Celebrating That Which Has Lost Its Meaning (or Why I Like Phil Kaye's Poems)

 

Watch the video first.

 I first discovered Phil Kaye when I saw a video of him performing “An Origin Story” with Sarah Kay (no relation) back in 2012. I immediately started bingeing other videos he produced, my favorite being “Repetition”—simple enough for junior high geeks to understand, deep enough for them to ponder and connect with. Every so often, I recycle it as a scribble prompt. Earlier this week, I used it again for my Comp II class at BU. For those of you who don’t know, students are allowed to write anything they want after the prompt is shared. This time, every single student who shared his or her writing discussed the ideas of the poem (and none of them are English majors!) and how they interpreted the poetic device of repetition and the word choice. It was a beautiful moment. Here are my thoughts from those few minutes of writing, only edited for punctuation and spelling. The rest still hovers in a first-draft state. Keep in mind I wrote this before the students shared their writing and their thoughts:

 Using Phil Kaye’s “Repetition” was definitely the right choice. It created, as far as I can observe, a pensive mood in the classroom. Maybe it struck a chord or two today.

 I think that it’s poignant that the overuse of an action or a word or phrase can take away its importance or significance if you let it. However, human beings tend to take for granted the small, repeated instances of our lives. And that’s one of the reasons my poetic heroes include Phil Kaye, Sarah Kay, Ted Kooser (recently read in more depth), and Billy Collins. Each one of them takes something mundane—a setting or a situation--and makes the moment extraordinary, something worth celebrating.

 Each time I read one of their poems, my mind recalls when I taught Ben Mikaelsen’s Touching Spirit Bear to seventh graders. The hardest concept to help my students connect with was Garvey’s advice about the hot dog. (If you haven’t read it, take an hour to devour it. Reading it aloud with a reluctant teenage boy is even better.) In short, life is not a meal, its only purpose to refuel your body. It is something to relish (pun intended), something to celebrate, to enjoy, savor, and appreciate. Most importantly, it is something to share. (Draw your own connections here.)

I suppose that’s another reason why I write—to share the celebrations and the setbacks of life—the small repeated moments that most might overlook. I love to others (and myself) find meaning in the mundane.

Maybe I can turn this into a 2021 resolution of sorts.

 

Guilt That Never Disappears Completely (or Drawing Mustaches)

Again, this comes from deep-brain salvaging--memories unearthed after following a prompt.  It’s not perfect, but here’s what happened this time.  Written after reading Jack Gantos’s “The Follower” to a group of 7^th graders:

With the exception of the interactions among my brothers, I believe that for most of my childhood I was a follower.  I sneaked out of my house…only when I was a friend's house.  I vandalized tents and sidewalks and other types of property, but only when someone else was the ringleader.  One particularly weak me-as-follower incident came when I was eleven years old.  In church, some of the leaders decided they wanted to spotlight a different child each week.  A poster was placed in a prominent part of the hallway with a large photograph and some frivolous facts about the child:  a favorite color, favorite food, favorite scripture story, and two or three other trivial tidbits.  Each poster would remain hanging for a month and rotated out as additional children were “spotlighted.”

For some time, several of my male peers had been drawing mustaches on everything—cartoons, handouts, whatever.  When I expressed to them that I thought the idea of the spotlight was ridiculous, they dared me to draw a mustache on one.  When the first picture up happened to be G_____, a girl I sort of had a crush on, they razzed me even more—poking, prodding, daring me to draw facial hair on this dimpled, dirty-blonde who set my stomach silly.  I volunteered to deface one of the others, but for the guys, in order for me to accomplish the task, the mustache had to be hers.

A couple weeks passed.  I couldn’t do it.  I knew it was wrong—wrong to betray my twitterpated feelings for her; it would be defacing property…in the church, even!  What made it worse was that my mom was one of the women in charge of this hair-brained public display thingy, and there was no way I wanted to disappoint her.  For days my shoulder angel and shoulder devil had a full-on sumo match without a decisive winner.  However, in the end I wanted to win the approval of my peers, and right before the church building was locked up for the week, with a black licorice-scented marker, I drew a bushy, curly mustache nigh unto Rollie Fingers.  A little crooked, since I was trying to covertly complete the operation, it sat unnoticed for a week.

When we came back the following Sunday, the photo had been removed.  My buddies never saw the picture, but they assumed I had fulfilled my fraternal obligation when we all got chewed out by our leaders that afternoon—something about respecting property.  Afterward, without adult supervision, I hardly noticed the high fives and slaps on the back.  I simply swallowed guiltballs the size of grapefruits each time I looked over at the blank spot on the wall.  From then on I couldn’t even look G_____ in the eyes to muster the gumption to talk to her.  Oh, well, right?  To this day, I still don’t know if anyone found out exactly who did it, but when I think on it, I can feel the burning in my stomach that no amount of Rolaids or Tums could help.  Lesson learned.

So Many River Metaphors...but I Refuse to Use One in the Title

The first half of last week I was chillin’ up in Spokane, Washington, with two of my friends/colleagues from the Central Utah WritingProject (CUWP) to present at the Northwest Inland Writing Project (NIWP) spring conference.  Sarah and Janae presented on revision strategies—a topic I have dabbled in, and I revamped my shtick about wordplay in the classroom.  And although it wasn’t everything I expected, or hoped for, since I had a few technology glitches, it was a great venture for my first out-of-state presentation.

Jeff Wilhelm did an amazing job discussing the new common core and some strategies for implementing it in a language arts classroom.  It wasn’t anything new, but it validated what we, as a team at SFJHS, have been striving toward.  However, I didn’t receive my biggest a-ha moment until after the conference had finished and the three of us were killing time, passing time until our flight (full of Zag fans, by the way) departed.

The morning started out gray and a bit drizzly, not much in the way of vacation weather, but by the time we had breakfasted, the rain stopped and the sun played peek-a-boo haphazardly through gray patchy clouds.  We strolled through Riverside Park between our hotel and the conference center, crossing bridges, inhaling clean air and inspiring landscapes.  The ladies would pause and take pictures, but I didn’t have my camera; I had to capture the picturesque downtown area in my mind.

At one of our final panoramic bridge photo ops, I glanced across the water at a handful of tourists sneaking down a bank to get a better view of the lower falls.  That’s when it hit me.  I had been here before.  When I was seven, Dad was stationed at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.  That summer we took a family vacation: a few days in Yosemite—awesome, but it did nothing to assuage my acrophobia—then across the Golden Gate Bridge and up the Pacific Cost Highway.  Once we hit the Columbia River, we crisscrossed the states of Oregon and Washington until we hit Spokane.  For some reason, my dad thought he would retire up there, so he decided to buy a few acres close to Mount Spokane.

I remember a few scattered details about the Spokane part of the trip.  My dad had a new Betamax video camera.  Marc or David, I don’t recall which, busted his flip-flop traipsing through the underbrush of those ten acres of pine trees.  We stopped at a gas station on the return and I had a pineapple Crush soda.  (Never had one since.)

But standing on the bridge last Thursday, the raging of the falls came back, the red brick buildings, the dilapidated wood and chain-link fences.  I knew these sights…and not from postcards or distant stories.  Even though the I-Max theater was new, I had been on Canada Island before.  I had crossed the bridges as a boy, walked the trails, chased the squirrels, thrown rocks and sticks into the rapids.  The familiarity, which had been absent the previous three days, was rekindled in a small spark of memory.  And that familiarity brought contentment.  The power of memory and connection across 29 years made the entire trip worth it.

I’ve addressed the importance of mining for memories and the power that it holds in earlier posts, and I’m sticking to that claim.  Stories have power, and working to uncover what was once hidden in our lives, be they pleasant or horrific, is a process well worth the blood, sweat, and embarrassment of yesteryear.

I move that the human population would do well to set aside time, every so often, to reflect, to remember, and to contemplate the past and present so as to create a fuller, more meaningful future.  Writing, or journaling, or blogging, or sketching, or anything (really) physical and mechanical helps to solidify our life’s experiences and assists in the meaning-making we all seek in life.  Actually organizing our thoughts on paper helps shape the marble, shade the coloration, or dry the cement.  And at times, we can completely reconstruct our experiences from a new perspective—one that only years and seasoning can give birth to.  It’s all in the details and how we relish them, how we revel in them, and how we retain them.

As a teacher, I suggest that we provide students with opportunities to explore different moment sin their own lives.  Depending on the age of the students, they may not have very many eye-openers that they can recall.  However, and this is where I want to drive my point home, it is up to us to help them realize how special each minute detail may be.  Teach them to capture a snapshot of life; sagas are not necessary (really, they aren’t).  Nobody truthfully cares about what happened every minute of the day that led up to the food fight at lunch.  They just want to feel the past-prime peas pelted against their pock-marked faces.  They want to hear the squelching of mashed potatoes sloshed across someone’s unsuspecting mug.  They want to witness the spray of the chocolate milk carton exploding against the brick wall.

Teach them pacing.  Teach them to slow down those special EPSN highlight moments that they have had.  I will always marvel at how a close play at the plate, a single blocked shot, or a tackle in the backfield gets stretched into a three-minute segment.  Teach them to explode a scene, to take a 30-second thrill and stretch it over two or three pages that will hold the memory captive behind paper and ink (or digital) bars forever.

What’s that you say?  They still struggle to find ideas, to discover instances of significance in their short lives?  First, remind them that they don’t have to be world travelers to have an exciting life.  Sometimes thoughtful moments come in that landfill of a bedroom while blaring the latest trendy flash-in-the-pan performing artist.  Other times we need to slow down those sad and depressing episodes of our lives in order to analyze or make sense of this crazy, mixed-up world.

Sometimes, we all need a kick in the pants to get us going.  Students seem to need this more often, so one thing I like to do is to provide some kind of inspiration.   At times, it’s a picture—an illustration, meme, or work of art that will hopefully get them thinking.  Every now and again I give them a hypothetical situation or a question to ponder.  My favorite way to get students into a moment, though, is through a text.  I love to use short stories, poems, quotes, picture books—something text-based, to fire up those gerbil wheels and keep them spinning.  Check out my post about Writing Prompts Based on Readings.  It might help you get an example of what I’m talking about.  For those who need a framework, a prompt provides safety.  For those who are ready to explore the recesses of their mental abysses, they are free to wander…as long as they haul proper spelunking attire and accouterments.  See some of my personal rambles (look at the tags on the side bar over on the right) to see how it works for me.

Now, after I’ve babbled, I guess it’s time for me to shut up.  I may not have conveyed my thoughts perfectly here, but just sitting at my computer and physically typing the words has given me an outlet, an opportunity to try and make sense of the flotsam swimming through the clumps of gray matter inside my skull.  This is just a rough draft.  If it’s important enough to me, I’ll revise…yes, even after publication.

Your assignment: revisit the Spokane River.  Find those moments that have meaning.  Make connections between past and present.  Solidify them.  Even if you need some prompting, just do it.  Try one of my prompts. Discover something on your own.  Whatever you do, just write (even if your inner muse is on hiatus), reflect (even when it’s worse than rubbing hand sanitizer over an unidentified paper cut), and enjoy your life (or else).

What is Literacy?

Yes, I realize that it's been nearly a month since I've written, so I've decided to try an interactive post of sorts.  Since I've started back up with the Ed.D. assignments, I've been doing quite a bit of thinking, reading, reflecting, etc. that have kept me from posting more regularly.  Of course I'm familiar with the bit about good intentions and pavement, so I'll just skip all that guilt crap, although I will have some more interesting posts when I can buy a minute or two of my life back.  (Don't ask, "What life?").  Really.  I have a few things from my classroom to share. I might even use pictures.  For now, quit bellyachin' and be content that there's actually something new here.

I'd really appreciate for all of you (yes, all four) to join in this conversation.  I recently addressed an anticipatory prompt in my Theories and Models of Literacy class the following:

What is literacy? What are all the sub-components of literacy? What is reading? What is writing? How would you characterize a literate person? Please describe a "literate" person that you know.

In a few days, I will post my response.  In the meantime, I'd like to hear what you have to say.  This generated quite a good conversation on the discussion boards.  Honestly, I am interested to hear your thoughts and opinions.  Don't worry, there is no one right answer, there will be no quiz on Friday either.

Please just post your thoughts as a comment; or I guess, if you are too shy, you could email them to me. You don't even have to address the entire prompt; a neat little slice would suffice.  Thanks.

P.S.  Yes, I know I could do this on the English Ning, but this is more intimate.  No super weirdos (unless you count me).

Selected Writing Prompts Based on Readings

Hey, look at me! It's called following through with a promise, a habit several of my students would do well to adopt. Here is a list of selected reading-based writing prompts. Some I've shared before. Others are new. I'd like to collect as many as I can for my students. Also, it helps with my sanity when I don't repeat prompts year after year. I'd like to end up with three or four hundred prompts. They could be poems, stories, articles, anything.

So I'm asking - no, PLEADING with you - to share what you have with me in return. Just type it in as a comment or send an email. Please submit the title of the piece, the author, and if possible, where it can be found. Also describe what the students should write--options are good.

Thanks.

1. “Wrestling with Reading” by Patrick Jones (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about either what it was that made you a reader, or an experience you’ve had (positive or negative) with a librarian.

2. “The Follower” by Jack Gantos (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about a time you were a follower, or write about what happened when you deliberately disregarded your parents’ warnings.

3. “Predators” by David Lubar (from Curse of the Campfire Weenies and Other Warped and Creepy Tales)

Write about a time when you were afraid, or some encounter with a creepy person.

4. “Do You Have Any Advice for Those of Us Just Starting Out?” by Ron Koertge

Write about your experiences with learning/starting to write on your own, or write about some good advice you have received (whether you followed it or not), or write about when you were the child everyone told to “shhhh!”.

5. “My Name” by Sandra Cisneros (from The House on Mango Street)

Have them write about their own name (likes, dislikes, would they change it, etc.) or someone else’s name. Another fun one would be to ramble about stereotyped names, i.e. Olga=large Scandinavian woman, Dirk=sinister, wiry crook, etc.

6. “I Go Along” by Richard Peck (from Past Perfect, Present Tense)

Write about a time where you went along with the crowd or when you found yourself in a group do not normally associate or when you something you heard/read really made an impact on your life.

7. “Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout” by Shel Silverstein (from Where the Sidewalk Ends)

Write about either a time you were forced to do chores or just something extremely gross.

8. “Listening to Our Shadow” by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (from Poemcrazy)

Write a conversation between you and your shadow, or write about things you did when you were about six years old.

9. “Funny You Should Ask” by Rick Reilly (from The Life of Reilly-found in Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about the meaning of life—what it is that makes life worth living for, or write about a time when you and a parent miscommunicated.

10. “Bring Me Magic” by Susan Goldsmith Wooldridge (from Poemcrazy)

Write about one of the objects you have gathered: name it, describe it—try to use similes and metaphors, then tell it to bring you something: a “bring me” poem.

11. “Something Neat This Way Comes” by Chris Crutcher (from King of the Mild Frontier)

Write about something “neat” you have been coerced into doing, or something “neat” you have been able to convince someone else to do.

12. The Secret Life of Grown-Ups by David Wisniewski

Create your own “secret.” For example- The secret life of teachers, band geeks, nursing homes, etc.

13. “To My Patron” by Billy Collins (from Nine Horses)

Write about what you need in order to do your best work—whatever it is you enjoy creating, or write about what it takes for you to make it all happen.

14. “Tuning” by Gary Paulsen (from The Winter Room)

Write about a strong connection you have made to a particular book sometime in your life. What made it magical for you? Or write about some connection to smell, sound, light, (or one of the other senses) that is seared into your memory. Focus on something particular (i.e. Thanksgiving, a particular sunrise, etc.)

15. What You Know First by Patricia MacLachlan

Write about a time when you have had to leave some place/someone/something behind. Or write about a time when you’ve moved. Or write about what you would take with you if you had to leave and you knew you would never be back.

16. “The Trouble with Poetry” by Billy Collins (from The Trouble with Poetry)

Write about what poetry fills you with , or write about what you think the trouble with poetry is.

17. Introduction to A Maze Me by Naomi Shihab Nye

Write about an age that you would like to be, one that you dread being, or write about an age in your past that you either long to return to or are glad you never have to go back to. Or write about not what you want to be when you grow up, but rather who or how you want to be if you grow up.

18. “A Day at the Zoo” by Jack Prelutsky (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about something stupid you have done, preferably something you have never told your mom.

19. “Mark Pang and the Impossible Square” by Frank Portman (from Baseball Crazy—Nancy Mercado,ed.)

Write about a time where time slowed down for you—the action took a short amount of time, but it seemed like an eternity; replay your thoughts. Or take the easy way out and finish the story in the style of the author.

20. “There’s Much to be Said for Copying” (hand out) and “Tour” by Carol Snow

After copying, write about the possible benefits of copying texts.

21. “The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently” by Thomas Lux

Describe the voice(s) in your head. Talk a bout a particular time where he/she/it helped or hurt you while reading.

22. “Seeing the Future” by Gary Soto (from Facts of Life)

Write about a time when you made a realization about the opposite sex, or write about a time when you made an important discovery or decision about your future.

23. “Boys, Beer, Barf, and Bonding” by Bruce Hale (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about a time where you bonded with a family member, or write about a time you were incredibly sick (in public or private).

24. “A writer should not be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that doesn’t deserve our attention.” --Flannery O’Connor

Write about what this means, or relive a time where you couldn’t take your eyes off something or someone, or perhaps, there has been a time where someone couldn’t keep their eyes off you.

25. “Man Guyifesto—Who We Are!” by Darren Shan (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about a group that you belong to and stereotype; don’t demean, but poke fun at a particular group of people.

26. “Guy Things” by Gordon Korman (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about something that is definitely a “guy thing” or a “girl thing” in your opinion. It could be a “kid thing” or a “sports thing” or an “American thing, ” or whatever. Base it on something you enjoy or disagree with—it could be something current or from when you were younger.

27. “The Meanest Man in Maine” by Rodman Philbrick (from The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg)

Create a list of things that someone you know hates. Create reasons why this person hates so much.

28. Foreword from How Angel Peterson Got His Name by Gary Paulsen

Write about a time where you have done something because it “sounded like a good idea at the time.” It doesn’t necessarily have to be something stupid.

29. “Days” by Billy Collins

Write about a day in your life that you would like to relive, either exactly the way it was, or how you would do it over.

30. “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros”

Write about a specific moment when you were embarrassed or felt smaller than yourself.

31. “On Turning Ten” by Billy Collins

Write about a particular birthday or other specific turning day in your life. Why was this particular day/age so significant?

32. “My Father’s Voice” by Tom Romano (from Zigzag)

Write about a voice that has been important in your life. Try to imitate the style or at least the structure.

33. The Plot Chickens by Mary Jane and Herm Auch

Write about the discouragement that comes with writing.

34. “C.V.” -2- (from On Writing by Stephen King)

Write about an incident that revolves around babysitting, you being either the babysitter or those sat upon.

35. “A Game of Catch” by Roger Rosenblatt

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988709,00.html

Write about a time when you were (or were not) able to “play catch” about something important.

36. My Dad is Awesome by Nick Butterworth

Write about one of your parents and how you look(ed) up to them. What are some of their qualities that you admire, or you could write about the qualities you hope not to emulate.

37. “Chapter 4” Gym Candy by Carl Deuker

Write about a time where you had an “a-ha” moment about writing, or write about something you feel passionately about. Be as descriptive as possible. Make me feel it.

38. “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” --E.M. Forster

What does this quote say about writing?

39. “Brothers” by Jon Scieszka (from Guys Write for Guys Read)

Write about the relationships you have with your siblings, or focus on one particular experience that has cemented the relationship you have with one particular sibling.

40. Epilogue from King of the Mild Frontier by Chris Crutcher

Write about parts of your life that you have fictionalized in the retelling, or write about some aspect of your life that you would like to fictionalize.

41. “The Bloody Souvenir” by Jack Gantos (from Funny Business—Jon Scieszka, ed.)

Write about a time you did something stupid then tried to cover it up and ended up doing something even more stupid.

42. “Kid Appeal” by David Lubar (from Funny Business—Jon Scieszka, ed.)

Write about one of your friends who you think is an idiot, or write about a contest that you have entered (not necessarily one that you won).

43. “Artemis Begins” by Eoin Colfer (from Funny Business—Jon Scieszka, ed.)

Write about something that you have done to get someone else in trouble on purpose, or write about a time when someone has sabotaged you to make themselves look better.

44. When I Was Young in the Mountains by Cynthis Rylant

Write about when you were young. Use the phrasing of the book to discover the details of your memories. Share specific events.

45. Hello Ocean/Hola Mar by Pam Munoz Ryan, trans. Yanitzia Canetti

Write about a place you love, focusing specifically on the five senses.

46. Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! By Mo Willems

Write a persuasive letter to a parent or some other authority figure, asking permission to do something you aren’t normally permitted to do. Try to come up with creative arguments.

47. “The Death of a Writer” by David Rice (from Guys Write for Guys Read—Jon Scieszka—ed.)

Write about a time where someone’s authority or even their comments caused you to give up your dream or receive some type of negative consequence.

48. “Jump Away” by Rene Saldana, Jr (from Every Man for Himself: Ten Short Stories about Being a Guy—Nancy Mercado, ed.)

Write about a time when you took/refused a dare, or describe a time when someone else took/refused your dare.

49. “American Teen” by Mel Glenn (from This Family is Driving Me Crazy—M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weiss, eds.)

After reading the differently voiced poems, write a poem from your voice about some aspect of being a teenager: your likes, dislikes, wishes, dreams, limitations, etc. Compile them as a class book.

50. “A Valentine for Ernest Mann” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Write about some ordinary or unusual objects that could be considered “valentines,” or write about what a poem is or could be (metaphorically speaking).