Framing the Story at NPR

This looks like it will be promising -- I'll check it out over the summer for sure.

How Do You Find A Story In A Painting?

“Something pulls me like a magnet, and then I ignore all the others ... I stand in front of that painting, and I tell myself a story about it. - Tracy Chevalier

About Tracy Chevalier's TEDTalk: When writer Tracy Chevalier looks at paintings, she imagines the stories behind them: How did the painter meet his model? What would explain that look in her eye? She shares the story of Vermeer's most famous painting that inspired her best-selling novel "Girl With a Pearl Earring."

Awkward

I thought it might be fun to share some more writing. This isn't my best effort, but, hey, at least I'm trying. This was a piece I wrote with my students about an awkward moment:

Awkward!!!

Denée Tyler

I am going to Arizona for Thanksgiving. I’m not going to the warm, sunny part of Arizona. I’m going to the windy, cold, desolate part of Arizona called Snowflake. Why? Well, my parents and a brother live there, but one of the major reasons for my decision was to see my grandmother. She is 84 years old and still in pretty good health, but I realize that she could be gone at any moment, so I want to visit her again while I can. The original plan was to meet up with her at an extended family turkey fest, but that plan has been torpedoed by the ultimate of awkward situations.

My husband and I have a few guilty pleasures, and one of them is watching a new television show on the CW network called Ringer. In the show, one twin sister, Bridgette, is a key witness to a murder, and Bridgette is too scared to stay and testify, so she runs to her estranged twin, Siobhan, for advice and protection. As soon as the sisters are together, they go out on a boat and Siobhan supposedly goes overboard, leaving the Bridgette the perfect opportunity: take Siobhan’s place and identity, including her husband. Convoluted? Yes. But that is only the edge of the iceberg. As Bridgette continues impersonating her twin, she discovers that Siobhan has been having an affair with Siobhan’s best friend’s husband, who also is supposedly a great friend of Siobhan’s husband. And not only that, but Siobhan (and now Bridgette) still meets and talks to this best friend, Gemma, everyday. What do they talk about? Who the mystery woman is that Gemma’s husband is cheating with.

AWKWARD!!!

What does this have to do with the turkey fest? I have many cousins in my Grandmother’s family, but I have two in particular we’ll call Tom and Bob. Well, I’ve just found out that Tom has admitted that he has been having an affair with Bob’s wife. And he’s tired of keeping it a secret, so he just wants to come out in the open and marry Bob’s wife as soon as she and Bob can get divorced. ARGGHHH. This is going to ruin every family get together for the rest of time—or at least until Tom and Bob’s wife get tired of each other and move on to someone else.

AWKWARD!!!

As I watched Ringer, I would think about how incredibly insensitive and crass the whole situation was.  I used to find it unbelievable that someone could betray a friend AND a spouse so callously. Now that I’ve seen the situation in my own family, I guess I’ll change my thinking on that. I guess people really can be that self centered and cruel.

AWKWARD!!!

Why we need stories

I just finished my Chaucer unit. I had my students read/experience some of Chaucer's tales (The Knight's Tale, The Miller's Tale, The Reeve's Tale, The Nun's Priest's Tale, The Pardoner's Tale, and The Wife of Bath's Tale). I had my students write tales similar to Chaucer's after we read some of the tales: a beast fable for Chaunticleer (NPT), an urban legend for the Pardoner's Tale (cautionary), and a riddle or question tale for TWOBT. Then we spent one day telling each other our newly created tales. I think next year I will write a tale so I can be one of the tellers, but this year I played The Host and drew their names out of a cup. Anyway, the story telling -- especially in sixth period -- went so well. One of my students told a story deriding conservative Utah County, and that led to rebuttals (manufactured on the fly with the epilogues they were supposed to have for their stories) from several students. It was eerily reminiscent of the Miller/Reeve and made for a great day.
In the past I've had students find and tell a story -- it was a much more meaningful assignment when they had to write and tell a story.

Next year I think I'll try having the students write an original fairy tale rather than a riddle tale. That one was much too hard for them to grasp.

Hallelujah!

Yesterday Janmarie and I presented at the Utah Charter Schools Convention. Our presentation was titled: Engaging Modern Students in Classic Literature. I created both the handout and the blog site for the presentation. I worked very hard coming up with ideas to share that I thought would benefit my fellow teachers. Janmarie mentioned that teachers don't really want to hear theory; they want ideas they can take and use it their classrooms. This is what I came up with:

Music

• Music Test – Romanticism and The Enlightenment
• Music and Transcendentalism
• Music and Satire – Phil Otts

Essential Questions

• Essential questions allow us to explore what knowledge is, how it came to be, and how it has changed through human history. Exploring essential question together gives students a sense of community and broadens their views.
• (Chaucer, Ballads, etc) Is there still a real purpose for storytelling in our modern world? Why and how do the stories we tell reflect ourselves and our values? (Wife of Bath)
• The Crucible "Why is power such a powerful motivator for people?"

Creation and Performance

• Occupation Romeo
• Beowulf Virus Movie
• Singing and performing ballads
• Snowbound Storytelling - Chaucer

Art - Viewing and Creating

• Picture Review – Symbols – Save the Last Word for Me
• Cartoons - Transcendentalism

Pairing Young Adult Literature with Classics

• R. E. Probst - Literature “should not be approached with awe and handled with kid gloves. Most secondary English programs require students to read difficult classic texts that have little to do with adolescent life, and as a result, many students are “turned off” of reading. Unless the students are able to relate to the texts on a more personal level, they will not get much out of the reading.”
• Fairytales
• Enter Three Witches with Macbeth
• Journey stories such as The True Adventure of Charlotte Doyle with The Odyssey
• Sherman Alexie’s “Leaving Phoenix, AZ” pairing with Native American literature
• Best thing – it allows you to introduce women, multiculturalism, and modern interest into the world of mostly dead white men.

Writing

• Dramatic Monologues
• Script Writing
• Blog – Pros and Cons
• We need to use this technology before we have our students try it, so we will know what it is capable of.

I was incredibly nervous about presenting, but it seemed to go over pretty well, and the people who came to the workshop seemed to enjoy it. I did forget to mention some things that I was going to talk about (dramatic monologues and scripting).

Of course, there were some bumps along the way. We were a little shaky about the agenda, and I had a few technical glitches. I couldn't play a student produced movie, and some of my sound files didn't work. My husband says this is due to "The Law of Demos" which is that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, most likely one minute before the presentation starts.

Anyway, I think that this experience has stretched me as both an educator and as a person. After the workshop, Janmarie and I had to fill out an evaluation. One of the questions was whether we would be willing to present again next year. I told Janmarie that that was like asking a mother if she wants to have another baby minutes after giving birth.

Eureka!

As I have spent the last month preparing to present with Janmarie at the Charter School Conference, I have thought a lot about improving the clarity and validity of some of my assignments. I have had some great ideas.

1. For my interview project at the beginning of the year, I have decided to tie it in more completely with the storytelling/oral tradition feel of the unit by having the students write and perform it as an introduction with an anecdote rather than as a newspaper article. We will see how it goes.

2. I loved my American Transcendentalism mini-unit last year, but Walt felt like he was a tag-a-long to the party. I have decided to add him to the free writes by opening with the question, "What does it mean to be an American?" Then after we read "I Hear America Singing" and whatever else I am in the mood for, I will have the students freewrite a page on the prompt:
   

   Considering all that we have read and talked about transcendentalism, why do you think that it is such a uniquely American phenomenon?