february forever (Blog Post #4)

hi everyone.

happy bday j-dilla.

your music continues to grow and shape new realities, as we celebrate your life and work. (and check out the symbolism and imagery of the pharcyde's "runnin'" prod by Dilla)

february is a month that is built for poetry in some ways, and information in others.  it's my husband's birthday, jdilla (my favorite producer)'s bday, there is much to celebrate, especially this year!  but i have traditionally always been depressed in february - i used to say that february was my nemesis because i suffer from seasonal affected disorder.  i think that all of humankind has this diagnosis and that we are healthier when we are in temperate climates and eat fresh foods.  i have lost a few close friends in february, so it is a time of extreme joy and reopening wounds.

yet i love the winter, even when the wind bites my face in half and pushes my numbness around like salt on the sidewalk.   it pulls poetry out of me, because there is a harshness to winter that electrifies my keyboard.  i feel inspired, which is why it's a month for poems.  i have a love hate relationship with the news, because i crave the knowledge of "what's happening" in the world, but will read an article and only double the number of questions on my tongue.  i read and then i think about it - who wrote that?  what were they trying to say?  do i really understand the message?  what are their goals and motivations?  did they get paid to write that?  by whom?

we all assess the quality of our information all the time - without realizing.  as we move in our new unit, from the fiction of ghosts in 124 to the real streets of the bronx, detroit, chicago and oakland, ferguson and brooklyn, gaza and los angeles... we are going to be looking at information.  the power it holds, who holds the power, whose information looks differently and why.  we will review some of the most pertinent news that has happened in my absence, so let's start there.  What's one news story that really impacted you in December and January?  Maybe something you wanted to talk about it class, or did discuss with Ms. R, Ms. Cotton or Ms. Overton?  (boko haram killings in Nigeria, charlie hebdo in Paris, anti-police protests and police shunning the mayor in NYC, State of the Union address, free community college, ISIS and Jordan, what else?)

so, when we read something - we're used to annotating, then talking about it, then writing about it. one thing that we're going to be adding in this unit is the idea of questioning what we read.  we read in order to understand - the 5Ws, the "gist" of the story, the theme, conflict, character -- but we also read in order to ask questions. "is it true or untrue?  do we agree with this?" is the beginning, but then we also interpret what we read, and decide what WE think about the information we have received. this is why i like informational writing - because there is no NEUTRAL, but its purpose is to put the facts out there, and let people form their responses.    one goal i have for this unit is going to be to evaluate the source of our information, to determine if it is reliable (can we trust it?  how do we know?)  what's one of your goals for this unit, as we read, question and study informational writing?

hopefully, what you'll find is that we'll end up asking a lot more questions than we answer, and that's okay.  the poetry website is open, if you feel inspired (and are looking to start the semester off strong):  international poetry guild  (you can write an anti-love poem, or a love poem to a strange audience)  we'll also be reading and listening to all new information, and figuring out what we think about all of it.  will we fall in love with the truths that february brings?

i look forward to seeing you soon.  i miss you guys!

xo
ms. lauren

Dr. King and Sethe's Best Thing (Blog Post #3)

Today, on the observation of Dr. King's birthday, I am thinking about the whitewashing of this holiday -- how Dr. King was assassinated on April 4th, 1968, in all probability because his political work, while retaining its peaceful and love-infused message, began to question the motives and goals of the United States' government.  In this speech that Dr. King made in 1967 in New York, he aligns poor people of all races in the United States with the citizens of Vietnam and poor people globally, in a furious protest of the Vietnam war.   He states his disgust with the U.S. government, for siding with colonizers and oppressors in international policy, as he questions their care for black peoples' lives, and poor peoples' lives in our country, .  Many of the points he makes are (unfortunately) still valid today, as well as relevant to Beloved.

As I'm thinking about the connections Dr. King's words make to the book, I return to Toni Morrison's thoughts about race -- that it is an idea that we have created, because it allowed the people in power to justify WHY they were in power, and that this idea we've created is now so deeply rooted into our society that we are having trouble moving on.  In a similar way, Sethe could not move on from her past at Sweet Home.  Near the end of the book, despite all that had happened and the many years that had passed since Beloved's murder, when she saw Ella's boss coming toward the house to potentially speak with Denver about work, Sethe's instincts and her history drove her back to Sweet Home and the schoolteacher, and she tried to hurt him.  As someone who had experienced a milder side of slavery, but then also the brutality that came with blackness in 1864, could Sethe ever heal from these wounds?  Can we, collectively, as a country, heal from the past that we are still struggling to reconcile, and whose ghosts are still haunting us, today?

Last week, rapper Kendrick Lamar was ridiculed by many in the hip-hop community for his statement about the Mike Brown case, the Eric Garner case, and the #blacklivesmatter movement, saying that black people are not going to be respected until "we learn to respect ourselves".  Near the end of the Beloved, when Paul D returns, Sethe is mourning the loss of Beloved, saying that "she was my best thing", to which Paul D responds that Sethe is her own best thing.  I see the ending of the book on this moment as Morrison's way of trying to inspire the self-love and self-respect that many former slaves were missing; not only did white people not see them as human, but many former slaves did not see or think of themselves as fully human, either.

What I'm asking you guys to do for this, your final blog entry of 1st semester, is to take the following quote from Dr. King's essay, and write a practice introduction and 1 body paragraph, connecting the quote to Beloved.  This is a practice for your final exam on Thursday (7th period) or Friday (3rd period), which is completing a practice ELA Regents exam.

Critical Lens Quote: 
"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late." -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Remember, in your response, be sure to:
- Interpret the quote, and explain what it means to you
- Agree or disagree, explaining why
- List which texts you will connect to the quotation (in this case, Beloved)
- Write a body paragraph in which you select specific evidence from Beloved to support your interpretation of the quote, and discuss HOW the evidence connects to the quotation.

Sending love, peace and the urgency of now.
-Ms. Lauren

Heart of the Story (Blog Post #2)

Hey guys,
I'm breaking the cardinal rule of motherhood, which is to sleep when the baby sleeps, because it's Friday morning and I'm asking you to blog by today, but I hadn't updated yet.  Sorry about that!  As you may or may not know, I did finally have the baby this past week, so I've been a little busy with her!  We are both home and happy, healthy as can be, thank you so much for your emails and comments wishing us well.  As a reminder, you can always email me if you have a question about something in the book or a question about class, grades, etc.  Also, I noticed that very few people commented on the blog last week - please be sure to stay focused during in-class time, as it is a chunk of your grade, and the semester is almost over!

Onto Beloved!  We finally learn, at the end of Part 1, that Sethe is responsible for killing her daughter, and attempting to kill all of her children; this came as a huge shock to me when I first read this book!  Sethe seems to be such a loving mother, who has her share of a very troubled past, but I never would have guessed that she had killed her own child.  Suddenly, lots of Morrison's foreshadowing started to return to my mind when I read this part... I started thinking about references to Beloved's scar, to the ghost baby being in the house at the beginning, to why people might not talk to Sethe and Denver in town, to why Denver stopped going to school, to Beloved disappearing in the shed while Denver was getting cider.  The shame of knowing that your mother was a murderer may have been too much to take!  Why do you think that Sethe acted so violently against her children?  What does schoolteacher's arrival at 124 have to do with Sethe's actions?  I'd love to see a conversation form about this in the comments, and hopefully in class!

Also, Stamp Paid goes out of his way to make sure that Paul D knows about Sethe's history, but Paul D doesn't believe him, insisting that the woman in the newspaper clipping wasn't Sethe.  He seems to be in denial at first, perhaps because he too can't believe that Sethe would commit such a horrible act. When he and Sethe finally talk about it and she tells him her reasoning, he makes the decision to leave her.  This was a decision that made me upset -- everyone else had left Sethe, and it seemed like she and Paul D were headed toward a happy ending, but the past can sometimes greatly impact the present, and perhaps her keeping this a secret from him was enough to send him away.  Why do you think that Paul D left Sethe after learning the truth?  Do you think it was the right decision for him to make?  Why or why not? (Use evidence from your reading to support your claim).

There's so much more to talk about and I'm sure you are having great discussions in class about the film and the book!  I'd love to hear more about your discussions in your blog response!  As I'm starting to think about Regents, I'm also starting to think about you guys using literary elements in your writing about novels.  I was thinking about conflict and plot structure, and particularly if the conflict of Sethe's murder of her child is also the climax, or turning point, in the book.  As a reader, it was a pivotal moment for me, when something major changed and I had to re-think the entire book. My last question to you is this: do you think that the scene of the baby's murder is the climax of the book?   If so, why?  If not, what do you think is the climax, or action-packed moment of truth?

Thank you guys so much for reading and responding!  I miss you all, but it's cool to see your responses here and I will be in better touch as my family starts to develop our little routine. :)  Oh, and I suppose you may want to see a photo of my daughter?  Here you go.  Now, write back to my questions and thoughtfully discuss the book!!

xo
Ms. Lauren

Denver and Waiting (Blog Post #1)

Hello my amazing students,

Hope your holiday break has gone well!!  I know that some of you expressed fear that you would forget to post to the blog over break, so you're in luck - I am giving you some time on Monday to blog in class (Ms. R and Ms. O will guide you through this), so that you can respond to me about your holiday reading of Beloved and make some connections to real-life events that have happened over the break.  I will be asking some questions as I think about my own reading through page 174 of the book, and I will write the questions below IN BOLD, so that you can have some prompts to think about - you do not have to respond to every question - but I am asking that your response be about 2 paragraphs, so please use evidence and details from your reading to support your ideas!  You can also respond to others' comments in your comment, too!

This week I am identifying myself with the character of Denver in Beloved, who I feel has spent so much of her life waiting for her father to return (and what's up with Halle?  Do we think that he has passed away?  Did he desert his family?  I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this character that we've heard about but haven't met)... my wait is for my child to make his or her appearance, and it hasn't happened yet, but I will post a photo next week, for sure! :)  Re-reading Denver's birth story made me feel very fortunate to be in the situation I'm in, though, as I have access to health care and modern facilities in which to birth my child.  In comparison, Sethe delivered Denver in a row boat and only had the assistance of Amy, they were alone in the woods on the Ohio River, and she had just escaped the brutality of a horrible slave owner, and nearly died in childbirth. I am very privileged.

Denver is a very interesting character to me -- the passion with which she has taken to care for Beloved shows evidence of her immense loneliness, but her feelings about Beloved don't waiver; even though she realizes that her sister really returned from the dead for her mother, she also cannot bear to think of a life without her sister.  I wonder, will Denver ever find a way out of the loneliness that seems to consume her?  When I read about her birth story, I was thinking about how Denver was born for a reason, against all odds, that she really is a survivor.  I wonder what Denver's purpose in life is, and how she will continue to grow as a character. Which character in the novel do you feel the most connection toward, either for the way that they have dealt with a situation you read about, or because of their approach to life?

* * *Spoiler Alert* * *

I also wonder about Paul D's feelings about Beloved -- he has very strong feelings of hatred for her in the beginning, but we learned in our reading over break that she has cast a spell on him, and literally moved him out of Sethe's bed and to sleeping in the shed.   I was shocked to learn that Paul D begins sleeping with Beloved... but it seems to me that she will do whatever she can to break him and Sethe up, so that Sethe's focus can return to her all of the time.  Beloved seems to be growing in power as a progresses as a character -- first she nearly strangles Sethe in the field from far away, and then she is able to physically move Paul D around the house, slowly moving him away from Sethe.  Why is Beloved so obsessed with Sethe?  What do you think she wants from Sethe?  And why is Denver keeping Beloved's secrets from Sethe (about her scar, about her true identity, about her relationship with Paul D)?

There is so much that we learned by the end of Part 1, and I am not going to spoil the major climax moment this week - we'll talk more about it in next week's blog response.  If you'd like, in your comment, you can answer the questions above OR you can write 1 paragraph AND make a list of the 10 most important events you've read in the book so far. 

Until next week, my lovelies,
Ms. Lauren

Welcome, my students!

This blog is going to gain an audience for a few months, as I attempt to bridge the gap between work and home with my words.  I will be out on a leave and need to communicate with you, so I am using this as a space for communication.  You can leave comments anonymously, or email replies to videos, articles and other posts, and you will continue to utilize the International Poetry Guild website, where I will comment and respond to your writing, too! To me, teaching is reciprocal -- it is a give and take.  This is why I always try to write the assignment you're working on, and also ask you to workshop my pieces!

Anyhoo, this is a blog, which, as we've already covered, is not a reliable source of information, because it is open source -- and is not fact-checked before published.  This is a public journal and I can say whatever I want, whether it is true or not.  But blogs are useful and important in so many ways, they are how I've figured out my stances on many issues affecting people living in this country, and abroad.  I've bemoaned loss and found love, celebrated life and honored death in this space online, and have done so since 1998, when I first went away to college.  I am looking forward to being able to read all of my old writing someday, and to passing it on for as long as the internet (and humanity) are still around.  This particular blog is my published thoughts on teaching, and it started in 2007, when I was in grad school and learning how to teach, so scroll back if you feel so inclined.

Your job is to read these posts, starting December 22nd, and to write a weekly 2 paragraph response to the lessons/songs/ideas/wonderings that are presented here.  Due to the focus of our unit, I will be posting about the media, corporate vs. public media, and what it means to make your own media here.  There are lots of other blogs that you can visit, on about any topic that you can think of, so this is just the jump off.  Do not feel like you must limit yourself to reading what I write; if I post about a topic, go and look for other blogs or news stories that deal with it to figure out how YOU feel, before you respond. I expect you to disagree with me and I welcome every conversation that we will have here.

Yours in writing,
Ms. Lauren

Leaving a Trail of Blue

               A home is only a home if I paint the walls blue.  This is about you, Walton Avenue, who I have come to love like Warren Road, like Center Drive.  Streets overflowing with what people have let go of, my block a mismatch of aluminum siding and brownstones; this avenue sounds like clamoring to cabs from bars, on the way home from Yankee stadium.  The echoed melodramas of bar-goers were the music to my midnights, talking only as New Yorkers do, their escapades on display for all of the Concourse to see.  I turned my pillow over and tried to get back to sleep.

I used to crave a home where I felt rested and relaxed, but is still where the pulse pushes blood through the arteries of the city.  This was the first home I’d had since a blue room in Brooklyn, on Manhattan Avenue, where four of the best years of my twenties were spent.   My first order of business here  was to paint the walls blue – blue is a forgetting, smells like starting over, and is the most passionate and pertinent color of my life.

This time, one wall around the window seat was adorned with hues of sea, and I meditated on this finally being a home, having just left the crimson fire of anger and the uncertainty of a friend’s couch.  Here I was starting from scratch, and truly putting into practice the idea of prioritizing me.  Sometimes we who teach are also caretakers of many other souls when we clock out of work.  Sometimes we take the world on our shoulders on Tuesday mornings, and have to give it back in the evening.

I signed the lease as a single woman, happy to be alive, reinforcing my faith in the universe.  I meditated on this for months, and when I met him I was a brick wall in the pouring rain – intent on standing tall and alone, even if it means I got soaked.  He asked me to come in from the rain, but I was dancing.  He asked me to dance with him, but I could only hear my own songs.  He was persistent in his asking, telling his friends with subtle swag that he could win me over.   I was reluctant in the rain, but he walked me home when it poured outside, so I relented to a dance.

We will always be a whirlwind of emotions, so we danced like fire through the next year, and were soon posting photos of tanzanite rings (because he knows I will not wear blood diamonds).  Glen Washington was the soundtrack to him dancing through our apartment, cooking chieh bou yapp, and we got married in a language that I do not speak.  Our life opened up like wildfire on dry grass, soon it was autumn and I was packing our lives into cardboard boxes to bring our love to a new state.

We had also managed to create an epic soul along the way back to Michigan.  Mulay Nasir is a hurricane all his own, with untameable curls and dimples for days, he caused me to step back and look around me like everywhere was home, as long as it contains his laugh.  Every window mine to look out of onto the world, every door welcoming me back, every streetlight shining my walk down Highland.  

We have moved, again.  He complains as he carries a heavy parcel of books, in his thick accent that I have “too much stuff”.  I remind him quietly that I am a teacher, it is a hazard of the job that I fill my life with books and paper.  I am still unpacking my office, which reminds me of the selves I used to keep as my favorite masks, and I still have to paint the walls blue.   My new space is a trek through the universe to a new galaxy, but with my boys, everywhere is home. 

13 years a Tuesday.

this is not the first time I’ve gotten up in Jersey and commuted to my job in the city.  it is not the first time I’ve been to the World Trade Center since 9/11, though I avoided going downtown for years.  this is the first time that I have commuted via the PATH train through the rebuilt tunnels under the collapse.  i will never forget the smell.  it didn’t stop filling my nostrils every time I stepped outside until after Thanksgiving. The fires burned for months, our lesson still simmering beneath our feet.

it is not that first anniversary that I have been a mother: last year I was knitting my hushed meditations in Michigan.  But it is the first time I have carried my child toward the past and asked him to look.

It is important that we see the world. Ms. Sampson’s quote the other day spoke of the decision to separate ourselves and I have been thinking about how we divide and categorize ourselves, how we make arbitrary separations by the color of skin, by the god we pray to, the languages we learn to express ourselves inside of.

all of us seek to be happy, to be free, to choose our lives, be captains of our own vessels, and our pursuits will produce change, will produce distance between you and others.  It is our job to warm the distance, to keep reaching out despite the desire to distract us.

13 years later and I want to cry with how little the world has changed.  our sights have been set on a new enemy, but the war is the same.  our president has a different face now, one that I voted for and believed could possibly change the direction of this country, but his message of domination, of destruction across the world, of “not tolerating terrorists” remains the same.

america, we have not learned our lesson.  I will keep teaching, I will keep speaking, I will keep writing tirelessly, with no audience, because I need to believe that my voice means something.  I need to rock myself and my son to sleep at night with the hope of a better world, a vision for peace that is not passive, but that we can be active participants in a world we shape with our hands.

9/11 means immense sadness, followed by a community of new yorkers that I had never experienced before, and will never experience again.  It means constant engagement with others in the fight to teach on and teach ourselves into a place of understanding.  It means reading and research and understanding america’s role in the middle east as complex, as oppressive, as dominion. It means loss of life, from the folks on the 102^nd floor of Tower 1, to the US soldiers deployed to defend our “freedom”, to the Iraqi refugees and Afghani civilians who were killed in our blind pursuit of justice by elimination a shape-shifting enemy.

but it also means recognizing the humanness of each person I meet, speak to, see on the train, pass on the street, see in the news, or never hear about, but has the same goals of respect, of being sustained by life, of living to see 25, of freedom, of passion, of love and direction in an aimless world. It means teaching toward a vision of humanity where empathy is crucial to our daily lesson plan.  as many things in my life unravel themselves, I am finding myself in both/and situations instead of either/or, and i am welcoming the shift.