessary components for a successful writer’s workshop.   My program is literature heavy, my one area of genuine competency in cultivating a writing friendly environment.  Otherwise, I’ve developed a woefully dry program.  The students write academic essays and poems and short stories, but only the final product is graded.  As one who advocates therapeutic writing, I’ve experienced the understanding that accompanies writing.  I’ve often given writing activities that haven’t been graded, so I suppose I also know at some level the value of process.  Rief addresses the necessity for all these components.  What Rief doesn’t mention in her article that Calkins does and what I consider a clinch to a successful program is predictability and consistency.  Truly I have dedicated the last two years to understanding my population, studying how they think, and addressing what they lack.  I have also been busy learning my curriculum.  Like so many at Charter, I have been an exciting force in my students’ academic career and many tell me they love literature.  Too few have told me they love to write.  I should have heard what was not being said, but I was so constantly and often overwhelmingly busy that I didn’t make room for listening to that void.  It is indeed a treat to hear such diverse and valuable workshops; they become the lollipops in the store window.  I want this one and that one.  I also find it valuable to read the research that supports Reid’s perfect writing program.  I wonder.  I am slowly gaining mastery in recognizing key components of a writing program.  Recognition only.  How might I best hone what I consider the two key ingredients in a writer’s workshop, consistency  and predictability?  Quiet preparation.  Unfortunately, that must come after our workshop has concluded. 

poem "I am"

I am from Tony Chachere’s: black, white, and cayenne pepper mixed with salt,

settled near the greasy stove and a simmering smothered steak

and a black iron skillet on the back burner and chilly beers inside the fridge.

I am from that meager Cajun cottage kindly cooled by father water oak,

last house on the left of Broussard Street; only we not Broussard’s brood.

But I am also from Mama Cates’ carefully pruned camellia bushes

and her magnolia tree, like my grandmother herself, sharp fragrance like a brown liquided Estee Lauder .

Tree limbs remain for those who live at her house on Sunny Lane, though my Mama Cates’s are long gone

as are her Sunday dinners on fine white china we women washed by hand

 and the senior Quoyesers’ Sunday visits, their two olive martinis.  

I’m from “my dance card was always full” and “I wasn’t a wallflower.”

I danced too, Mama Cates, and I flowered from your love

but I’m no Nawlins girl.

I’m from sweating and two stepping and swilling beer at Grant Street Dance Hall,

swirling to Chenier, to Buckwheat, Beausoleil and T.K Hulin.

I love your crawfish bisque in china gumbo bowls, but my soul needs boiled crawfish on my baby brother’s cool carport.

Folding tables dressed with yesterday’s Daily Advertiser

He feeds us as you did.

One streetlight Maurice and civilized southside Lafayette; two sides, one Cajun girl, I am.

Addressing Falk's article "Language Acquisition and the Teaching and Learning of Writing"

Blog about Julia Falk’s article “Language Acquisition and the Teaching and Learning of Writing”

Above all, Falk encourages us to make mistakes.  Through mistakes, we learn what is correct.  Make mistakes in speaking and, when it’s gently corrected, one’s oral capacity improves.  Make mistakes in writing and, when it’s read by many and gently corrected by one who knows good writing, one’s writing capacity improves.  She encourages the teacher to take how humans learn to speak as a cue on how the teacher should foster writing skills.  Understanding precedes speaking and reading precedes writing.  To write lucidly one should read marvelously lucid texts.  For two years I taught seniors (+55years old) a writer’s workshop.  The most fundamental change I made to this already successful program was assigning a wealth of texts to read.  Most of these writers wanted to write their memoirs.  They loved sharing their writings with the class, but not one could tell me who his/her favorite memoirist was.  This is a disconnect that Falk would have noted immediately.  My “seniors” needed to read E.B. White and Joan Didion.  Another change I effected was to offer advice.  Previously, it seems the workshop was more of a lovefest.  “I like the mention of your daughter.”  For me, this became a jumping off point to explain how characters are developed, through what the character says, through what he does, and through what others say about him.”  Now this was a writer’s workshop; this was sanctioned time to write.  I will have to become more organized to incorporate more writing into my English classes at Charter.

Renaming James Moffett's article "I, You, and It"

#2 Blog

Perhaps I have not offered Moffett's article enough reflection, but I question the accuracy of its title in regard to what I believe he is actually discussing. I think he is considering less the differences of point of view (I- 1st person, You- 2nd person, and It-3rd person objective or limited or omniscient) and more the differences of distance. His first stage, "inner verbalization," provides no distance, but rather offers language to the experience. I think often of my daughter returning from an evening at the cinema and her eagerness to share the movie's story line with me. "The husband dies and the wife is raising the two children alone in a hovel. She loses her job because her younger daughter has the chicken pox. The landlord tries to evict her but pities her situation and lets her stay if she will clean other tenants' apartments. She meets Mr. Groovy..." My daughter is not using the same vocabulary as that which is used in the movie's dialogue, but she is definitely telling me the story. More accurately, she is telling me and herself the story. She must offer me a “blow by blow” account of events to better understand the storyline as well as better prepare herself to discuss the film with my husband, a moviegoer like herself. The second time she recounts the story line, distance to the details is added. “Dad, you would love this part because she is in love with the landlord’s dog and you like small dogs to a ridiculous degree.” My daughter took little interest in her audience (me) when she was first sharing the story, but as her competence in recounting the chronology is displayed, she is able to pull back and consider her audience (my husband). My daughter allows chronology to give way to analogy. Later, she chats with our next door neighbor, a professor at Gonzaga who teaches film, and starts the conversation with “Matt, you would love this movie I just saw because you love ‘Magnolia’.” Not only is her audience determined immediately, but this time she’s able to make connections to other films. Camille has pulled back so far from this recently viewed film that she can spot similar films in her field of vision. She will eventually chat with her friends about the film and, as Moffett articulates, analogy will give way to tautology. The repetition for my daughter offers clarity. I assume that each time she shares her take on the film, she pulls back further and further, different audiences hear her story and different details surface and different connections are articulated. Not a word is written; however, I see many similarities between this experience and a student’s journey to writing. In fact, I would consider renaming Moffett’s article “Distance and Time” as that is what allowed my daughter’s perception of the film to grow and blossom and they are the two ingredients Moffitt advocates for written discourse for children.

Now I have one child living at home and she has two parents to hear her stories. At school, I have 25 students in one class and only 50 minutes to teach, inspire, and, yes, listen to their takes of the stories we read. Writing must necessarily supplant talking most of the time in order for them all to grow and blossom. A most important concern in Moffett’s article is listening to the story to see if it would best blossom as a poem, a play, a short story, or an essay. But time and distance are necessary for the genre to speak to the student.

Therefore, Dr. Moffett, I wonder if you ever considered renaming your article “Time and Distance”?

Response to "Non-Magical Thinking: Presenting Writing Developmentally in Schools" by Janet Emig

#3 blog response

Though I haven’t checked my notes, I would think that Janet Emig is a contemporary of Peter Elbow.  I hear the same plea in this article as I hear often in Elbow’s books about “teaching” writing.  Elbow served as one of the foundational influences for Evergreen College in Olympia, Washington.  He and a group of Berkeley professors had ideas similar to Janet Emig on how education, learning, and, yes, writing should happen.  Emig reminds us that children need frequent opportunities to practice writing and that teachers should be fellow practitioners.  Elbow started a writing group where the primary idea was that writers should write wretchedly before they write well.  I tell my 7^th grade English students this often.  That is not surprising.  What is most unfortunate is that I never share this with my Ancient Literature students.  They must learn foundational texts in nine months.  I haven’t figured out where to fit in wretched writing time.  I haven’t figured out where to fit in multiple narrative writing experiences.  I’m assuming Emig, like Elbow, had much more freedom and time than we Idaho public school teachers.  Nonetheless, she reminds me to practice various all modes:  poetry, drama, short story, and essays (like those of Montagne) as well as the academic essay and reader responses I drill into my students.  Another takeaway is that I myself need to write, “frequently and widely.”  Well, there is great freedom in honoring time restraints and I see that writing frequently and widely will only barely happen if I become more organized and routinized. 

What is your takeaway from the book /The Courage to Teach/?

Collaborative learning is not part of the teacher's job description.  Grading papers, clearly organized lesson plans, and lucid, engaging lessons are. In reading this book, I am reminded of the gift the other teachers in our buildings offer.  Our Latin and Spanish teachers are both beloved and very different in their teaching styles.  In two years, I haven't once visited their classrooms during class.  Because of this book, I shall pursue a schedule where I regularly visit each of their classes, to improve my Spanish and to learn the base of the language I teach.  Perhaps most importantly, I hope to cultivate a community among us.