Monthly Archives: March 2012

Today is World Poetry Day

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Poems are to be savoured.  I hate the notion of dissecting them; I think they are meant to be read, enjoyed, re-read – but not ‘solved.’ And, yes, even in the classroom. To celebrate World Poetry Day, why not read a few poems?

Introduction to Poetry – Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light

like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

walk inside the poem’s room

and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means.

 

I love Billy Collins. I am also partial to T.S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins, W. H. Auden

Who are your favourite poets? Favourite poems?

40 Things I Want To Tell You – Alice Kuipers

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Amy, or Bird as she is called by those nearest and dearest, is a list maker. She’s super organized and has her future planned down to the last detail.

Read chapter for History

Essay for English.

Start “Top Tips” Section

Tidy room and pack bag for school tomorrow

Bird is 16 and lives with her mother and father in a London suburb. From her bedroom window, she can look over into Griffin’s bedroom window. Bird and Griffin have been best friends since they were kids and Griffin and his family moved into the house next door. Recently, though, their relationship has morphed into something more romantic.

Bird seems to have it all together – so together, in fact, that she runs an advice column on a website. There are cracks though: in her relationship with Griffin, in her parents’ marriage, in her own life.  And Bird is about to learn that the best laid plans… Meet Pete Loewen.

I raised my gaze to see a guy lounging against the open doorway. I couldn’t help but notice that he was really hot. …He was older than us. He wore jeans and a black shirt with the words Born to Diescrawled over it. His sandy blond hair hung slightly long, like he hadn’t got round to cutting it, and he had stubble on his jaw line. he managed to look like he didn’t care about his appearance at all, and yet he was one of the – No, he was the most gorgeous man who’d ever walked into our school.

40 Things I Want To Tell You worked on many levels. Bird is engaging and intelligent. Pete is mysterious and, well, hot. When Bird’s world starts to careen off course, her problems are realistic and relate-able.

But one thing about this book did not work for me and that was the relationship between Bird and Pete. It’s not that I didn’t buy their instant attraction. It’s not that I didn’t buy where that attraction led them (*use your imagination*). It’s just that nothing about Pete’s story is fleshed out. There are all sorts of rumours swirling around about him, but we’re not privy to any of his back-story,  and neither is  Bird. It makes it hard to care for him, especially because he acts like a jerk to her.  And then he doesn’t. Then Bird acts like a jerk. But the problem is, I couldn’t ever root for them to be together – although perhaps I wasn’t supposed to.

That said – I gobbled up 40 Things I Want To Tell You pretty quickly and I will happily add it to my class library. I am sure my female students will love it.

What should I read next?

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Trying to figure out what I should read next is never a problem for me; as you already know I have a massive tbr pile. If I don’t have a bookclub book I need to get to, I generally just peruse my shelves until I find something that strikes my fancy. What am I in the mood for? I am trying not to buy anymore books these days – but then this weekend I went ahead and purchased  40 Things I Want To Tell You by Alice Kuipers (review coming up), Divergent by Veronica Roth and The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livsey. These are all young adult titles, a genre I am trying to read a lot more of so I can recommend books to my students.

I’ve been stockpiling books for so long (library book sales, second-hand book stores, Bookcloseouts, Scholastic flyer, Indigo) that I can’t really remember what it’s like to finish a book and have to make a trek to the bookstore to purchase a new one. When I hear about new titles that appeal to me, I just add them to my tbr list – which I keep in a little notebook and try to remember to take with me when I know I am going to be somewhere with books.

What should I read next is a site that claims to be able to help you choose, well, what you should read next. I haven’t tried it out myself, obviously.

I’d love to hear how you decide what book you should read next after you close the cover (or turn off your eReader) of your current read.

 

The Death of Jayson Porter – Jaime Adoff

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The Death of Jayson Porteris a book that took me way outside of my comfort zone. I don’t mean my reading comfort zone, I mean my human comfort zone. This is a YA novel that packs a significant punch.

Sixteen-year-old Jayson lives with his drug and alcohol addicted mother, Lizzie, in a high rise slum called Sunny Gardens in Bandon, Florida.

Sunny Gardens. The last stop for single moms and their messed-up kids. The last stop before the streets. Sunny Gardens, where the elevators are always broke – but not as broke as the people living here. Where crack is bought and sold like they trade stocks on Wall Street. Shootin’ with needles and guns while I’m tryin’ to do my homework. Babies cryin’ ’cause they hungry.

Jayson takes the reader through hot, hopeless days while he tries to balance school, work and a mother who abuses him physically and emotionally. His father is long gone, although Jayson does visit him a couple times.His life is complicated further by the fact that his mother is white and his father is black, so he isn’t really a part of either world. Jayson is one of those kids you root for, but you also wonder how he’s ever going to survive.

He wonders, too.  In fact, he often contemplates jumping from the railing of his apartment building, imagines what it would be like to be “a bullet screaming to the ground.”

Here’s the bit that was out of my comfort zone. I don’t have any real experience with ‘project’ living. I don’t know any crack addicts or hookers. As a mother, I can’t imagine beating my kids the way Jayson’s mother beats him. And even though I understand that this is fiction, I also know that there are kids out there who live like this. So, the book touched a nerve.

Adoff captures Jayson’s fear and misery. The writing is immediate and unembellished, sometimes even reading like poetry.  There is very little in Jayson’s life that is joyful, but finally and thankfully, there is hope.

Encouraging reluctant readers

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As a high school English teacher I believe one of my primary functions is to be a reading cheerleader. Yes, I have other classroom jobs, but the thing I am most passionate about is trying to turn my students on to the pleasures of reading (and writing). I often feel that we approach reading all wrong in the classroom. We read one book, dissect it, give students tests that ask them to recall stupid details and then get them to write an essay – often five paragraphs (don’t even get me started on that!) Where is the pleasure, the joy, then?

If a student is already an avid reader, they are probably more willing to tackle some of the decidedly dry texts found on the curriculum – which, I am shocked to report, are the SAME books I read in high school over 30 years ago! Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t read books together and talk and write about them, but I’m not sure that if that’s the only reading students do they are going to walk out of high school with a passion for reading.

This is something I think about every day. I work hard to talk about books, read out loud to my students, give them chunks of time to read for pleasure – without any strings attached – and put books directly in their hands. Today in class we’re going to do ‘Book Speed Dating.” Sell your book in 90 seconds. I dunno, maybe it won’t work – but it will be fun to try.

Here are Seven Ways to Encourage Reluctant Readers

Until It’s Over – Nicci French

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I can honestly say I’ve been a Nicci French (husband and wife team, Sean French and Nicci Gerrard) for over a decade, but I may have to quit them after reading Until It’s Over.

Astrid Bell is in her early 20s and works as a bike messenger in London. She lives in a huge house with university pals Pippa and her former boyfriend (and owner of the house) Miles. They share the space with Mick, Dario, Davy and Owen. They’re a family, in a sense.

Until It’s Over opens with an accident. Astrid is riding home from work and is almost at her house when someone opens their car door and Astrid goes flying off her bike. The woman in the car is a neighbour and she’s mortified at the accident she’s caused. Astrid is unhurt except for minor cuts and bruises. But later, the woman turns up dead. And hers is just the first murder connected to Astrid Bell.

Until It’s Over is supposed to be a mystery. About two thirds of the way through, though, the narration changes. Instead of following Astrid’s first person narration, we suddenly find ourselves in the killer’s head. I guess this was so we could understand their motivation. Um. The killer is Crazy.

Nicci French is usually such a dependable author -books that are  page turning, psychologically complex and fun. Until It’s Over was none of those things. I didn’t believe in (or care about) any of the characters. It wasn’t suspenseful. I often felt myself shaking my head in disbelief at the way characters interacted each other in a sort of oh please way.

I think if you’ve never read Nicci French – you absolutely should. But don’t read this. Read Killing Me Softly (which remains my favourite) or The Safe House.