Perhaps the World Ends Here (a poem)

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our PCTELA News friends.

We’ll be taking the next few days off to celebrate with family and friends.  We are thankful to have all of you out there teaching and being taught.  We are thankful to have such a great group of professionals sharing ideas and thoughts and laughter.  We are thankful for you.

Here’s a poem by Joy Harjo to enjoy as you prepare your food, share with family, and sit at the kitchen table over the next few days.

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Perhaps the World Ends Here

Joy Harjo

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.

The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.

We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.

It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.

At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.

Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.

This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.

Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.

We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.

At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Image: Paul Cezzane’s Kitchen Table

Up Late with Revival by Stephen King

I’ve been reading Stephen King books since I was about 12–my brother had a collection of his paperbacks that I would borrow and read and re-read. I think Different Seasons may have been my first, but I have read about 90% of Stephen King’s 63 books,and I am now preternaturally afraid of clowns, Plymouth Furys, and St. Bernards.  When I discovered a new King book would be published (so soon after Mr. Mercedes) I was thrilled–and even more thrilled that it would be a return to old-fashioned horror-inducing scary-type King, rather than the hard-boiled detective approach of Mr. Mercedes and Joyland.  Not that I didn’t enjoy both of those, but King does spine-tingling scary better than anyone.

Revival pays homage to the foundations of horror.  It begins with a Thank You page that looks like this:

I had a feeling there would be allusions to Frankenstein based on the cover and the plot summary, and I was not disappointed.  The basic story line is this: Jamie Morton meets Charles Jacobs when Jamie is 6 years old and Jacobs is the new pastor with a wife and young child. They reconnect years later at a carnival (with a brief reference to Joyland) and then, for a third time in Maine.  I don’t want to offer any spoilers, but just know this is a classic King piece–where we read about human nature and human suffering.  Topics covered include religion, playing in a band, young love, lighting storms, nightmares, and death.  Pretty typical for King, but also pretty phenomenal. As I age, I find myself more and more enamored with his observations about life, death, and everything in between.

If you’re a King fan, this is a classic.  If you’ve never read him, this is a great book to start with.

Some favorite quotes:

• “People say that where there’s life, there’s hope, and I have no quarrel with that, but I also believe the reverse. There is hope, therefore I live.”
• “Home is where they want you to stay longer.”
• “The fundamental difference between the sexes is this: men make assumptions, but women rarely do.”
• “Frightened people live in their own special hell. You could say they make it themselves, but they can’t help it. It’s the way they’re built. They deserve sympathy and compassion.”
• “Everyone needs a hobby,” he said. “And everyone needs a miracle or two, just to prove life is more than just one long trudge from the cradle to the grave.”

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Today’s post is by Kate, VP of Secondary for PCTELA

Have a review you’d like to share? Send Kate an email kap17 @ scasd.org

Friday Five: PCTELA at NCTE

Today hordes of English teachers have gathered in Washington DC to attend the annual NCTE conference. This year’s theme is Story as the Landscape of Knowing.

Here are 5 tweets from PCTELA members at the conference today:
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5. 

Up Late with Elizabeth Crook’s Monday, Monday

Elizabeth Crook’s new novel Monday, Monday follows the life of University of Texas shooting victim Shelley Maddox, along with the lives of the men that saved her life that August day on the UT mall as they move on in life attempting to leave behind the tragedies that occurred. Crook’s premise of the book, which is nonetheless intriguing, answers the question of what happens to victims of school shootings once the shooting is over? Does the shooting shape and frame the rest of their lives, or are they able to over come it eventually? Crook effectively answers these questions through the point of view of her characters.

Crook wastes no time with getting the novel started. The reader is almost instantly thrown in to the tragedy of August 1, 1966 as Crook explicitly details one of the first mass shootings in U.S. history where Charles Whitman kills 16 students and civilians and wounds many others. The protagonist Shelley Maddox pulls the reader into the chaos with her, along with two cousins who save her, Wyatt Calvert and Jack Stone, as she is one of the many wounded. The first four chapters of the book surely leave the reader speechless, as they are so realistic it is almost like the reader was there, living through the horror with the UT victims.

The plot focuses on what happens after the shooting, as Shelley and Wyatt are drawn to each other, and end up in a deep, deep love affair that not only changes their lives, but the lives of everyone directly related to them and eventually the lives of people who are brought in to the world years after the shooting.

Monday, Monday is collaboratively narrated, which allows the reader to read from the point of view of all the main characters, all of whom face their own tragedies at some point. Through this collaboration the reader is sworn to secrecy from other characters, and carries information with them that is kept hidden from some of the characters up until the remaining few chapters of the novel. With many secrets kept, Crook gets the readers to wonder whether revealing them or keeping them would be more beneficial. The readers question is answered eventually in a surprising, and brilliant, plot twist that is sure to catch the reader off guard. The reader learns, along with the characters, whether the saying “the truth will set you free” is accurate or not.

Memory is an important theme throughout the novel. Crook does an excellent job at showing how memory works, especially in the lives of victims as they are shaped around important events, and everything else in-between is just time. One could argue that Crook speeds time up too quickly and trivializes a tragic event by turning it into a soap opera. However, Crook has a firm grasp on understanding victims and how their lives are no longer the same as they once were before.

Although Wyatt views Shelley as being nothing short of perfect, Shelley has a hard time accepting who she becomes after the shooting. Just like Shelley, this novel is not quite perfect, but through the losses of the characters, it is just right as it engages the reader through a terrifying event in history, and its aftermath. Monday, Monday is just one of many intense, but enjoyable novels that are based around a real-life crisis that happens more often than we realize. If searching for a heavy novel to read, Monday, Monday is certainly the novel to add to your “To Read” list as it contains deep and realistic content that is sure to satisfy a hungry reader looking for a new book.

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Today’s post comes from Shana Snyder, a senior at The Pennsylvania State University majoring in Secondary Education English, who will be graduating in May 2015 with a Bachelors degree in Secondary Education English. She is striving to become a tenth grade English teacher. She loves reading and hopes her review will inspire others to pick up a new book to read.

Have a book review you want to share? Email Kate (kap17@scasd.org) with your idea or draft!

Up Late with Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

I picked up this book because I’ll be at the NCTE Secondary Luncheon on Saturday morning, and I hadn’t read any books by Cory Doctorow yet. So, I popped down to my trusty library, picked up Little Brother, and just could not put it down until I’d finished. This is a modern take on 1984. Marcus and his friends are caught in the wrong place at the wrong time when a terrorist attack happens in San Francisco. He and his friends are picked up by the police for questioning, and held unlawfully, tortured, and then let go–into a whole new world.

The city after the attack ends up in a paranoid police state. The school has cameras, Marcus’s social studies teacher is fired for talking about civil liberties, and his friends and parents question his questioning of the new normal. I was really moved by this book, especially because for me it brought up strong memories of teaching outside of Washington, DC right after 9/11. The way Doctorow portrays the fear, paranoia, and blind allegiance to the government resonated with me. I found myself really identifying with Marcus as he struggles to make everyone around him understand the importance of free speech–and freedom.

Marcus, a computer whiz, a smart kid, and a savvy people reader, works with his group of friends to subvert the new regime’s tactics. The storyline moves along at a quick pace, and even when Doctorow pauses to explain the mathematics of cryptography, or the concept of tunneling on the internet, or the probability of catching a terrorist by random checks, the pace remains. I did not find one place in the book where it dragged or where my interest waned. There’s action, adventure, romance, and even history. Doctorow managed to incorporate mini history lessons about San Francisco, Allen Ginsberg, and the civil liberties movement in a way that did not seem at all pedantic. Additionally, he subtly includes comments on white privilege a few times, like when Marcus notices he’s the only white guy being interrogated, or when his friend Jolu outright tells him it is harder to fight the system if you’re brown or black.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a fast-paced story with subtle societal commentary.  I wouldn’t call this a dystopia per se–it is too close to today’s reality.  I am thrilled now that I will be able to hear Doctorow speak on Saturday, and I am surely going to recommend this book to all my friends, especially those who teach 1984.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary.

Friday Five: Lessons Learned During Student Teaching

Today’s post is by Shannon Trozzo, a year-long intern/student teacher at the State College Area High School.

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As a student-teacher, I feel that I learn something new or find something surprising every single day. This is what I love most about my chosen profession– no kid is alike and every student is a walking, talking lesson on how to become a better teacher. Being in the classroom as a teacher allows me to understand certain things that I would never be taught sitting in a lecture at college. These lessons range from seemingly insignificant moments to mind-blowing realizations. I could name at least 1,248 lessons that I’ve learned in my short three months of teaching, but I’ve picked five solid lessons that resonate the most right now:

1. It’s okay to not know the answer to everything. Sometimes, letting your humanity show allows your kids to relate to you and respect you even more.
2. Your enthusiasm will be one of the biggest factors in getting the students to be excited about a lesson. When you get fired up about how much of a prick Tom Buchanan is, your students will absorb that energy and discussions will explode.
3. Being in the same social world as your students is a good thing. When they say Raskolnikov is “throwing shade” at Svidrigailov, you know exactly what they mean.
4. Transparency in your thinking is the easiest way to get your students to trust your teaching. When they understand the reason behind a lesson, they can focus on learning instead of being upset that they have to write yet another paragraph.
5. Take every moment of silence and solitude that you can get. It’s tough to be in the spotlight for 8 hours straight and to constantly be answering questions, emails, phone calls, etc. Find your sanity in those sparse moments– you’re going to need it when you ask your students to take out their homework that they’ve had a week to work on and they look at you like you have three heads.

Up Late with the Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

The Chocolate War, a timeless story of rebellion and courage, should be read (or re-read) by all high school teachers. I first read this as a middle-schooler, awed by the power of the Vigils, the secret group controlling Trinity school for boys. I idolized Jerry, a freshman, who dared to “disturb the universe” (a poster with the line from T.S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” hangs in his locker). By refusing to sell the chocolates in the annual fundraising sale, Jerry puts himself in the league of heroes.

Jerry is harassed on the football field, at home, and via telephone. But he refuses to back down. Perhaps it was losing his mother to cancer the previous spring. Perhaps it is the hippie who approaches him at the bus stop and says “you’re missing a lot of things in the world, better not miss that bus,” challenging him to think about the meaning of his daily life. Perhaps Jerry is just one of those people of character, who refuse to back down from the bullies. Plenty of other people in the book buckle under the pressure of the Vigils. Obie, secretary to Archie (the President of the Vigils), even admires Jerry’s chutzpah. Brother Leon, however, does not. Brother Leon, who runs the school and the chocolate sale, in an unprecedented move, solicits the Vigils help break Jerry–but it just doesn’t seem possible.

Not having read this in years, I was surprised at the observations the characters make about teachers and adults:

• “Most grownups, most adults: they were vulnerable, running scared, open to invasion.”
• “There was nothing more beautiful in the world than the sight of a teacher getting upset.”
• “Were teachers like everyone else, then? Were teachers as corrupt as the villains you read about in books or saw in movies and television?”
• I think the boys realize as they move toward adulthood that being a grownup didn’t solve all your problems–and that some adults are just as flawed as some teenagers.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys a good book about high school. Granted, all the main characters are male, and this was written almost 40 years ago, but I think almost anyone could relate to the characters and the events.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary PCTELA

Up Late with I am Legend by Richard Matheson

This week’s post is brought to you from Isaac Pautz, a senior at State College Area High School in State College, PA.

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The novel I am Legend written by Richard Matheson, is a story of isolation, depression, and despair. It is a novel that questions views of morality and what makes a life worth living for. The story takes places in a post apocalyptic world in which the main character Robert Neville, is one of the last survivors of a pandemic that has swept the world in ruin. The pandemic that affected almost all of the population converted those who were infected from human to creatures that closely resembled vampires. The book follows the story of Robert living as a lone survivor trying to survive the constant dangers of the vampires that remained around him. To deal with this, Robert works constantly between reinforcing his house for safety and trying to find ways to kill vampires more effectively or cure the disease altogether. However, in a lot of instances the vampires are not the biggest threat to Robert when compared to the isolation and depression he faces. Facing the loss of his daughter and wife to the disease and the constant loneliness he encounters, Robert desperately tries to live in a life without emotions of others. He copes at first by drinking alcohol and blasting music within his house when the vampires come to try to lure him out of his house at night. But later within the story this breaks him as he falls prey to the vampires voices and constantly searches out for companionship. The story goes on to express the way Robert lived his life alone and how he lived under the pressure of the vampires.

When reading this book, I appreciated it for its downcast tone which followed the character or Robert Neville. In most stories, there will be ups and downs within a character’s emotional level which express the progress they are achieving towards their end goal. In “I am Legend this however is not the case as the theme of the book is survival and how humans deal with depression. The book does a good job at matching the tone of hopelessness found within the main character. In a post apocalyptic wasteland where Robert was the only survivor, it would be hard to see Robert at any moment of the book feeling any really joy or progress being made instead of embracing the long and tedious journey of survival thrown out before him.

What also makes this book so interesting in my mind was its unconventional ending. Within the ending Robert Neville is captured by the vampires and taken to be executed because of the vampire murders he committed before in the story. When faced with execution, one vampire that had lived with Neville before he had been captured sympathizes with his situation and slips him a pill that will be able to kill him before the execution. After receiving this pill, Robert looks back on his life and now sees that to the vampires he must look like a monster, an unnatural superstition. So acknowledging this, he swallows the pill and claims that “[I am] a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.” (Matheson) This ending differs from so many other endings in conventional stories as is ends in a very depressing and hopeless tone. It also takes the goal of the main character, to eliminate all vampires and cure the humans of this disease, and questions the purpose of it. With a new race that inhabited the Earth, was his goal moral to kill them because they were not the normal definition of human to him and was all the actions taken place within the story a hopeless struggle that would have ultimately lead to death anyways?

Overall, the book was enjoyable to read because of its emotional complexity attributed to the main character, its unique exploration of isolation, and its unexpected, thought provoking ending.

Have a review you’d like to share? Send it to Kate at kap17@scasd.org

Friday Five–Literary Men I Wish Were Real

I’m unapologetically single, but sometimes, it would be nice to have a boyfriend. However, I think my standards are way too high–because I read. Here are a few of the literary men I wish were real.

1. Razumihin from Crime and Punishment–this is the man you want taking care of you when you’re sick. Not only will he find you some soup and tea, he’ll go out and buy you new clothes. Plus, if he likes you, he’ll actually take some time trying to look nice:  “You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you; a Romeo over six foot high! And how you’ve washed to-day–you cleaned your nails, I declare. Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe you’ve got pomatum on your hair!”

2. Obierika from Things Fall Apart–Loyal to a fault, and a total feminist. When Okonkwo is away, he brings him the money from the yam harvest. And, at the end, he stands up to the District Commissioner, angry at the treatment of his best friend: “That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia.”

3. Byron Bunch from Light in August–This man would follow you to the ends of the earth, even after you had another man’s child.  And, he knows that no means no. He’s also got a great work ethic and spends Saturdays working overtime rather than going out gallivanting with the drinking crowd. Plus, he’s nothing if not predictable, as the furniture salesman at the end notes: “I just stopped the truck and him already running back to go around to the door where she was sitting. And he come around the back of it and he stood there, and her not even surprised.”

4. Lord Henry from The Picture of Dorian Gray–He’s the guy I want to take me out to dinner and regale me with philosophy and conversation and brilliance. His outlook on life is perfect: “one’s own soul and the passions of one’s friends—those were the fascinating things in life.”

5. Lipsha Morrissey from Love Medicine–Mostly because he’s such a romantic, and I fell a little in love with him when I read this in high school. Albertine describes him: “Sometimes he used words I had to ask him the meaning of, and other times he didn’t make even the simplest sense. I loved him for being both ways.” I have to say, I do tend to be smitten with mercurial guys…

Honestly though, even if they were real, I would probably be terrible at dating these guys anyway–after all, it is pretty well known you should not date a girl who teaches.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary PCTELA

Up Late with 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith

Reading Andrew Smith’s books reminds me of reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.  There’s a refrain throughout each, and if he throws in aliens, you just accept it and move on, because the rest of the book contains so much truth. In 100 Sideways Miles, the refrain especially reminded me of “and so it goes” but it was more of a punctuation mark :|:

Finn Eastman has: a dog Laika (after the Soviet space dog); a best friend Cade Hernandez (nicknamed Win-Win); and occasional seizures (the result of a traumatic childhood event).  He also measures time in miles and the universe in atoms.  He thinks: “The universe is nothing but this vast knackering of churning black holes and exploding starts, constantly freeing atoms that collect together and become something else, and something else again.”

While his best friend has many talents, including pushing the limits of their crazy history teacher who enjoys dressing up as historic figures, Finn believes: “My natural talent, I think, is in being fine–no matter what is actually going on inside me.”

Once again, Andrew Smith captures what it means to be a teenager and what it means to be human.  His characters always stay with me for a few days after I read the books.  I begin to see the world through their perspectives.  And there are always passages I write down and /or tweet because his ability to put old ideas into new words is unparalleled. I’m thrilled to know Smith will be at NCTE in a few weeks in Washington, DC (as well as ALAN, although I personally can’t make it to that).

• “You can’t imagine anything if you don’t already have a word for it in your head.”
• “I suppose the things that transform your life don’t appear as you fancifully imagine they will.”
• “When we think about all the miles in back of us, it’s easy to feel regret–sometimes because of the things we didn’t do, sometimes for the things we did.”
• “Books are the knackeries to what is real.”

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Posted by Kate, VP Secondary PCTELA, and now official fangirl of Andrew Smith