Category Archives: creative solutions

January 19, 2013 · 9:28 am

two simple stories: Glock and Bach

Without judgment, I offer two personal stories from this past week.  They occurred within a day of each other.

First story: At lunch–during a discussion of guns, death and violence–a colleague described his neighbor’s reaction to the death of Sandy Hook students and teachers, as well as to the possibility of additional regulation of guns and ammunition.  According to the colleague’s reasonable, and in my judgment sympathetic, report, his neighbor already owned an AR-15, and since the Sandy Hook deaths has purchased several more.  When asked why he had purchased these additional guns, the neighbor responded that he wanted to be ready when they, the government, came to his house.

Second story: At our high school’s weekly chapel service, two senior boys played a concert to benefit the Youth and Family Services of Newtown, Connecticut.  The seniors themselves requested the opportunity, chose the music and provided the commentary between pieces.  During their performance, which they entitled “Reflection and Outreach,” they explained that it can be hard to find words at such times, and that music can express emotions in these situations.  When I asked one of the boys about why they asked to do this concert, he said that the feelings expressed in the music could serve as one way to empathize with the Sandy Hook community.

To me, these two stories represent significantly different ways of seeing the present and future worlds.  I am also reminded of the two essential questions that guide my work with high school sophomore classes:  Who am I?  What are my primary responsibilities to myself and to the communities in which I live?  Most of our reading and writing focus on a student’s, character’s or author’s answer to these two questions.  I wonder how the neighbor and senior boys would answer these questions.  And I wonder what those answers mean for us–today and tomorrow?  Finally, I wonder how my responses to the colleague and the students defines my answer to these essential questions.

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December 18, 2012 · 9:28 am

semi-automatic poems & poetic sequencing

 

 

Semi-automatic poems

 

 What are these bullets

that hit the heart

of my bones,

then shatter

into tiny fragments of my soul?

Are they poems

that help me heal,

and put back

together the pieces,

as best I can?

Who needs these bullets?

Who needs these poems?

 

 

Poetic sequencing

All we need do is build

Good words on top of other good words.

Then we are changing our genetic

Code, evolving towards our better selves.514px-DNA_chemical_structure.svg

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December 16, 2012 · 10:32 am

for those of us who mourn

the delicate networks of our nerves

lie exposed to cold gusts of morning wind,

like the branches of so many trees

whose leaves have fallen to the frozen ground.

 

even so, silhouettes of twilight birds

try to find one another in song;

distant dark dots against the early gray sky,

they know to follow these choral connections.

 

they cry for food and love.

nature has schooled them to sing.

their cries are the sweetest sounds.

the morning sky is full of these songs.

bare trees 1

Bill Brown, 16 December 2012

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November 19, 2012 · 7:41 am

spiritual water

A good friend’s mother died recently, and I offer this excerpt, realizing that its details do not necessarily match his individual experience.  The author powerfully captures a feeling that I wanted to share with him and others.

She died calmly; and her countenance expressed affection even in death.  I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance.  It is so long before the mind can persuade itself that she, whom we saw every day, and whose very existence appeared a part of our own, can have departed for ever–that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been extinguished, and the sound of a voice so familiar, and dear to the ear, can be hushed, never more to be heard.  These are the reflections of the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences.  Yet from whom has not that rude hand rent away some dear connexions; and why should I describe a sorrow that all have felt, and must feel?  The time at length arrives, when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a sacrilege, is not banished.  My mother was dead, but we had still duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the rest, and learn to think ourselves fortunate, whilst one remains whom the spoiler has not seized.

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, Vol.1 Ch.2

Mary Shelley understands the wrenching wrought by the death of someone we love.  I wanted my friend to see her paragraph, and to know that it helps me absorb some of the grief he and his family feel.

Lastly, in our backyard yesterday morning, I turned on the sprinkler.  Before it had made one full rotation, numerous birds flocked to the bushes being watered.  Their near-instanteous flight to the site reminds me of how thirsty we are for loving relationships.  Those relationships, which death alters without removing, are spiritual water.  They supply the well from which we daily drink.

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September 16, 2012 · 8:20 am

flip the flippers

One day this week, as the sophomores started reviewing each other’s blog posts, I spoke briefly to the whole group about pedagogy.  Though not using that actual word, I raised this question:  Why bother gathering at a physical place called school?  The question allowed me to share my thoughts on the subject–thoughts that have been developing over the years spent with students in a physical place called the classroom.  As I described my thinking to these sophomores,  I asked them if they had heard teachers mention the idea of a “flipped classroom.”  No one raised his or her hand, but soon after the silent response, one boy offered, “Do you mean students teaching teachers?”  I told him, and therefore the whole group, that although I do not remember adults using those terms , I thought his idea was fabulous.  “I want to remember your idea,” I told him.  “Some time,” I added, “I can tell you stories about students doing exactly that.”  For example, I remember a ninth grader in Tulsa who unwittingly helped me tighten my writing.

So, back to what I was telling the whole class, before this teenager “interrupted.”  I was answering my rhetorical question, using the example of their in-class partner-proofreading.  The most productive use we can make of in-school class-time–I am paraphrasing now– is for real-time social interaction–in the form of meaningful collaboration, for instance.  Let students work together to help each other.  Let them, for example, with our guidance, give each other feedback on their writing.  The adult guidance is key, and we can layer samples, models, practices and demonstrations to develop the basic skills that enable productive feedback.  But, as the adult conversations about flipping continue, I want to include the students–from time to time, not all the time.  Occasionally, I find myself forgetting to extend the hand of respect to the students.  I forget to offer that hand and bring them onto the boat.  Sometimes, in my excitement to cross the river, I find myself on the other side, waving encouragement to the students who stand on the far shore.  “Swim,” I yell.  “Swim.”

The trust and respect that underlie healthy relationships must characterize my time with students, too.   They are intelligent young people with distinct, valuable thoughts.  Why not use all of our human resources, once we have come together in the same physical place called school?

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September 9, 2012 · 9:36 am

F F F

These three letters represent a course I have been considering for some time: “Farms, Factories and Facebook.”  In this course, students read literature, mostly fiction, that conveys the rhythms and mindsets of three ages in human history: agricultural, industrial and digital.  We might call the third “informational,” but for now I am simply collecting titles and ideas.  For the most part, this collecting has been happening privately.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts.  Feel free to launch such a course yourself.  I trust we will acknowledge each other, when occasion calls for that.

Meanwhile, an article in yesterday’s New York Times profiles a Korean writer whose work fits my picture of this FFF course.  Shin Kyung-Sook’s novel, Please Look After Mom, has made a lasting impression on my wife, since she read it  about a year ago.  When yesterday’s article appeared, we both said we want to read her other novels, I Will Be Right There and A Lone Room.  The Times article describes the  traumatic change in South Korea from an agrarian to industrial society–within just one generation.  Ms. Kyung-Sook’s stories reveal what this dramatic disruption means to Korean families.  The conflicts at the heart of the society reveal the distinct rhythms and mindsets of both eras. Therefore, one of these novels may suit the course I am imagining.

Other literature I have considered defines an era’s worldview from within–think Tess of the D’Urbevilles or Hard Times, for example–rather than across the “time zones.”  Given my experience with home-grown courses like this, I want to find good stories– ones that engage students initially and years later, for their emotional and intellectual impact.  Stories they carry with them.  Analyzing the eras we humans have navigated is part of the course, but I have learned not to impose too much of my own historical ruminations on high school juniors and seniors.  Those ideas provide a sturdy infrastructure, but individual students need to shape their own conclusions in their own way, largely through induction while reading these stories.

That’s it for now. Concerning this course, the time has apparently come to widen what Seamus Heaney calls the “circumference of understanding.”  If you want to see and/or comment on the google doc of ideas and titles, complete the following form.  Thank you.

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Thank you for your response. ✨

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August 26, 2012 · 2:10 pm

signifying nothing 5.5.23

This week, the seniors and I have been working on the difference between a poem’s speaker and author.  The following sequence of ideas arose this morning, while my wife and I drank coffee and talked on the deck,  and while the sunlight  touched the tops of our neighbor’s seventy-foot pine trees.

We saw his pine trees, as well as what used to be an equally tall oak, until a July storm dropped its top half.  During this morning’s coffee talk, I recalled that our neighbor, let’s call him Paul Bunyan, finally began cutting the fallen limbs with his chain saw last night.  Mention of the chain saw reminded me of Frost’s poem, “Out, Out,” which the seniors had recently read.  In fact, some seniors may be using that poem for their first essay about tone; I hope I steal none of their thunder with this post.  (Ssshh, don’t tell any  of them about this post, yet.)

Naturally, at least for us two career literature teachers, Shakespeare entered the conversation–in the form of Macbeth, whose speech after Lady Macbeth’s death includes the phrase “Out, out, [brief candle].”  When I repeated Frost’s title, my wife gave Macbeth’s next thought, “Life’s but a walking shadow” (5.5.23).  At this point, my mind returned to this week’s work with seniors; I often find my mind going there.

Here, I thought, is a fine example of the energy created by the difference between speaker and author.  My first thought on remembering Macbeth’s speech was that I disagree with his final claim that life is a “tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury / Signifying nothing”–especially as I sat with my wife during this morning’s sunrise.  Then I realized, perhaps in a freshly rich way, that so does Shakespeare.  If he agrees with Macbeth, why bother writing all of these plays?  At this point in the Scottish play, Macbeth has reached the very bottom of his despair and hopelessness.   Ever since he has told himself that he is in bloody murders too steeped to turn back, he has been pursuing an untenable human course.  He has separated himself from his most worthy being, as well as from other people.  His moral coherence, his ethical integrity has been dissolving, unlike the blood on Lady Macbeth’s hands, which she cannot remove with her bootless cry, “Out, out, damned spot.”

Shakespeare, the author of Macbeth’s final desperate words, does see human life as signifying something, even while imagining a character who does not.  In fact, through his art, the author tries to lead us away from such despair by enacting the journey that led to it.  He wants to bring the lesson alive on stage.

And here, at this junction of  speaker and author, I am reminded of a critical thinking skill that appeared on my recent blog post’s list of such skills.  In this case, I am thinking of “shape meaningful schema.”  Students who understand the play’s plot, Macbeth’s decline and the speech’s words are ready to combine these understandings with the author/speaker distinction, in order to shape in their minds a pattern that makes sense, that means something, that signifies something.  With all due respect to Mr. Macbeth, I will keep making meaning–even out of his story.  I will keep helping students do the same.

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August 19, 2012 · 9:59 pm

a borrower and a lender

I thought readers of this blog might enjoy a recent assignment described for my seniors.  They have started writing reflections on poems they find in our text, and I gave this guidance for their first piece; these instructions grow from a sentence in Seamus Heaney’s introduction to his Whitbread-Award winning translation of Beowulf.  Enjoy.

For this first reflection, base your writing on a single poem from chapter one of Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Gioia’s Introduction to Poetry.  In the previous assignment for this week, I asked you to pick a poem on which you would like to reflect.  As you consider this poem, use the quote from Seamus Heaney, seen in the photograph above.  His brief statement comes the introduction to his translation of the Old English narrative poem, Beowulf, which we will start reading in several weeks.  I posted his passage in a prominent place because I admire and value the thought and feeling behind it.  In his introduction, he describes a particular struggle he experienced during the translation project.  He struggled to reconcile apparently disparate parts of his past.  His perseverance eventually led to a discovery that produced the statement above our door: “my heart lifted again, the world widened, something was furthered” (xxvi).  I would like to use this statement as guidance for your first reflection.

In other words, use any or all of the statement’s parts as guides for writing a reflection of approximately 200-400 words; this will be the typical length for reflections posted on your blog.  Let me explain my thinking about how to use the parts to Heaney’s statement.  “My heart lifted”: Consider a poem that lifts your heart in a small or large way.  Perhaps the poem as a whole does this, or maybe a single line.  You can read “lifted” loosely.  In other words, something about the poem satisfied you, or rang true, resonated, or made you say “yes” in some fashion.  It made you feel fuller.  “The World Widened”: As a result of your heart’s lifting, your understanding of the world, which includes yourself and other people, has widened.  To borrow from Rilke, another poet, your orbit has grown wider.  You see more because of this poem or this line.  “Something was furthered”: This sounds like the previous part of the statement, but it also suggests that the world evolved in some way because your world widened.  Some problem was solved, some insight gained.  Some larger value was added to the world because of this thinking or feeling you are doing.  Admittedly, this last part is probably the hardest to apply, but feel free to give it a go, if you are so inclined.

As you write your reflection, use my explanation of Heaney’s passage as guidance–rather than as a set of questions all of which you must answer.  The fun and beauty of such reflective writings is that they give you a chance to notice and follow your responses.  Let the associations happen, while challenging yourself to be as clear as possible–to yourself and your blog readers.

Have fun.  Enjoy the writing.

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August 10, 2012 · 3:56 pm

think critically

Since in our department we are discussing specifics in this area, I thought I would post my working list of skills, partly because I had fun generating the various verbs.  I plan to test the efficacy of these labels by tagging homework assignments posted on our course’s blog.  This may be a useful way to hold myself accountable for guiding students in exercising these skills.  I am trying to make the list fairly inclusive while also manageable, and, as a bonus, memorable.

Here’s the working list:

forge connections, draw distinctions, make inferences, shape meaningful schema, create pictures, provide examples, make predictions, express questions

p.s.  I wonder if I can string these together into a meaningful schema; I’m still playing with that possibility.  As the picture shows, I am posting them above the white board, too–for regular reference and reinforcement.  The little post-it signals the possibility of students’ placing an original piece of visual art to render each skill.  Time will tell.

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August 9, 2012 · 11:40 am

Regular Writing #1

Making things is harder than destroying them.  Who do you know who is a successful builder?  What does this person build or make—houses, clothes, food, friends or something else?

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