Yesterday I taught a lesson on the reader/writer relationship in my freshman composition class. I've taught this lesson a few times before, but I thought I might change it a bit.
I began by asking the students to list specific things they enjoyed reading and why, then what they didn't enjoy reading and why. I drew two columns on the board: one labeled Thumbs Up and the other Thumbs Down.
To my surprise, the thumbs-up category crowded the other. And with good literature, too. The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Of Mice and Men, The Little Prince, The Things They Carried. What's more, their reasons for listing these works in the thumbs-up category wasn't to gain my favor. (At least not entirely.) The students cited how enjoyable or easy the novels were to read, how they had engaging plots and characters with whom they empathized.
And the thumbs-down column? Emma, The Awakening, Twilight ("It's so clichéd," one student complained), and, oddly, Catcher in the Rye. They didn't like the characters, they didn't care for the language.
In the end, we discussed good and bad writing for about forty minutes—about twenty-five minutes longer than I had planned. But that was ok. By the end of the discussion, students were nodding their heads. Oh, their body language said, I'm writing for a reader. I hope that not only will these students be able to better recognize good writing, but they will also be more inclined to create it themselves.
2.18.2010
1.28.2010
Italiana al Cuore
Growing up, most people didn't believe me when I said I was half Italian. My dark brown eyes were the only feature that betrayed my fair, freckled skin and medium-brown hair. My brother, meanwhile, emerged from our mother's Italian gene pool, and his olive skin and coarse hair compelled strangers to ask him to what race he belonged.
Despite the Irish features I inherited from my father, I've always best identified with my Italian lineage. This is probably because my father's adoptive family is Cuban, and we have no sense of Irish heritage besides our predilection for beer. When my father married my mother, he was then fostered into her Italian family, and, nearly three decades later, he wields bastardized Italian-American dialect with the best of 'em.
So our entire household maintained an Italian-American mentality, despite the clover branded on the patriarch's forearm. Our traditions—especially surrounding mealtime—were all Italian, which I took for American until I had exposure to the way other families interacted and served their meals. When I went to college, I longed for real Italian food, not that glorified fast food that comes with endless salad and breadsticks. (Sorry, I do not feel like "family" in a restaurant chain.) And when I began cooking for myself, I scrutinized my mother's Sunday gravy ritual so I could replicate it in my own kitchen. And eventually, I got good at it.
As my confidence grew in my cooking ability ("Of course I can cook. I'm Italian!" I'd proclaim), I would host parties at which I'd serve Italian favorites and new discoveries. I baked often and even earned a reputation for being the Cookie Lady.
Even if my appearance wasn't Italian, my heart and my stomach were; I was convinced.
But today, I'm less certain. For all my love of Italian culture—which, let's face it, revolves around the dinner table—it doesn't love me. About two years ago, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. To treat it, I've been on a strict gluten-free diet, which has rendered pasta, pizza, pastries, and all other Italian emblems inedible. (Ironically, the Irish gene that gave me such a fate also denies me beer.)
And so I've begun altering my sense of Italian cuisine: It looks just as it always had, but it's modified to be gluten-free. I've made it a personal goal to serve "normies" gluten-free treats so good, they don't know the difference. Just as I had always felt Italian but looked Irish, my cooking tastes Italian but caters to my weak Irish tummy.
Despite the Irish features I inherited from my father, I've always best identified with my Italian lineage. This is probably because my father's adoptive family is Cuban, and we have no sense of Irish heritage besides our predilection for beer. When my father married my mother, he was then fostered into her Italian family, and, nearly three decades later, he wields bastardized Italian-American dialect with the best of 'em.
So our entire household maintained an Italian-American mentality, despite the clover branded on the patriarch's forearm. Our traditions—especially surrounding mealtime—were all Italian, which I took for American until I had exposure to the way other families interacted and served their meals. When I went to college, I longed for real Italian food, not that glorified fast food that comes with endless salad and breadsticks. (Sorry, I do not feel like "family" in a restaurant chain.) And when I began cooking for myself, I scrutinized my mother's Sunday gravy ritual so I could replicate it in my own kitchen. And eventually, I got good at it.
As my confidence grew in my cooking ability ("Of course I can cook. I'm Italian!" I'd proclaim), I would host parties at which I'd serve Italian favorites and new discoveries. I baked often and even earned a reputation for being the Cookie Lady.
Even if my appearance wasn't Italian, my heart and my stomach were; I was convinced.
But today, I'm less certain. For all my love of Italian culture—which, let's face it, revolves around the dinner table—it doesn't love me. About two years ago, I was diagnosed with celiac disease. To treat it, I've been on a strict gluten-free diet, which has rendered pasta, pizza, pastries, and all other Italian emblems inedible. (Ironically, the Irish gene that gave me such a fate also denies me beer.)
And so I've begun altering my sense of Italian cuisine: It looks just as it always had, but it's modified to be gluten-free. I've made it a personal goal to serve "normies" gluten-free treats so good, they don't know the difference. Just as I had always felt Italian but looked Irish, my cooking tastes Italian but caters to my weak Irish tummy.
12.11.2009
Hold Your Applause
This semester I taught Grammar 200 for the second time. Unsurprisingly, the students this semester were weaker than I had taught during the summer session. We had to spend more time reinforcing new concepts, most students were loath to participate in class discussion, and the response papers lacked the attention to detail the earlier section so eagerly provided.
I couldn't help but think the course was three credits of torture for the poor bastards who enrolled.
On the last day of class, we answered last-minute questions for the final exam. When I exhausted their questions, I delivered closing remarks: It's been a pleasure working with all of you, I wish you luck as writers, keep in touch. Then something strange happened.
They clapped.
I couldn't help but think the course was three credits of torture for the poor bastards who enrolled.
On the last day of class, we answered last-minute questions for the final exam. When I exhausted their questions, I delivered closing remarks: It's been a pleasure working with all of you, I wish you luck as writers, keep in touch. Then something strange happened.
They clapped.
12.03.2009
Full Moon, No Moon; New Moon
For as long as I can remember, I've heard people reference the moon phase in relation to human behavior. "It must be a full moon!" my mother would say at the end of a day filled with peculiar interactions. As a child, my acute imagination depicted her coworkers morphing into werewolves; as I grew older, I took the expression to be something used to describe an "off" day.
When I began teaching high school, I heard the expression again, often. Once a month, actually. What's more, I started using it myself. There were days when my students would be particularly trying or overly juvenile. When my husband would ask me how my day was, I would preface my answer with, "It must be a full moon because..."
And one such day he looked up the moon phase. It was full.
So I began—albeit reluctantly—giving credence to the moon's effect on human behavior. "Easy" days seemed to occur in the new moon phase. I found myself hoping that full moon phases would coincide with weekends and mid-week holidays, and I witnessed teenagers become were-students when the lunar and school calendars didn't cooperate.
Since leaving my post as a high school English teacher, I hadn't given this superstition another thought. But as I drove home from work earlier this week, I noticed the full moon piercing the clear, starless sky. I half-smiled as I thought of my day: not uneventful, but not trying, either. Gone are the days that are as volatile as the tides. My only calendar is the one on the wall—and I'm obtuse to the day marked with an open circle.
When I began teaching high school, I heard the expression again, often. Once a month, actually. What's more, I started using it myself. There were days when my students would be particularly trying or overly juvenile. When my husband would ask me how my day was, I would preface my answer with, "It must be a full moon because..."
And one such day he looked up the moon phase. It was full.
So I began—albeit reluctantly—giving credence to the moon's effect on human behavior. "Easy" days seemed to occur in the new moon phase. I found myself hoping that full moon phases would coincide with weekends and mid-week holidays, and I witnessed teenagers become were-students when the lunar and school calendars didn't cooperate.
Since leaving my post as a high school English teacher, I hadn't given this superstition another thought. But as I drove home from work earlier this week, I noticed the full moon piercing the clear, starless sky. I half-smiled as I thought of my day: not uneventful, but not trying, either. Gone are the days that are as volatile as the tides. My only calendar is the one on the wall—and I'm obtuse to the day marked with an open circle.
11.13.2009
Turning my back on my training
Teaching sentence diagramming involves writing on the chalkboard, usually in multiple colors. As I was diagramming a sentence recently, I stopped writing mid-motion. It had occurred to me that I had fully turned my back to the class.
This may seem like a non-event, unless you've taught K-12. One of the lessons teachers learn in their education classes—and really learn on the first day of school—is to never turn their backs to the audience. It's a way to compensate for the anatomical impossibility of having eyes in the back of one's head.
It took over a year, but my training had been undone. I turned my back to the class, and something illicit may have happened in those few moments. But that no longer matters.
This may seem like a non-event, unless you've taught K-12. One of the lessons teachers learn in their education classes—and really learn on the first day of school—is to never turn their backs to the audience. It's a way to compensate for the anatomical impossibility of having eyes in the back of one's head.
It took over a year, but my training had been undone. I turned my back to the class, and something illicit may have happened in those few moments. But that no longer matters.
On Easy Street: Saying Goodbye to Gourmet
A few days ago, the last issue of Gourmet arrived at my door. "The last issue" meaning it's the last issue ever. In our uncertain economy, Condé Nast decided to eliminate some of its brands, especially in the cases where it owned a number of magazines with the same target audience. In the case of cooking magazines, Condé Nast decided, based on the number of subscriptions, that Gourmet was more expendable than Bon Appétit and Cookie Magazine. As a consolation, Condé Nast will send me Bon Appétit in lieu of Gourmet for the remainder of my subscription.
And then I will cancel my four-year subscription.
I understand business; I understand economics. In an age when readers favor free online content, subscriptions have plummeted. Because Gourmet wasn't making enough profit, Condé Nast chose to eliminate it for the good of the company.
But is it for the good of the culture? Gourmet isn't a cooking magazine; it's "The Magazine of Good Living." Yes, it contains recipes and tips for food preparation, but that's not the reason Gourmet has such a high resubscription rate. The magazine celebrates the tradition and culture surrounding food. The delightfully written articles and artistic photographs convey the sense that its writers and editors believe that even complicated dishes deserve to be a part of our lives—to serve an elaborate meal to loved ones is a labor of love.
On my desk are the November issues of Gourmet and Bon Appétit, side by side. The cover of Gourmet features an amber turkey on a bed of greens, its platter set on a crocheted table cloth. Behind the bird—and behind the magazine's title—are vertical wooden planks that one may find in a home in any corner of America. Bon Appétit's cover reads in orange print just above its title, "Thanksgiving Made Easy." Other headlines: "10 Perfect Menus," "Entertaining Dos and Don'ts," and "Leftovers done right!" The headlines encircle a well-seasoned turkey in a copper-plated roaster (the All-Clad label expertly PhotoShopped off the handle) resting on a stainless steel surface that fades to white.
It's easy to see why Condé Nast thought Bon Appétit to be the more successful of the two magazines, sales aside: It appeals to a larger population. Americans no longer have the patience for a laborious meal, and they often don't even appreciate the difference in quality of the fruits of that labor. Americans would rather have a "Thanksgiving Made Easy" and believe it can happen in an immaculate stainless steel kitchen than have an honest meal served on a realistic table.
American culture has lost its Americanness. Americans believe they have high standards, but too many of us have become satisfied with mediocrity. We want it now, we don't want to do it ourselves, and for those reasons, we'll take what we can get. The result: We eat a gluttonous amount of food that's passable at best.
And so the few of us who consider food a part of good living are further marginalized. As I pour over the final issue of Gourmet, I lament the death of a true American institution. I wonder how I'll manage to host my own large family dinners without Gourmet. It won't be easy.
And then I will cancel my four-year subscription.
I understand business; I understand economics. In an age when readers favor free online content, subscriptions have plummeted. Because Gourmet wasn't making enough profit, Condé Nast chose to eliminate it for the good of the company.
But is it for the good of the culture? Gourmet isn't a cooking magazine; it's "The Magazine of Good Living." Yes, it contains recipes and tips for food preparation, but that's not the reason Gourmet has such a high resubscription rate. The magazine celebrates the tradition and culture surrounding food. The delightfully written articles and artistic photographs convey the sense that its writers and editors believe that even complicated dishes deserve to be a part of our lives—to serve an elaborate meal to loved ones is a labor of love.
On my desk are the November issues of Gourmet and Bon Appétit, side by side. The cover of Gourmet features an amber turkey on a bed of greens, its platter set on a crocheted table cloth. Behind the bird—and behind the magazine's title—are vertical wooden planks that one may find in a home in any corner of America. Bon Appétit's cover reads in orange print just above its title, "Thanksgiving Made Easy." Other headlines: "10 Perfect Menus," "Entertaining Dos and Don'ts," and "Leftovers done right!" The headlines encircle a well-seasoned turkey in a copper-plated roaster (the All-Clad label expertly PhotoShopped off the handle) resting on a stainless steel surface that fades to white.
It's easy to see why Condé Nast thought Bon Appétit to be the more successful of the two magazines, sales aside: It appeals to a larger population. Americans no longer have the patience for a laborious meal, and they often don't even appreciate the difference in quality of the fruits of that labor. Americans would rather have a "Thanksgiving Made Easy" and believe it can happen in an immaculate stainless steel kitchen than have an honest meal served on a realistic table.
American culture has lost its Americanness. Americans believe they have high standards, but too many of us have become satisfied with mediocrity. We want it now, we don't want to do it ourselves, and for those reasons, we'll take what we can get. The result: We eat a gluttonous amount of food that's passable at best.
And so the few of us who consider food a part of good living are further marginalized. As I pour over the final issue of Gourmet, I lament the death of a true American institution. I wonder how I'll manage to host my own large family dinners without Gourmet. It won't be easy.
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