The Beatles and Dreaming (BAL Blog Post #7)

What do you know about old music?  Before the time when you were born.  Tell me what you know about music from the 60's, what you know about jazz, what you know about early 90's hip-hop.  This weekend, I am going all the way back to music that blew life into me when I was just a kid - that still means something to me today.  I go through phases with music.  These days, I have kids, so it's less Mobb Deep and more Bob Marley, less Outkast and more Beatles.  I challenge you to listen to something that is not on the radio, find out who Kanye sampled and go listen to the original Motown song.  

March is ending and with it comes the promise of spring, though the irony of snow on the first supposed day of blooming isn't lost on me.   It's been a heavy year, and a long winter.  I find myself lost between the covers sometimes, dreaming of things that I can't change.  Or can I?  I am always incredibly self-critical, so I was sending doubts into the universe, and received this response today:

The first thing I wanted to tell Joshua was that his place in society as a man of color is at the top - and anyone who tells him differently isn't worth his time.  I cried, because it is the small moments like this that make life worth it.  I will never be paid what I'm worth, but I chose this profession because I was hoping to have an impact on just one person.  Affirmation that I have done this is beautiful.  But, I am far from done growing, and I have much work to do to become a better educator.  Joshua himself is an amazing thinker and I didn't make him that way, he was born with ideas.  I do not see my role as an educator to give you thoughts - it's to extract your thinking from your brain.  I'm curious, at this point in the year, what's one lasting impression that you will take from this class? 

We're beginning a new book this week (really, next week because of the overnight trip and disrupted schedule this week) and it's one I've taught before and love so much.  It is a play by Lorraine Hansberry titled "A Raisin in the Sun", and the first thing that we will talk about is a poem (you'll see it below).  What do you think about the poem?  How does it connect to what we've already learned and studied?  What do you think this play might be about, which is titled after a line in this poem? It's about to be April, aka National Poetry Month... so even though we're reading a play, we will be poeming all throughout this month.  Get ready for good reads and words galore - and please don't forget to post any poems you write on the IPG Site! http://ipg.icsmich.org

Harlem                                                               

BY LANGSTON HUGHES                                       

What happens to a dream deferred?                             

      Does it dry up                                                                    

      like a raisin in the sun?                                                      

      Or fester like a sore—                                                     

      And then run?                                                                    

      Does it stink like rotten meat?                                    

      Or crust and sugar over—                                                          

      like a syrupy sweet?                                                        

      Maybe it just sags                                                              

      like a heavy load.                                                           

      Or does it explode?                                                          

redefining Envy and rethinking speeches (BAL Blog Post #6)

I'm in my feelings today, as it snows again and I'm wishing that I could magically transport myself to a cemetery in the north Bronx, where he is buried.   I've been looking back through photos and writing from 2012, which was an epic year for me - I got married, had a child, moved back to Detroit with my new family and lost both a student and my uncle within a few months.   On Friday, I brought copies of the zine you'll read in class on Monday to his aunt and reconnected with many of my former students over the weekend - our school family is alive, even if the Banana Kelly that we know and love no longer exists.

I still fully believe, as I say in the introduction, that you can keep people's memories alive by telling them.  Storytelling is extremely important to our lives, and to our histories: we each have our story and we need to tell it.  So when people's lives get cut short, I feel a responsibility to tell their story in addition to my own.  Their story becomes a part of mine.  Envy, your story will keep being told.
Have you ever lost or been separated from someone?  How did you cope with the task of missing them?

Also, we're beginning our campaign and election process this week and I'm incredibly excited about the writing and action that will come out of this.  I want you to survey one another and figure out some suggestions for improving our class - there is much room for improvement.  How can we do the notebook grading procedure better?  How should progress reports function?  How can we be updating Engrade weekly so that you have much more consistent access to your grades?   Figure out some key issues that you want to tackle as you run (or help your candidate run), and we'll brainstorm about how to solve some of the issues in this class, so that we can improve its function for you.

So, a speech is one way to show your fellow classmates who you are and why you're running for this position, but the best speeches are NOT just informational, but also lyrical.  You remember the poetry of speeches more than the information, so as you're writing, make sure the facts are there (who you are, what position you're running for, why you'd be good at this role, issues that are important to you), but your constituents will remember HOW you read the speech and how you can CONNECT with them.  I invite you to re-think your speech and really work on your informational AND persuasive techniques simultaneously.  We'll look at a few models of speeches that have been informational in nature, but creative in approach.  What do you think makes a good speech? 

Let's have a great week, and may the best folks win (but may we all write like the wind)!

xo,
Ms Lauren

(here's the link to the powerful speeches for Wednesday's homework: http://www.englishtrackers.com/english-blog/10-famous-speeches-in-english-and-what-you-can-learn-from-them/)

on returning (BAL Blog Post #5)

i am not ready to return, but life happens, even when you're not prepared.  as i spend precious hours with both kids asleep planning (instead of sleeping), i know that everything is going to be okay.  i have memorized the curve of her cheeks, her smile will be illuminated throughout my day, his curls and his curiosity will follow me back to work.  they will be well-loved and taken care of, and i will go back to my routine of splitting my time between my separate selves: NY/NJ, work/home, personal/professional, teacher/mother, listener/writer, feminist/wife.  i live my life in transit between two halves, and i have made a career out of tight-rope walking between identities.

we are reading a really difficult piece this week - and i want to start by telling you that, because it will be rough at first.  there will be words you don't understand, dictionaries to consult, annotations may be mostly questions, there will be things we have to stop and discuss.  however, i think it's worth it to read this piece, because it sets a historical framework to what we're experiencing today - from stop and frisk, to the racial tension with police in NYC, in Ferguson, in Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore, from school-to-prison pipeline to stereotypes about race and culture.

i am stepping back a bit in history because i am also searching for answers.  as i comb the news and see race-related stories of violence and prejudice almost everyday, as i see the inequality that still exists in our society, i often wonder if slavery is really over.  has it ever been over?  do we know what a world could look like without people trying to gain power over one another?  i often think about laws as necessary to keep peace and order, but as i re-read this essay, i've been wondering, what if the laws are the problem, and not a solution to the problem?  it seems like the laws keep changing, but the inequality that exists in our society remains the same.  does changing the law ever change how people think or act?  or do we change how we act by our own choices?  or something in between?   again, i have more questions than i do answers.

here are the questions we will think about as we read (PRE-READ the questions, remember PUKE?) this excerpt from Michelle Alexander's book, The New Jim Crow.

1. Can legislature (or laws) change how people act?  Why or why not?
2. What were the purpose of Jim Crow laws?  How were they different from slavery?
3. What were "black codes"?  How were they used after slavery was over?
4. What are two examples of positive achievements of the Reconstruction Era?
5.  Is this essay an example of informational writing?  Why or why not?

i'm curious to know how your thinking has changed in these few months since we've been examining literature and current events in America.  your response below can address question #1, or you can also respond with your prior knowledge or inference about what Jim Crow laws are, or you can choose another topic for your response.  we will also be looking at adopting a government structure in our 2nd semester classroom, so you can also tell me what you think about that!  how do you think the government should function in our classroom?

i may not be ready, but here i am!  are you ready for what's next in ELA?

xo
Ms. Lauren

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