Government Workers

I think this picture by George Tooker, titled Government Bureau, kind of mirrors my sentiments today, as I watch my elected officials stare out, waiting for someone to take responsibility to solve this mess.  Waiting, endlessly waiting.

If Not For Me

 I recently had four students drop, and I think another's about ready to bolt (so far, his two research paper assignments are late).  I call these students my "43%-ers" because that's about the average score they were keeping.

The last 43%-er to recently drop started crying when she looked at the score of her most recent essay (not an illustrious showing, shall we just say.  I stopped grading her errors on page two after the count hit 26).  She waited for me outside the classroom, and we talked about her paper.  She became angry, accusing me of stupid requirements that "no other teacher on this campus" would require her to do.  Some of these (there were a few) were:

• writing in a consistent point of view (POV) I don't allow them to use "you" in their papers--call me old school but I think formal composition is a good skill to have tucked away
• requiring a thesis (which she kept referring to as a topic sentence)
• insisting on structure in the paper.

She's a dynamo in front of the class--always poised and able to speak clearly and keep the class' attention.  I don't like to make the students cry.  I certainly don't grade their essays thinking "I wonder if I can make them cry."

The final shot was she pointed to her paper and said, "I could turn this paper in anywhere else on campus and get an A, but you?  you?"  She sputtered.  "If it weren't for you, I'd have an A in this class right now!" 

There were a few other things said, and I felt bad for her.  Bad that her meager effort was not getting her what she wanted.  Felt bad that her 9th grade skills were not enough to help her pass a college-level English class.  Felt bad that a young woman who had missed roughly a third of the class sessions and was nearly 15 minutes late every day thought that just wanting it would  get it done.

I can't help a lot of things.  Her grades stood, and that's why she dropped.  She's gone, but I'll be in that classroom again today.  I'll show them MLA and thesis construction for argument and formal POV and topic sentences and insist on proper spelling and punctuation and sentence construction.

Just like the rest of my fellow teachers, remembering that, if not for us, all the students would have A's.

Reading and Memory

In a recent New York Times article about memory, I was fascinated by this section:

" Memory training was considered a centerpiece of classical education [as] . . . . [s]tudents were taught not just what to remember but how to remember it. In a world with few books, memory was sacrosanct.

[T]hrough the late Middle Ages, books were thought of not just as replacements for memory but also as aides-mémoire. Even as late as the 14th century, there might be just several dozen copies of any given text in existence, and those copies might well be chained to a desk or a lectern in some library, which, if it contained a hundred other books, would have been considered particularly well stocked. If you were a scholar, you knew that there was a reasonable likelihood you would never see a particular text again, so a high premium was placed on remembering what you read.

To our memorybound predecessors, the goal of training your memory was not to become a “living book” but rather a “living concordance,” writes the historian Mary Carruthers, a walking index of everything read or learned that was considered worthwhile. And this required building an organizational scheme for accessing that information. When the point of reading is remembering, you approach a text very differently from the way most of us do today. . . . If something is going to be made memorable, it has to be dwelled upon, repeated.

In his essay “First Steps Toward a History of Reading,” Robert Darnton describes a switch from “intensive” to “extensive” reading that occurred as printed books began to proliferate. Until relatively recently, people read “intensively,” Darnton says. “They had only a few books — the Bible, an almanac, a devotional work or two — and they read them over and over again, usually aloud and in groups, so that a narrow range of traditional literature became deeply impressed on their consciousness. Today we read books “extensively,” often without sustained focus, and with rare exceptions we read each book only once. We value quantity of reading over quality of reading. We have no choice, if we want to keep up with the broader culture.


While I have a family room full of bookcases, I can't say that I've read the books in them more than one time through.  Reading about this alternative way of consuming books--only a few, over and over--makes me wonder if I'm missing out on being able to think deeply about one single tome.  I'll probably not change--too many good books out there I want to read.

April First

My friend Judy sent me this link and from the get-go, I was smirking, then right out loud laughing, especially when the guy was showing us how to send an email and he pretended to lick a stamp then pasted it onto his knee.  Happy April Fool's Day, I was thinking.


Or, is this real?  You decide.

Happy Anniversary

This is a story about someone I know from about 5 degrees of separation, but I have met her once.  It's their anniversary.  They sold their home in Washingon, DC about five weeks ago, and their new home (he just retired) won't be ready/won't close for two more weeks, so they are traveling around the East Coast, taking in the sights, staying with friends and family here and there.  She posted this photo today on Facebook with this description:

We went into Target yesterday to pick up some things. We went to the card aisle and both picked out amazing cards for each other - exchanged them - read them -kissed in the aisle - put the cards back and left the store.

I laughed because I totally get this. 
Happy 42nd anniversary!

Red and White Quilts

There's an amazing quilt show going on right now in New York City, but it ends on Wednesday.  It's a collection of 651 quilts, all collected by one woman, who does not consider herself a collector.  What an amazing collection gathering of these interesting and bold quilts, and the way they are all displayed is also amazing.  I included some links, as well as more photos over on my quilty blog.

We need these. . . Really?

 

Oooh! Tres Chic, you might say.  

But we need these shoes, because. . . why?

Because we can pierce flower blossoms on those heels, layering them up like a walking lei.

Because we can break ankles wearing them.

Because we all lay around on flowers.

Because other women will say Ooooh! Tres Chic!

Because the platforms will keep our feet 1 1/2" out of the water.

Because our toes can peek out while the rest of the foot stays warm.

Because we really don't have to walk anywhere.

Because if we did, our feet would hurt within 5 minutes.

Because we all are trying to prove we are tres chic.

Because the fashion industry says so.

Because we are all trying to cripple our feet so we can wear SAS-type shoes when we are fifty.

Because then we won't be so tres chic, only tres grandma-looking.

Like I am now.

Sometimes

Sometimes when the news is so bad, like today's sorrows from Japan, all I can do is be sad.

I came out of a building in downtown Lima when I was 12 years old, the ground shaking.  My friend gripped my arm, her face white, and we watched as all around us the buildings swayed, the glass cracking and tumbling down.  "Let go, let go," I pled.  "I've got to run."  But she held on and in our terror we lasted out the nearly minute-long 8.1 earthquake.  While there weren't many lives lost to the quake, it triggered huge mudslides in the mountains that wiped out an entire town.  After that experience-- my first earthquake ever--whenever we'd feel an aftershock, no matter where we were in our house in Miraflores, we'd tear downstairs, fling open the door and stand--all of us--in the doorway, waiting out the temblors.

I live in California, and occasionally I'll feel an earthquake--a shake, a crackling of the wood beams in the walls of my house, a sudden unsettling of the floor.  I go very still and I wait, poised to run down my stairs and stand in the open doorway.  My house is a frame house and we are perched on granite, so my rational mind knows I'm in good shape.  But when you feel the vibrations, no matter where you are, you go very still while your mind races on and on.  When I moved to Wisconsin, people kind of thought I was funny to have lived in California with all its earthquakes, but after a particularly bad tornado season--and after spending a lot of time in my basement--I wondered which disaster is worse: the one you anticipate or the one that travels through the earth unbidden and unannounced.

A disaster is a disaster, no matter what form it takes.  I watched the news all day long; my thoughts and prayers and hopes and courage go to those suffering at this time from the earthquake and tsunami devastation, far far away.

Favorite Movies in Riverside

While browsing through my Netflix, looking for a suitable movie to stream down while doing my quilt applique, I found this illustration of Riverside's Favorite Movies. I was kind of surprised.  Not that I expected a stream of Jane Austen flicks, or some weighty and thoughtful human interest movies like Mostly Martha, but . . . well. . . welcome to my (depressing) world.

I knew we'd have some element of white power, given the letters to the editor in our local newspaper about all those socialists in Washington and Don't You Dare Cut My Social Security.  Boyz in the Hood points out the reason why perhaps my students have so many spelling problems.  But, wow.  We have multiple universities here, and are less than 60 minutes (on a good traffic day) from a major metropolis with world class art museums.

Obviously none of the finer points of living here has translated to our Netflix viewing habits.

Power Towers

 

  As Dave and I have recently made several trips through the desert, I thought I would post one about the power towers.  Those elegant structures stringing across the desert follow us as we travel from Kingman to home, or home up to Utah, stopping around Vegas.

So we turned off at the Calico Early Man Site, but took a right onto a dirt road, hunting down the towers.

We stopped, and got out, cameras in hand.

I stood underneath a trio of lines, listening to them crackle and hum.  It was eery, but very cool.  I'm sure I increased my risk for cancer about a billion-fold (kidding) or else I zapped some brain cells into oblivion (kidding again).

These things are pretty massive.

I joined Dave underneath the structure of the one closest to our car.

I'm thinking there has to be a quilt in here somewhere.  Or a quilt block.  I remember the sketch of some power lines that resides on my parents bookcase, done by Jeff Rugh. Lots of associations were scrambling around my brain, as I stood out there in the wind.

Why is it that there never seems to be enough time to stop and linger a while, whether it is looking at power lines, or watching a hawk circle over the desert?  We always seem to be in a rush, having to meet some deadline.  I guess that's what retirement is for.  We're a few years off from that, but I definitely want to go and see that Early Man site, if only to cross it off the list.  And visit these power lines one more time.

Self-portrait in the desert.  Time to go home.

School Daze--March 2011 Version

Correcting quizzes today.  This young man is fairly bright (all my students are fairly bright, even when they're not), but obviously had his mind on other things during the quiz about the  reading--which he obviously did not do.  I suppose that's why the Martian Man is in the border.

Another student, Mr. Know-It-All, came in today 70 minutes late (Our class period goes for 110 minutes--this is the third time he's been this late.  Should I ask him if he knows what time our class starts?).  He asked to talk to me about his paper--rough drafts on the second essay are due today.  His story went something like this: "Well, I went to Las Vegas this weekend and I took my grandmother's computer, which I'm not used to and I always compose without paragraphs or using double-spacing so I was writing and writing and I finished my paper, but when I put in the paragraphs and the double-spacing, it was eight pages!!"  He beamed, and looked at me like he was the first human to lay an egg, then continued: "Is there a page limit on our essay?"

Me:
Him: "Great, because I know you said my first topic of Violence in America was too broad, so I changed it to Violence in the Middle East."
Me:
Him: "I would give it to you now, but I don't have it printed off."

Right. I figure every student gets a chance.  He's used about 15 of his.

Like, Vagueness

In City, a publication I found by perusing Arts & Letters (see note at end), Clark Whelton pens an essay about Vagueness--about the inability of people to express themselves.  He's obviously older (or at least as old as I am) so is able to get a broader view on the shifting of speech, of communication skills.  He writes:

In 1988, my elder daughter graduated from Vassar. During a commencement reception, I asked one of her professors if he’d noticed any change in Vassar students’ language skills. “The biggest difference,” he replied, “is that by the time today’s students arrive on campus, they’ve been juvenilized. You can hear it in the way they talk. There seems to be a reduced capacity for abstract thought.”

 My mantra in my English classes is "vivid, specific," and I use the photo above as a lead-in to this idea.  I put it up and ask, "Is the young girl laughing or crying?"  I use this photo as the dated details (her hair up on her head, the old car, boy in striped T-shirt) obscures their usual references and they have to base their conjectures on other clues.  They give their answers and we discuss why it is so difficult to figure out what's really going on the picture.  The answer is obvious: the photo is blurry so we can't see the details.

I equate that to their writing.  Vivid. Specific.  I write these two words on the board, and read them examples of writing that eliminates what Whelton calls "Vagueness," writing that uses specific words and sensory images: "an annoying and noisy large seagull," instead of "a bird."

So is she laughing or crying? With the blurriness of vague imagery cleared up, it is obvious. 

I loved Whelton's article as I lecture on the use of like, instead of "as if."  I challenge them to excise "he was there for me" from all their writing.  I implore them to change out the flabby verbs for brisk and vigorous action words. 

Of course, the challenge is for me, their teacher, to continue the attack on my own feeble vocabulary, to be specific, instead of you know, like, whatever.

Happy Valentine's Day

First Essay

The first essay has come in for grading.  I'm currently in the COG--Cave of Grading--a place that has been well described by Dante.  That aside, this essay is one where the students describe when they hit a turning point, a place where they enter through a portal into adulthood, leaving childhood behind.  Some are quite mundane (getting a girlfriend, a driver's license) but others are dramatic.  Following my friend Judy's lead, here are some of my students' stories:

• Woke up one morning to Child Protective Services banging down his door; mother arrested for endangering a minor with her drug habit and teenager sent to live with the father.  (What this student never answers is who turned her in?  I have my money on the ex-husband, the father.)
• Decides her family is a pain, so moves in with a girlfriend during sophmore year of high school.  Downward slide of truancy and partying stopped only when met at school by Mom, sheriff and principal.  After two years, moves back home.
• Student's father dies on Valentine's Day of her eighth-grade year.
• Busted by cops at a local teen hangout while enjoying a beer, student and his friend are roughed up pretty severely by police.
• Student got herself into substantial debt while in high school; is working fifty hours a week at two jobs to pay down what she owes, while attending college full-time.
• Student's mother divorces and student remains with mother through bad stepfather and two difficult living situations.  Student goes home to see his father for holidays; mother hangs herself on Christmas Eve.
• A near-disaster on a construction site--when his father is nearly buried when the ground gives way-- wakes up a student to the harsh realities of the adult world.
• After being beaten for nearly her entire life, a young woman runs away from home.  Her grandparents take her in, and help her become emancipated.

That last one had me in tears, because while I can be pretty inured to the writing of my students, she wrote with delicacy and great emotion.  I admire all these students who have struggled through difficult things and now sit in my classroom with all kinds of hopes and dreams for their future. 

Egyptian Drama

I think the fact that we can watch this is a miracle on so many levels.

Riveting. I'm happy for them.  I hope it turns out happy in the end, too.

Phil Levine

This week is Writers Week at UCR, and I've been able to go to a couple of the readings.  Tonight's talk will be given by Phil Levine, a poet who spent many years in Cal State Fresno, but now divides his time between New York and Fresno.

I've taught several of his poems in my classes, and I like them because they draw a picture with words and sensory details that are accessible to my students, but still require a little bit of digging, of re-reading.  Here's one for today.

On The River 
by Phil Levine

My brother has an old row boat
moored to a dock at the foot
of Jefferson Avenue, Detroit.
Once a week in decent weather
he rows out to get a better
look at the opposite shore
as though Canada truly were
a foreign country.  It isn't easy
what with the ore boats' lazy
crawl toward salt water, the launches
of tourists and cops, the lunchers
spread out on barges, docks, rafts,
waiting for the oiled clouds to lift
a moment and unveil the sun,
waiting for the fumes of exhaustion 
to blow off in the poor gusts
of our making—collective breaths,
passing trucks, running dogs loath
to return to their chains.
On schedule he comes at noon
or not at all—his only free time—
so he can see with a painter's eye
the hulking shapes of warehouses define
themselves, the sad rusts and grays
take hold and shimmer a moment
in the blur of air until the stones
darken like wounds and become nothing.
He does this for our father
who parked each week exactly here
to stare at that distant shore
as though it were home, and then
passed quietly to a farther one.
He does this for me, who long ago
stopped seeing beneath the shadows
of concrete and burned brick towers
the flickering hints of life, the colors
we made of fresh earth and flowers
coming through the wet smells of house
fallen in upon themselves.  I suppose
he does this also so that somewhere
on the face of the black waters
he can turn, feathering one oar
slowly, to behold his own life
come into view brick by dark brick,
bending his back for all it's worth,
as the whole thing goes up in smoke.

Cynthia's Visit

Recently my sister Cynthia came out to visit me.  I come from a family of seven children--she is Number Two and I am Number Four in the line-up.  So what to do when a frost-bitten sister from the midwest shows up in sunny California?  Take her to the Getty on a nice sunny day.

I always think the Getty's gardens are the most captivating part, right after the illuminated manuscripts. So we headed outside.

 

We also took in some of the other exhibits, but that sun!  Those gardens!  Kept pulling us outside.  

We got some lunch and ate it on the patio.

Because it was just past the noon hour, the succulents looked especially rich.  Seeing all their plantings makes me want to go home and rip out my front yard and start again.  I just need their budget.

 Another type of flora.  

I liked the headband of the girl on the left--it's in the shape of some mini-bunny ears.  Sort of.

This would make a great quilt--sunny yellow, vibrant green, rich blue in the sky.

Lots of people were out on the lawns, enjoying picnics.  It was such a glorious day.

 The plaza--where you enter, and exit.

What else did we do when she was here?

Cooked.
 (Click on the link for the how-to's for Beggar's Linguini.)

Made a quilt.
(Click on the link for the two-post story of her quilt.)

Enjoyed each other's company.

Come again!