NaNoWriMo Update

This is a simple insertion to say that I have been undertaking National Novel Writing Month in a different way this year. Last year I wrote my dissertation instead of writing fiction. This year, I am attacking multiple projects at the same time.

First, I am writing a separate personal narrative with my four classes who are not participating in NaNoWriMo. I brainstormed in front of them and with them. I drafted when they drafted. After Thanksgiving we will move into revisions. Only then will I share each of those episodes, one of which is part of the math stories. I have a few more of those to write as well. They will appear soon.

Also, I am writing a novel-ish piece of fiction based completely on the Dare Machine on the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program site, a great place for students to receive communal support for their monumental undertaking. The Dare Machine is an idea generator for if/when you get stuck. On a whim, I decided to abandon all of my preplanned ideas (I'll save them for later) and surrendered myself to the mercy of the Dare Machine gods. Every scene I write comes straight from the next dare. The challenge comes in typing the scenes together coherently and cohesively.

Currently I am behind my word count goal, but honestly, for me, any bit of writing I do (that is more than responding to email or social media) is going toward my word count. So, as of the end of this post, I am siting at 21,261 words.

My Adventures in Mathmagic Land

I have a confession to make. My math teacher friends may cringe, so I advise them to cover their ears...or at least scroll to the next section where the narrative I want to tell actually begins. Disney fans may also want to avoid the next sentence, too, unless you really want to think less of me.

Here goes: I have never watched Donald in Mathmagic Land. Ever. Despite its consideration as a "classic" portion of multiple generations' educational experience, or as the lone offering in the district media library for math classes (for many years; it's better now), I have still never seen it. And I don't really have a desire to do so.

There. I said it. Let the stoning commence. Oh, wait. That was "The Lottery," not Donald Duck. Thank you, Ms. Jackson.

Now I must clarify: I am not a math hater. I freely acknowledge its paramount importance in our world. I use it daily. I love the critical thinking skills it teaches. I understand the importance of statistics and figures and everything math encompasses. I just didn't like it. I think that may have been because I was never taught the "why" behind everything we did.Probably would have made a difference for me. Now, I wasn't bad at math; I did quite well, better than most in my grade, if I might say so. But I had quite a few adventures in Mathmagic Land without Donald or Walt or any other guide. And honestly, there were some years where I did better off just reading the darn textbook than listening to my teachers. I'll spare the guilty parties by omitting which years those were. I think, though, that I will share a short series of narratives involving me and math. (Shudder.)

Here is Episode I: The Fourth Grade Breakdown

We moved from Las Vegas to Japan in December of my fourth grade year. It was a crazy move, and we didn’t get any of our household goods from the shipping company until Christmas Eve, but that’s a different story. 

Yokota West Elementary

                I considered myself to be a pretty bright student: pretty much perfect grades, top reading group—you know. Just the year before, I was placed in the Gifted and Talented Program at J.E. Manch Elementary. However, on my first day at Yokota West Elementary, about halfway through the day we started doing multiplication, a skill I felt fairly capable of handling. I was the first one in my Ms. Pierce’s third grade class to have my multiplication table memorized after all.

                However, after a couple of simple problems multiplying two-digit numbers by single digits, Mrs. Wood assigned three rows of “review” problems where three-digit numbers were multiplied by three-digit numbers. I had never attempted problems like these before. As a young nine-year-old, I didn’t even know that was possible. My confidence eroded. The grip on my pencil faltered. I was lost, a sensation I had never experienced in school before. So what did I do? Put my head down and cried. Of course.

                No one noticed at first, but then the kid next to me poked me. “Are you okay?” he asked. I pretended not to hear. Soon the teacher was by my side asking the same question. I feigned sleeping; it seemed safer than speaking at the moment.

                Wisely I see now, Mrs. Wood dismissed the class for an unscheduled recess. When the class had disappeared and the lights were out, I thought it safe to raise my head. I should have known the teacher was still lurking. She called my name softly. “What’s really the matter?” Even my inexperienced fourth grade soul knew that she was genuinely concerned. So I spilled.

                I broke down sobbing again; this time it was a really ugly cry—snotwads and all. I felt so dumb and out of place. I just couldn’t do what everyone else already knew.

                After a few moments of blubbering and rambling, I sniffingly composed myself. And then Mrs. Wood gave me my own private multiplication lesson. She showed me that I was not too far behind the rest, and she proceeded to demonstrate the step I needed to master in order to catch up to the rest of the class. By the time recess ended and the others were back inside, I could do the assigned problems by myself.

                Not to brag or anything, but by the end of the week, I won every single multiplication race against anyone in the class. Not too bad for someone who came late to the game, huh? I learned a few lessons that day, the least important was math.

Childhood Comparisons

Every so often, I have my 9th graders construct metaphors that compare themselves to something else. Then they take that metaphor and have others complete it and include a rationale or reason why the metaphor works. See my post about villains from a few years ago, where I explain the the process in more detail. Despite the protests when I first introduce the short project, they end up enjoying the creativity, as well as the insights they gain about themselves from others' responses.

This year I had my two honors classes come up with ideas for me to write about. Some of the runners-up included superheroes, foreign countries, and bread. They ended up choosing picture book protagonists. (It beat out bread by one vote.)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Skippyjon Jones (from the Skippyjon Jones series by Judy Schachner) because he is very descriptivito and imaginativito with his words and storitos. (Ember Lee)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Harold (from Harold and the Purple Crayon (by Crockett Johnson) because he sometimes gets lost in his own reality. (Jen Fong)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Max (from Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak) because​ he knows imagination can take you to some amazing places.​ (Rillene Nielsen)

-          If Mr. Anson were a picture book protagonist, he would be Ferdinand (from The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf) because he is so chill and he knows who he is and what he wants to be. (Alesha LeMmon and Abby Packard)

-          If I were a picture book protagonist, I would be the Very Hungry Caterpillar (from The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle) because I am always grazing, and if something gets me out of sorts, I hunker down and wait until a new opportunity presents itself.

Many other ideas were submitted, and it was difficult to narrow them down to the ones I shared; the others remain preserved in a spreadsheet...somewhere. Thanks to all who participated. I still learned something from your answers (about myself and about y'all). For those who didn't help, who would you compare me to? Who would you compare yourself to?

Where Were You?

For a class activity she is conducting, my colleague Jaimie asked each faculty member to share a few memories of our own experiences of 9/11. Here were my recollections:

                Most mornings I listen to sports talk radio or a book on CD on my way to work, but on the morning of September 11, 2001, for some reason, just before 7:00 MST, I decided to switch to the news. I heard the report that an airplane had struck the north tower of the World Trade Center. I figured it was a catastrophic accident—some poor amateur pilot or something.

                To my astonishment, I was listening live via KSL when another plane smashed into the south tower. I was idling at a stop light when I caught the reporter’s off-guard reaction. My own, a lowly mutter: “Oh, crap.” Both towers started coming down before I pulled into the school parking lot.

                In my classroom I turned on the television and absorbed report after report as they rolled in with a play-by-play of the collapse of the towers, the bravery of the first responders, the climbing death toll. Shortly, it was the story of the Pentagon and United Airlines Flight 93 crashing into a nondescript Pennsylvania field.

                We stood on a turning point in American history.

                The previous day, my 9^th graders read a short story—“American History”by Judith Ortiz Cofer: Elena, a young Puerto Rican girl, remembers the day President Kennedy was shot. She was in the ninth grade, and she hated school. The only bright spot was her crush on a boy named Eugene. On the day of the assassination, she had made plans to study with him. It would have been her first visit to his house. School was dismissed early, and she wandered home, thinking of Eugene. When Elena appeared at Eugene’s door, however, his mother turned her away. She did not want her son making friends with a Puerto Rican girl. Returning home, Elena found her building silent and everyone in mourning. Absorbed in her own tragedy, Elena couldn’t share in the public sorrow (summary courtesy of McDougall Littell’s The Language of Literature 9).

                That morning, in the midst of public tragedy, I witnessed several parallel stories woven into the lives around me. Like Elena from the story, several complained about trivial concerns such as how embarrassing it was that someone else was wearing the same shirt. Why a certain girl hadn’t responded to a note. Why a young football player was going to quit because he didn’t get any minutes until the fourth quarter of a blowout. How the copy machine was still broken. I even overheard a few students unsympathetically shrug off the morning’s attacks with an indifferent “So what? Who cares?”

(taken from http://www.albany.edu/news/16124.php)

                In class we drew the parallels between the story from the day before and the current event still happening in our country. The conversations of my classroom that day dealt with putting life into perspective. Both teenagers and adults uncovered truths of human existence and relevance—discoveries similar those of Robert Fulghum’s 1959 experience with Sigmund Wollman (Seattle Times, August 29, 1991) or Henry Smith in Gary D. Schmidt’s Trouble. Despite the apathetic few, national pride inflated. Compassion grew. Where the stereotypical teenage blinders once held fast; eyes of empathy and worlds self-discovery opened. With the world on a perpetually pessimistic fast-forward, sometimes, unfortunately, tragedy is compels us to stop and scrutinize our personal perspective. Once back in check, we realize what really matter and we uncover our best selves. Only from the ashes can a new phoenix rise.

To read the rest of the stories faculty members at Spanish Fork Jr., High contributed to Jaimie's activity, check the school's website. 

Who's Your Daddy?

(Me with Dad, June 1977)

                My dad served for over twenty years in the US Air Force. Throughout his career, he was assigned temporary duties that took him away for several days sometimes for weeks or even months at a time. As young boys, we would often accompany Mom when she went to pick him up after he returned from one of these TDY assignments. These trips to get Dad at times occurred at odd hours. I remember being four or five years old lying in the back of the station wagon with my brother Marc watching the streetlamps zip by backwards as we stared out the window up at the sky. We would pretend they were Imperial starships we were trying to evade. When Dad returned from Operation Desert Storm, we actually got to skip school to greet him on the runway as he and the rest of the 5th MAPS disembarked.

                Dad likes to tell the story that when I was really little—barely talking, Mom and I (and probably Marc) would sit in the car outside the squadron building, waiting for him to come out. And apparently, anyone who came out of the building dressed in a flight suit would be greeted by a little boy yelling out the station wagon window. “Daddy! Daddy!” Much to the mortification of my mother, my exuberance for seeing Dad caused more than a few chuckles because to me, I guess, anyone who wore the uniform could have been my daddy. I can only wonder what some passersby might have thought. Thankfully for Mom it wasn’t long before I could tell my dad apart from the other airmen.

What's My Name?

School has started again, so I get to write some more! At least I'll be able to write with my students. I said that once I finished the dissertation I'd have more time to write what I want. That is yet to be determined. My cousin Michelle challenged me to join the Throwing Up Words blog's challenge to write for an hour each day for one month starting on August 15. Sorry. I couldn't do that. Not yet. Still, I'm writing.

Every few years I have my students write about their names--an exploratory exercise where they have to involve their parents of another relative. This year, I personally needed a new angle:

And so it began. Last week while teaching my first group of university students the question came up: “So…what do we call you?”

                “Just don’t call me late for dinner,” I retorted.

                The young Padawan was not to be deterred. “No, I mean, like Mister or Professor or what?” She apparently didn’t get the Dad joke I laid down, but I knew exactly what she meant.  A few knowing chuckles from around the room let me know that others did, too.

                I replied that I didn’t really care. Doctor, Professor, Mister, or even my previous title Master, as many of my junior high students liked to use, were fine with me. I’d answer to just about anything, but again, I reiterated, don’t call me late for dinner.

                Although I had a quick answer, it caused me to ponder. What should I have people call me? Beginning last year or so, I had colleagues ask me if when I earned the Ph.D. I would make people, specifically my students, call me Doctor. Then the stories about stuffy, snobby professors would start, and I would leave the conversation.

                I thought about my own professors. As students, most of us in the classes, called them Professor or Doctor out of respect, even when the instructor hadn’t quite cemented that final diploma. As a doctoral student, many of the professors allowed us to call them by their first names, but I think that is different.

                So…how do I sign my emails? Do I call myself Doctor Anson? Sound snobby and include Ph.D. on every closing tag line? What do I write at the top of my papers now that I have achieved this status? Do I still go by Joe as my colleagues know me, or do I go back to the more professional-sounding Joseph? Do I start using the middle initial, too? That might turn some heads. Man, I haven’t had this type of identity crisis since I was in junior high.

                I’m curious. We can open this up for public debate (if anyone really cares). What do you think? Should I go with one way or the other? Or is it just a contextual thing?

It's Amazing How Inspiration Strikes

“See”

witness

random shocks of purple

poking from the rocks, splashes of red

and yellow fire-petals providing relief

for the variations of brown on gray stone,

green on gray scrub;

splotches of rusty lichen speckling

the landscape, spattered patches of life

dropped from god’s paintbrush

inhale

a breath of bitter sage and dust

with a dryness—pine-sweet tinge—

a touch of storm on the horizon

note

the flicker of tails darting in,

tongues darting out of crevices,

the flirtatious tit-twit-chitter of a chipmunk,

curious why any creature would

dare the daytime

dried as the water paths carved

both deep and superficial into the features

of the Earth’s face

hear

life breezes whisper secrets

of the tempest

lurking, festering behind the impenetrable cliffs

overcome

after years of lightning strikes

and wildfire wounds, like the wilderness

regrows, resprouts—sprigs of faith and endurance—

I, too, refresh,

exhale, releasing outward, taking notice

of the desert’s solidarity,

its struggle,

its beauty

reflect

on winding trails, trials spiraling tighter,

leading my dusty steps higher until I work out

the rock lodged between my heel and

           

my soul

I penned bits and pieces of this poem (30 May 17) as I hiked along a trail in Fremont Indian State Park with a group of amazing, adventurous young women, including one of my own daughters. I lagged behind not because I am fat and old but to make a few observations that most of the girls and other leaders missed. The next day, I pieced the words together sitting in a camp chair waiting for them to return from rafting a portion of the Sevier River. It wasn't until several weeks later that I was able to puzzle out the format.

A Poem That Took a Long Time to Emerge

Honestly, this was messy. I started brainstorming this piece toward the beginning of last school year (September 2016?) when my colleague Chris and I stood peering out the window of our hallway during a passing period. However  I couldn't find the right voice. I throttled three or four muses who refused to speak to me. It came together slowly, and I habitually constructed waaaaaaaaay too many images, and I went through multiple constructs and drafts and finally, with the help of several friends, I was able to filter out a lot of excess symbols and sounds devices to come to what it is now...still not perfect...but it's enough to convey my observations that day.

 “Colliding Fronts”

A Shel Silverstein poem came to life

where the rain ended on the sidewalk,

the visibly invisible demarcation line between sun

and storm dividing the wet from the dry distinctly across the

cracked, black asphalt: waters running left,

dry land remaining right, like the second day of Creation.

Roiling clouds smashed into the invisible wall—

a stark division between gray and blue— and passed through

an unseen sieve and started to dissipate,

sun-streaked cotton unraveling as it spun farther east,

leaving the lot, the ballpark beyond soaking on the left,

the right keeping the bright light from the attic to itself.

The forecaster’s neatly patterned weather lines leaped

from the green screen of Channel Two and established boundaries

in the parking lot—a  backdrop to the shifting, changing weather patterns

manifest in a lone ninth grade girl trudging the hallway,

her swirl of inner storm partitioned off from the blue skies and carefree

clouds she so badly wanted the world to see.

Searching and Digging for Meaning (Poem in Your Pocket Day 2017)

(borrowed from https://apps.carleton.edu/humanities/events/poem2017/)

It's been a while since I've posted, but I couldn't miss Poem in Your Pocket Day. It's been a nice tradition to start (and perpetuate) here at my school, something that several faculty members look forward to...as long as they remember to do it, that is.

This year, my mind has been all over the place--metaphorically, not literally, as too many of my students overuse. And I've pondered until I was weak and weary, not over forgotten lore but philosophies and core beliefs and deep educational mumbo jumbo like that, a little to do with writing, but more do to with thinking and what I believe, and where my loyalties lie. It might have something to do with completing the doctoral degree and facing new chapters in my life, but it could also have been the enchiladas I had on Tuesday. Regardless of the cause, I've had rumblings.

Regardless, this year, I chose two poems, as I could not settle on one, both with a common strand: small simple details. I've written about the importance of the small and simple before, but it's come back to me again. So, here are two poems by Billy Collins:

“Searching” by Billy Collins

I recall someone once admitting
that all he remembered of Anna Karenina
was something about a picnic basket,

and now, after consuming a book
devoted to the subject of Barcelona--
its people, its history, its complex architecture--

all I remember is the mention
of an albino gorilla, the inhabitant of a park
where the Citadel of the Bourbons once stood.

The sheer paleness of him looms over
all the notable names and dates
as the evening strollers stop before him

and point to show their children.
These locals called him Snowflake,
and here he has been mentioned again in print

in the hope of keeping his pallid flame alive
and helping him, despite his name, to endure
in this poem, where he has found another cage.

Oh, Snowflake,
I had no interest in the capital of Catalonia--
its people, its history, its complex architecture--

no, you were the reason
I kept my light on late into the night,
turning all those pages, searching for you everywhere.


...and here's the second one:

“Digging” by Billy Collins

It seems whenever I dig in the woods

on the slope behind this house

I unearth some object from the past—

a shard of crockery or a bottle with its stopper missing,

sometimes a piece of metal, maybe handled

by the dairy farmer who built this house

over a century and a half ago

as civil war waged unabated to the south.

So it’s never a surprise

when the shovel-tip hits a rusted bolt,

or a glass knob from a drawer—

little hands waving from the past.

And today, it’s a buried toy,

a little car with a dent in the roof

and enough flecks of paint to tell it was blue.

Shrouded in a towel, the body of our cat

lies nearby on the ground where I settled her

in the mottled light of the summer trees,

and I still have to widen the hole

and deepen it for her by at least another foot,

but not before I stop for a moment

with the once-blue car idling in my palm,

to imagine the boy who grew up here

and to see that two of the crusted wheels still spin.

I'm trying to get my students to notice the smaller things, the details, for they are often the overlooked important moments/situations/people in our lives. There is a joy in the small and simple things of life--those moments when you ponder and savor the connections with life, with the world, with ourselves, and with God.

I know this ramble is choppy, but so is my mind right now.

For previous poems that occupied my pocket, check the label on the right-hand side.