Friday Five: Literary Songs

I just finished teaching Hamlet in AP Literature, and I was reminded of how many other texts reference the play, which made me think of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which made me remember the “Calamity Song,” based on the Eschaton scene in that book. (My friend Keith shared this literary-musical genius with me as I was reading IJ). So I decided this week’s Friday Five should be about songs with literary references or about literature. I have a feeling this may become a regular feature here–I posted on Facebook asking friends about literary songs and there was a deluge. So here’s 5 to tide you over–these 5 are all related to my AP Literature texts. Look for next time when we do a Lord of the Flies song list…

1. The Decemberists “Calamity Song” was written to depict the Eschaton scene in David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest.
   
   
2. James Blunt’s “Tears and Rain” references Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.
3. The Police’s “Don’t Stand so Close to me” references/retells Lolita (Just like that old man in that book by Nabokov)
. I also find this song exceedingly creepy as a teacher, but Sting looks so young in the video…hard to decide my feelings on this one.
4. The Cure’s “Killing an Arab,” retells the story of Albert Camus’s The Stranger is a sort of cliff notes version of the novel.
5. Finally, Iron Maiden’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” gives us Samuel Taylor Coleridge in all his glory if he’d been in a heavy metal band.

My thanks to all my friends and colleagues who contributed to this list–I think it may become a regular feature here.  Feel free to comment with your personal favorite literary songs.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Up Late with Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

My book club chose Beautiful Ruins this month as it is also the Centre County Reads book.  Jess Walter will be coming to town next month, so we thought it would be fun to read the book and then attend the talk.  I’ve actually had multiple copies of this on my bookshelf over the past two years, but I’ve given it away to people interested in reading it.  Have you ever just not been pulled in by the description on the book jacket? And yet, once you start reading you think, “had I known this book was about THIS, I would have been reading it sooner!” This was one of those books.  I could not put it down once I picked it up.  Plus, a number of people I work with are also reading it right now, so it was fun to talk about it in class.  I even decided to incorporate it into my College Prep English 11 class as there is a writing contest for the county.  We are reading A Streetcar Named Desire in class and I thought they could write about the concept of Beautiful Ruins in the play, and then submit a separate piece of writing about Beautiful Ruins of their own imagining/observation as the final assessment.

Books with multiple perspectives/narratives are some of my favorites.  This one hops from person to person and from 1962 to modern day.  From the set of Cleopatra to small Italian islands, to modern day Hollywood to clubs in Edinburgh, the characters, inextricably tied to one another, pull you in to their stories. When you step back, you can see the people, places, and things throughout the book that might be classified as Beautiful Ruins, but you can also see the beauty there is in truly connecting with another human being, in seeing beauty in unexpected places, and finding hope in an initially hopeless story.

If I were asked to name my favorite character in this story, I’m not sure I could do it.  Often in a story told from multiple perspectives, I become impatient with one of the storylines, but in this book, I felt and equal pull to all the stories that made up the mosaic of this tale.  I highly recommend it, and if you’re anywhere near Central Pennsylvania, come hear Jess Walter speak on March 17.

• “His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.”
• “Life, he thought, is a blatant act of imagination.”
• “He found himself inhabiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”
• “At peace? Who but the insane would ever be at peace? What person who has enjoyed life could possibly think one is enough? Who could live even a day and not feel the sweet ache of regret?”
• “All we have is the story we tell.”

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Up Late with Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith is a compelling story about the collision of alternative universes. In this sci-fi fantasy thriller, Jack, the main character, encounters a series of unfortunate events that lead to his acquisition of an unusual pair of purple sunglasses. Jack soon finds out that wearing these lenses transports him to a world where Earth has been replaced by a place called Marbury. Marbury is essentially a post-apocalyptic planet where everything is in various stages of destruction and it’s every man for him/herself. Jack, along with his allies, must navigate between Earth and Marbury– although the line of distinction between the two places becomes increasingly blurred. Jack and his group must create balance between the many different worlds and “save what is good.” Full of action, friendship, adventure, and two-foot long black bugs that eat the dead, The Marbury Lens is sure to confuse and entice you at the same time.

I have read and enjoyed other books by Andrew Smith, such as Grasshopper Jungle and Winger, so I was excited to read his other stories. What I love about this book, and all of Smith’s books, is how relatable the characters are. Jack and his friends live in California, attend high school, and have normal relationships. He is a teenage boy and has some of the same issues that most teenagers do– dealing with alcohol, sex, friends, and school. Smith inserts these accessible characters into a wild universe where life is anything but normal, which is what makes the plot so captivating. Jack describes the worlds he jumps into like “… one of the Russian dolls that you open up, and open up again. And each layer becomes something else.” However, this metaphor can be applied to the book itself: each page you turn twists the plot more and more until you end up somewhere completely opposite of where you started.

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Today’s post is by Shannon Trozzo, a senior at Penn State and an intern in the State College/Penn State secondary English intern program where she teaches 11 & 12 grade students.

 

Friday Five: YA authors you should have on your classroom bookshelf

Here’s a list of 5 authors you should definitely have on your classroom bookshelf if you teach teenagers.  You would also probably enjoy the stories as an adult, too.  These authors deal with important issues for teens, and while the content is mature, these authors create characters who work through struggles with grace, poise, and humor.

1. Andrew Smith–author of Winger, Grasshopper Jungle, and 100 Sideways Miles as well as the Marbury Lens & Passenger.
   
2. A.S. King–author of Everybody Sees the Ants and Please Ignore Vera Dietz.
   
3. Matthew Quick–author of Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock; Boy 21, and Sorta like a Rockstar.
   
4. Bill Konigsberg–author of Openly Straight and Out of the Pocket.
   
5. David Levithan–author of Two Boys Kissing, Every Day, and Boy Meets Boy.

Up Late with Everybody Sees the Ants by A.S. King

I started reading A.S. King only recently and I’m kicking myself for not having read her sooner. Perhaps, though, you read books when you need to read them. I was just finishing teaching The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien, which explores the emotional burdens Vietnam veterans carried with them. Everybody Sees the Ants also explored the impact of the Vietnam war on people, but instead of focusing on the soldiers, it examines the impact the war had on the families–for example, the families of the POW/MIA soldiers.

Lucky Linderman’s grandfather never came back from Vietnam, and his grandmother and his parents struggle with grief and loss. In his dreams, Lucky visits his grandfather and helps him plan his escape. These dreams allow him an escape from his regular life, which involves a bully who won’t stop harassing him and other students, and adults who can’t seem to understand what it means to be a teenager: “It is as if they’d never known one single teenager in their whole lives.” Lucky and his mother go out to Arizona to visit her brother, Dave, and Dave gives Lucky some advice: “escaping assholes is about as easy as escaping oxygen.” This is similar to the advice his grandmother offers: “the world is full of assholes. What are you doing to make sure you’re not one of them?”

I enjoyed the writing style of this book and also the playful nature of the ants…at first I was a little incredulous, but I learned to look forward to the descriptions of what the ants were doing. (I don’t want to offer any spoilers, just be forewarned you need to suspend your disbelief a little bit as you read.) The parallels of being a POW and being bullied make sense, and King offers us a strong character to root for in this book. She begins part 3 with a quote from Robert F. Kennedy: “Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.” Lucky begins to see the world a little differently after he goes to Arizona, where he begins to appreciate his father and is exposed to other forms of bullying. I particularly liked how King included the Vagina Monologues in the text as another example of oppression/bullying. The construction of this novel seems flawless, and I immediately went out and bought two copies for my classroom bookshelf. Go. Get a copy, you won’t be sorry.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Up Late with Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

I picked up this book at the library because it was mentioned in one of the author speeches I’d seen at NCTE in Washington last fall. When I checked it out of the library, my trusty librarian told me it reminded her of Winger because of the setting and some of the topics. I ended up agreeing with her.

Openly Straight follows Rafe’s journey as a popular soccer-playing high school junior from Boulder to a private East Coast boarding school (Natick) where he wants to try on a new personality–that of a straight guy. His parents are open and accepting of his sexuality, and ever since he came out his community has embraced him. His best friend Olivia doesn’t want him to go East because she will miss him, but nobody knows the real reason he wants to go to private school all the way across the country.

When he arrives, Rafe is finally treated like just one of the guys, and he plays flag football with the jocks on his first day there. He forms a strong friendship with his roommate Albie and Albie’s best friend Toby (who happens to be one of the few out gay students at the school). Rafe struggles with who he is and who he identifies with as he sorts through the reasons why he wanted to hide who he is. When Olivia and his parents find out, they can’t understand why he would want to go back into the closet. Rafe ends up falling for his best friend Ben, and complications arise since he has been dishonest about who he really is.

I enjoyed this book for the complexity of emotions and the honesty about how hard it is sometimes to be yourself when everyone seems to think they already know who you are and have labelled you. I especially enjoyed the journal entries dispersed throughout–Rafe’s English teacher Mr. Scarborough, has assigned him to write about his conflicts, and Rafe uses the writing as a discovery tool. By the end of the book, he’s learned to let go in his writing and discovered a few things about himself.

Some favorite passages:
*“It’s hard to be different,” Scarborough said. “And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.”
*“The world needs people who are more comfortable standing still. We keep the earth on it axis when everybody else is bouncing around.”
*“You can be anything you want, but when you go against who you are inside, it doesn’t feel good.”

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Friday Five: Reasons to Submit a Proposal for the PCTELA Conference

Go here for a link to the call for proposals. 

1. You have a colleague you would love to collaborate with and then present with at the conference.
2. You want to feel as if you have a real audience for your yearly review.
3. You want input on a favorite method of teaching or best practice.
4. Your colleagues often borrow your lesson plan ideas and tell you to share them with people.
5. You want the experience of sharing your favorite ideas with other enthusiastic educators.

Come join us!

Up Late with California by Edan Lepucki

My mother was telling me about this book when we were at NCTE in Washington, DC this past November.  She ended up procuring a copy for me while we were there, and I’ve only just gotten around to reading it–but I could not put it down once I started.  I even had a conversation with a friend about what we might do to prepare for the end of modern civilization as we know it…

Frida and Cal moved out of LA to the country when it became too much for them. They live off the land in a small shed, wash laundry in a stream, forage for mushrooms and berries, and set snares hoping for small game. The cities have all lost power and while some gated communities still exist, you have to have a lot of money to buy your way into them. Although they worry about Pirates, Frida and Cal live a good life, and even meet some neighbors, the Millers, who have two small children. In the world they’re in, there’s time for boredom, time for thinking about the way the world once was: “Time moved forward, but the mind was restless and stubborn, and it skipped to wherever it pleased, often to the past: backward, always backward.”

Everything changes when Frida realizes she’s pregnant, and she and Cal decide to search for others so she can have her baby in a safer place. They decide to venture toward the Spikes by following August, the trader who takes his horse by their house about once a month. The Spikes are massive statues jutting out of the ground–meant to warn people to stay away, but also colossally beautiful and made out of repurposed items no longer useful in this new world. What lays beyond them is unimaginable to Friday and Cal and will change their lives forever.

I enjoyed the storyline and I particularly enjoyed that this suggested future doesn’t seem too unbelievable. The results of using precious resources without recourse makes sense. I don’t think it is impossible that the world Lepucki envisions here might be in our future. It made me stop and think about all the things I have that I appreciate right now.

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Sorta Like a Rockstar by Matthew Quick

I’ve recently become enamored with Matthew Quick’s quirky characters. My first experience with his work was The Good Luck of Right Now, and I had seen Silver Linings Playbook (the book is far better, but that’s a review for another time). Then, a colleague insisted I read Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock and that book blew me away (no pun intended). Recently I reviewed Boy 21 on this blog, and now that leads me to this one, the one published book of his I hadn’t yet read. (He has a new one coming out this year, Love May Fail.)

In Sorta Like a Rockstar, Amber is the kind of character you can’t help but root for. She’s living out of a bus she’s named Hello Yellow with her mother and Bobby Big Boy, her rescued dog. But she really lives far beyond the walls of just that bus. She has a group of school friends (The Franks Freak Force Federation), a group of Korean singing divas, a regular Wednesday event battling Joan of Old at the Methodist Retirement home, and a haiku-writing veteran whose dog Ms. Jenny is dating Bobby Big Boy. She calls her principal Prince Tony and generally puts people in the book and readers in a good mood. However, Quick is not one to just have a fluffy, feel-good story. Trauma strikes and makes Amber question everything. She spirals into an existential crisis and wonders about the point of it all.

The community reaches out to help Amber through her rocky time, but ultimately, the only one who can help her is herself. I appreciate Quick’s ability to pull us into the character’s mind and his ability to understand human nature. The ending of the book gives realistic closure–not some unbelievable, perfectly-tied-up ending, but closure that seems realistic considering what occurred for the characters.

One of the elements of this book I particularly appreciated were the haikus throughout–Amber writes one about Ms. Jenny and Bobby Big Boy:
“Together playing
Gray and white-brown dogs of ours
We watch quietly.”

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary, PCTELA

Friday Five: Bookish Reasons to Get A Dog

So today I’m going to meet a dog who is up for adoption. I’m already planning our life together, and as a reader, I’ve got a lot of valid reasons why this is a great idea.

1. I can take him for walks to the little free library up the street.
2. He will cuddle with me while I’m reading.
3. I have an excuse for not staying out late (I have to feed my dog) when in fact I just want to go home and read a book.
4. When I talk aloud to myself about the book I’m reading, I can address him, and it will seem like I’m having a conversation with another person.
5. You have someone to name after your favorite character.

(I mean, who could resist this guy?)

Posted by Kate, VP Secondary PCTELA