For Educators WoW! 2009
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Dear Educators, Below you will find curriculum guides for many of the WOW! books from the past few years. We hope these guides will help you make connections between your classroom content and the WOW! Conference. The guides provide suggested activities and writing prompts and may be useful for reading, composition, literature, or creative writing classes at both the post-secondary and high school level. Please feel free to make copies of any of the materials, but if you adapt or use the guides we ask that you attribute the materials or ideas to the appropriate guide contributor in your course materials or handouts. Many thanks to the Skyline College faculty members who have created these guides. Happy Lesson Planning!
Georgia Gero, WOW! Conference Coordinator
2008 and 2009
Samba Dreamers
by Kathleen De
Azevedo (Workshop Facilitator)
2008
The Five-Forty Five
to Cannes
by Tess Uriza Holthe
(Book Talk Panelist)
Imagine Your Way
Home with Olive
by Olive Hackett-Shaughnessy
2007
House of
Thieves by Kaui Hart Hemmings
(Book Talk Panelist)
“I Stand Here Ironing”
by Tillie Olsen (short story) Poetry Slam/Spoken Word (WOW! Poetry Slam) Contributor: Georgia Gero This year’s WOW! Conference includes a poetry slam emceed by slam poet, Meliza Banales. The following curriculum guide offers some suggested activities to encourage students to write poetry for and participate in slams, as well as activities and readings for incorporating a study of spoken word into a classroom study of poetry. The readings, activities, and writing prompts below can be adapted for the high school and college classroom (both pre-transfer and transfer level reading and literature classes). We hope these activities will help you encourage your students to compete in the WOW! Poetry Slam during the afternoon session of the conference. Remember, competitors have only three minutes in each round – so encourage students to write work that will adhere to the time limit. Students with a mind to compete should also practice and time their performances. Recommended Readings Say It With Your Whole Mouth, Meliza Banales The Spoken Word Revolution Redux, Mark Eleveld, Editor (includes CD) The following essays in Spoken Word Revolution Redux are of particular interest: The Revolution Will Be, Guy Le Charles Gonzales Read By The Author: Some Notes on Poetry in Performance, Henry Taylor Answering Carol: An Open Letter From the Margin, Jack McCarthy I recommend creating a packet of poetry that includes works by selected classic, Beat, postmodern, and slam poets. Videos/DVDs Poetry in Motion. Ron Mann, Director. Starring: Allen Ginsberg, Charles Bukowski. 1982. Russel Simmons: Def Poetry (Season 4). Stan Lathan, Director. Starring: Mos Def, Kanye West. 2005. Slammin’. Paul Devlin, Director. Starring: Bob Holman, Evert Eden. 1995. Slam Nation. Paul Devlin, Director. Starring: Saul Williams, muMs da Schemer. 1998. Documentary on the 1996 National Poetry Slam. Note: Slam performances often include off-color language and radical ideas. You may wish to preview these videos to see if they are suitable for your classroom. Online Resources Type in “poetry slam” in the search box and a variety of video slams will list. Utilizing youtube.com can be an effective way for students to view a variety of slammers and performances. Official website of the National Poetry Slam. http://www.myspace.com/melizabanales WOW! Poetry slam emcee and National Poetry Slam winner. Includes audio. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4608329 Audio and text of “Totally, Like Whatever” by Taylor Mali, English teacher and National Poetry Slam winner. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9956461 Audio of a slam performance by Christa Bell which critiques Hip Hop’s representation of women. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/poetry/ Lesson plans. http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/teenreading/trw/trw2003/TheNPoetrySheet2ndversion.pdf Lesson plans. http://www.daniland.com/slam/about.html Information on the Berkeley Poetry Slam and slams in general. http://mpoole2.home.mindspring.com/Pages/Open%20Mike%20Directory.html Listings of open mic, spoken word, & poetry slam events. Pre-Reading and Writing Activities (Schema Activation)
In the top circle of the diagram, list characteristics specific to spoken word. In the bottom circle, list characteristics specific to traditional or typographic poetry. In the center where the circles overlap, list characteristics which are shared by both spoken word and traditional poetry. As the study of spoken word and traditional or typographic poetry continues in the classroom, students can revise their Venn diagrams. Field Research Require students to research venues for poetry slams and traditional poetry readings online and attend both a slam and a traditional poetry reading. If a slam is not available, students could attend an open mic or spoken word event. Students can then write a literary review of each and/or share their impressions in class discussion or on a class blog. Creative Writing Prompts and Activities
Read E.E. Cumming’s poem, put off your faces, death: for day is over, aloud to class. Read aloud or play Patricia Barber’s Love, put on your faces (both a print and audio version is available of Barber’s poem in Spoken Word Revolution, Redux). Students examine the texts of each and identify what’s changed from the original to the adapted version. How did Barber adapt and transform Cummings’ poem into a spoken word poem? (See Appendix A for both texts.)
A. Write a phrase, such as “a bowl of blueberries” on the chalkboard and facilitate students in expanding the basic phrase into a fleshed-out descriptive phrase. Ex: a bowl of plump, juicy blueberries sitting in a bright red, ceramic bowl on a hot summer’s day B. Ask students to write as descriptive a phrase as possible about any concrete object on a piece of paper. Students then fold the paper in half so the phrase cannot be seen and pass it three times to the left. Caution students not to open the paper or read the phrase at this time. C. Facilitate a whole-class brainstorm of abstract concepts, such as love, hate, poverty, gravity, family, education, recklessness, responsibility, etc. Create a very short list of concepts on the board. Ask students to generate their own list. Students then select an abstract concept and write it on the outside of the paper they have in front of them followed by “is” (ex.: Love is). Students then pass their paper again three times to the left but once again, without reading the phrase written on the inside of the paper. D. Ask students one at a time to read the outside of the paper followed immediately by the inside descriptive phrase.
Ex: Love is a bowl of plump, juicy blueberries sitting in a bright red, ceramic bowl on a hot summer’s day E. Facilitate a class discussion on the metaphors created in this exercise. Some suggested questions are: · What is your immediate gut reaction to the metaphor? · What emotions does the metaphor evoke and why? · What does the metaphor mean? How do you interpret it? · Why do some of the metaphors work and others don’t? · Which metaphors surprise you? Why? Encourage discussion of contrary interpretations and watch for fresh, unexpected metaphors. Students can follow through on the metaphor game by writing a poem which uses any one of the metaphors generated during class time.
A decalogue is a list of ten items (or principles) on a related theme and serves as a proclamation or declaration. A decalogue lends itself well to spoken word poetry. To begin, students select a title for their list then create a list of items that work with the title. Encourage students to be as detailed and creative with their titles and list items as possible. Once the title and list are created, students can revise their decologue into a spoken word poem – a manifesto to perform before their fellow students. Students share their decalogue poem in small groups, and each group then selects one poem/poet to compete in a classroom slam. Sample decalogue titles:
corner’s food before I delivered it to his table and why I would spit into it again.
Students select a traditional poem written for the page. Utilizing the conventions of spoken word and poetry slams, each student adapts their chosen poem for competition in a slam. Provide classroom time for a slam in which students perform their creative steals. Following are two discussion or essay prompts related to the Creative Steal: A. Students explore the differences and similarities between the traditional poem and the version adapted for spoken word. Are the differences and similarities significant? Why/Why not? What general conclusions can students arrive at by analyzing each? B. Students analyze the poem they stole, comparing and contrasting it to the poem they wrote in order to explore either poem more deeply and analytically. Some areas to analyze include: · Use of images (words that appeal to the senses: sight, smell, touch, taste, sound) · Use of metaphors and similes · Symbolism (representation of something abstract by something concrete) · Allusions (indirect references to somebody or something) · Setting and Situations (what happens and where) · Irony (saying one thing and meaning another) · Diction (word choices) Research Projects
Other Writing and/or Discussion Prompts
Appendix A put off your faces, Death: for day is over E.E. Cummings put off your faces, Death: for day is over land such a day as must remember he who watched unhands describe what mimicry. with angry seasalt and indignant clover marrying to themselves Life’s animals! but not quite darkness shall outmarch forever – and i perceive, within transparent walls how several smoothly gesturing stars are clever to persuade even silence: therefore wonder opens a gate; the prisoner dawn embraces hugely some few most rare perfectly dear (and worlds whirl beyond worlds: immortal yonder collidingly absorbs eternal near) day being come, Love, put on your faces. Love, put on your faces (excerpt) Patricia Barber Adapted from Cummings put off your faces, Death for day is over not even darkness will outmarch you forever several smoothly gesturing stars clever to persuade even silence wonder opens a gate the prisoner dawn embraces some few most rare day being come Love, put on your faces Samba Dreamers by Kathleen De Azevedo (novel) Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2006. Contributor: Hilda Fernandez Synopsis The Brazil of the imagination is shattered in this novel of two tortured souls wrestling with the myths of movies, politics, and the American Dream. Laced with fantastic tales of bird-boys and cannibal rituals, it spins a compelling story of desperation as it reminds us that American freedom and the myth of unbridled opportunity can also consume and destroy. What course(s) or learning communities do you think the book works with and why? Integrated reading-writing course one level below first-year comp or transfer level Composition course below the first-year comp or transfer level (with literary analysis scaffolding) First-year and second-year composition (Writing about Literature) Would you recommend using the entire text or specific portions of the text? Recommend reading the text in its entirety. Pre-Reading (Schema Activation) Activity
Madras on Rainy Days by Samina Ali (novel) 2004, Picador, New York, NY Contributor: Jennifer Mair Synopsis Madras on Rainy Days explores the dilemma confronting Layla, a first-generation Indian-American Muslim. As a dutiful Muslim daughter and an independent young American, Layla is torn between clashing identities. Reluctantly agreeing to her parents’ wish for her to leave America and submit to an arranged marriage, Layla enters into the closed world of tradition and ritual as the wedding preparations get under way in Hyderabad. Set against a background of rising Hindu-Muslim violence, and taboo questions of sexuality, Samina Ali presents the complexities of life behind the chador, and the story of a marriage where no one is what they seem. What course(s) or learning communities do you think the book works with and why? Women’s Studies – This book addresses some core issues of womanhood, including male domination and privilege, role/gender expectations, sexual coming of age, unwanted pregnancy and access to health care, generational differences in gender roles, cultural and religious influences on gender roles. The author also provides detailed descriptions of traditional arranged marriage rites and ceremonies as practiced by the Muslim community in India. Men’s roles of privilege are contrasted against limited roles available to women in traditional culture. Cultural Studies – This book is a fictional first person account of a young woman coming of age partially in a conservative Muslim community in India and partially in the comparative freedom of the culture of the United States. The cultural comparisons of gender roles, expectations, and activities available to young women and men are drastic, as are the differences in cultural values and how those values are allowed expression in each culture. Cultural comparisons also include differences between Hindu and Muslim communities in India, and cover issues of gender, sexuality, medical care, freedom of expression, traditions of marriage and family, and violence. Cultural identification and cultural invasion are also central themes. The author provides detailed descriptions of traditional arranged marriage rites and ceremonies as practiced by the Muslim community in India. Literature – See above. Also rich use of symbolism, irony, and foreshadowing. With the appropriate scaffolding, this text could also be used in a reading course one level below the transfer level. Would you recommend using the entire text or specific portions? I would recommend using the entire text. I cannot determine a specific portion that could be used in and of itself. Pre-Reading/Schema Activation
Discussion and Writing Prompts 1. p. 187 “Marium,” she said, using my mother’s name, which no one used anymore. Like me, she was a bevi, wife, bhabhi, sister-in-law, then also apa, sister, amme, and even sauken, the other woman. Defined, as most women were here, by how she was related to others. Indeed, a woman could not be on her own, her dependency constructed even in language.
2. How is India changing according to the older generations of characters? According to the younger generation of characters? What cultural changes do you see in your own culture? Do older/younger members of your culture talk about cultural changes? What specifically? 3. p. 153 “She handed me Sameer’s prayer cap with its delicate embroidery, and I set it on my husband’s head, and, in this way, she passed on to me what she had, till then, considered her responsibilities. She freed herself of her son.”
The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes by Tess Uriza Holthe (novel) Crown Publishers ISBN: 978-0-307-35185-2 Contributor: Kathleen Feinblum Synopsis The Five-Forty-Five to Cannes is a group of connected short stories which revolve around the murder of Chazz, a schizophrenic drug-addicted American millionaire who is killed near the Cannes train station. Chazz is estranged from his French wife Claudette and has bought a mansion in Cannes. An old Jewish woman, coming upon the murder scene, thinks about her own estranged son, Laurent, who has married a Brazilian socialite and who later buys the mansion that belonged to Chazz before his death. It becomes gradually implied that GianCarlo, a gypsy and petty criminal, is guilty of the murder. Gian Carlo is a haunted man, though. He follows a group of rich Americans to Pamplona, but a bullfight nauseates him. At a restaurant, he becomes paranoid that people despise him and tips over the table with food. The book then branches off into stories of individuals. The purpose, as I see it, is to parallel emotional lives of the main characters with those who live in the general area of Cannes. In one story, Sophie, a photographer on assignment to photograph a famous chef, has just lost her mother and sister in an auto accident, and falls in love for the chef’s married brother. In another story, three lacemakers married to the same man, are widowed, and upon his death are supposed to create lace panels for a new museum. However, the women abandon the project to follow their individual desires. One of the wives burns down the house which contains the finished lace, but the other widows divert the fire truckers so all traces of their lace making are destroyed. In another story, a ferry driver ex-convict befriends a boy who claims to be his grandson but becomes victimized by a plot to kidnap the boy. The book comes to a full circle in the last chapters. The gypsy GianCarlo comes home and is confronted by an angry mob from his own Romany community because they have gotten harassed and accused of murdering Chazz, the American. Claudette, Chazz’s girlfriend, comes back to Cannes to the mansion belonging to Laurent, who was her lover before Chazz. She feels pangs of regret and abandonment. What course(s) or learning communities do you think the book works with and why? Five-Forty-Five could be taught in an English course one level above the transfer level (second-year composition, Writing About Literature), probably in an honors class. I would recommend this book with reservation. Much of it deals with the relationship between the wealthy people in Europe and the encroaching underclass. Though the wealthy are victimized by to those in poverty and vice versa, the milieu is pretty far away from the schema of most of our students. The book does have good material in which to discuss the differences, resentments and conflicts between social classes. Instructors would probably need to “fill in” the social dilemma faced by Europe’s Romany people. Pre-Reading/Schema Activation 1. What might be some emotional issues faced by one who moves to a country where he or she knows the culture from the outside, but not the inside? 2. Have you ever felt resentment for one who is wealthier than you? What are some of the assumptions you have made and where do these assumptions come from? 3. What are some of the assumptions foreigners make of Americans? What are assumptions Americans have of Europeans? 4. Why is it difficult for those in the underclass to “get back on track” after living a life of crime? Discussion Questions/Journal Prompts 1. Do you feel the author is sympathetic to Chazz and his emotional problems? Why or why not? 2. Why do troubled people sometimes want to go far away to an environment completely different from where they live? What might they hope will happen? 3. Are the various criminal characters sympathetic? How does their portrayal as “foreigners” differ from the portrayal of the Americans as “foreigners?” 4. Why would the author choose Cannes as the unifying setting, as opposed to another city? 5. Do the women in the stories have unifying strengths or weakness? What makes them different? 6. Do you believe Claudette’s regret in the end of the book? Why or why not? Essay Prompts 1. What are some of the issues society faces when there is a big gap between the very wealthy and very disenfranchised? 2. As the “borders” between nations dissolve in our new age of globalization, how might this become a problem, especially in areas like Europe where tradition is highly valued? 3. How has American tourism developed over the years? Does tourism threaten the culture being visited? What are some assumptions that American tourists might have about Europe (or other nations)? Do tourists – even well intentioned ones – “consume” a culture? Are there ways of being a good tourist? Research Project Research the history/issues regarding the Romany in Europe. Why have they remained in the underclass for so long? As more immigrants settle in Europe (Middle Eastern, African, former Soviet bloc nations), do you think this will change how Europeans look at the Romany? How do you think Europe’s past experience with the Romany will affect how Europeans look at new immigrants? Imagine Your Way Home with Olive by Olive Hackett-Shaughnessy (CD) 2006. Hackett-Shaughnessy Contributor: Georgia Gero gerocheng@smccd.edu Synopsis In this CD, Olive Hackett-Shaughnessy, a storyteller, curriculum consultant and writer in San Francisco where she has been an artist-in residence in public and private schools for twenty years, retells seven stories from the oral, folk and fairytale tradition. What course(s) or learning communities do you think the CD works with and why? The CD is ancillary material to a unit in which students analyze fairytales as conveyers of cultural messages. Although this material is easily adapted to a transfer-level composition and/or literature course, it lends itself particularly well for use in a reading course or an IWR course and when focused primarily on a gender analysis, a WIT English 100 course. Use of both written and oral versions of the fairytales lulls students into a comfort zone from which they then venture into unknown territory, as typically, they have not looked at these tales from a socio-cultural perspective. For reading and IRW courses, I would stress the similar elements in the taped and print versions, as well as the strategies students must utilize to be both an active listener and reader. Would you recommend using the entire text or specific portions? Although there is value and enjoyment in all the tales on this CD, Mother Holle, The Queen Bee and The Seven Ravens lend themselves best to a critical analysis and print versions of these tales from the Brothers Grimm are readily available. Readings The following readings are essential to help students analyze the tales: Bettelheim, Bruno. (1989.) The uses of enchantment: The meaning and importance of fairytales. New York: Vintage Books. Patterson-Neubert, Amy. (2003.) Experts say fairy tales not so happy ever after. Purdue News. http://www.purdeu.edu/UNS/html4ever/03111.Grauerholz.tales.html Download 8.2/2005 A useful reading, but optional if pressed for time: Thompson, Sith. (2005.) Universality of the Folktale. In Behrens & Rosens (Eds.), Writing and reading across the curriculum. New York: Longman Pearson. For print versions of the tales: The Complete Grimm’s Fairytales. (1944.) New York: Pantheon Books. Classic Fairytales. (1974.) Iona and Peter Opie. New York: Oxford University Press. Students may select a print version of any of the fairytales below. I suggest sorting students into fairytale groups; some students will have to make compromises on their selections, but this will then allow them to analyze the tales collaboratively. From The Complete Grimm’s Fairytales Little Snow White Cinderella (Ashenputtel) Rumpelstiltskin Rapunzel Death’s Messengers The Seven Ravens Mother Holle The Queen Bee Hansel and Gretel From Classic Fairytales: Beauty & the Beast Sleeping Beauty Jack and the Beanstalk Pre-Reading/Schema Activation Invite students to write on a large sheet of butcher paper the names of their favorite fairytales. Have students respond briefly in writing and then afterwards in class discussion to the following prompts:
Reading and Discussion Assignments and Activities 1. Assign a print version of either Mother Holle, The Queen Bee, or The Seven Ravens. After reading, listen to the tale in class. Discuss theme, plot, characters, the genre conventions of the fairytale and students’ general responses to the tale. 2. Assign Bettelheim reading. A dense reading, this text provides an excellent opportunity to discuss strategies for difficult readings. Students will need help in arriving at the main message of the text and will need to work with the vocabulary. 3. Assign Patterson-Neubert reading. Discuss. 4. Reread or re-listen to the first tale discussed. Guide the class through an analysis of the tale using questions based on the Bettelheim and Neubert readings (see Questions for Analyzing a Fairytale below). Later, students will use these same questions to analyze their tales in groups. 5. Students select their own fairytale groups, and working in groups, analyze the tales. This analysis can lead to either a group presentation and/or essay. Questions for Analyzing a Fairytale 1. What psychological problem or emotional issue does your tale deal with? How do you know? (Support your answer with the text.) 2. What message does the tale send about that problem or issue? 3. What aspects of the tale support this interpretation? (Support from the text.) 4. Does the tale stereotype? Who? How? (Support from the text.) 5. What other messages does your tale send? In what ways are those messages positive? Negative? (Support from the text.) 6. How does your tale portray gender roles? What do the women in the story do? How do they achieve success? Love? Happiness? (Support from the text.) 7. What do the men in the story do? How do they achieve success? Love? Happiness? (Support from the text.) 8. Do you believe the story portrays gender roles positively or negatively? Why? (Support from the text.) 9. Does the analysis of this tale change your previous perspective on this tale or on fairytales in general? Why? Essay Prompts 1. What psychological problem(s) does your chosen fairytale help readers or listeners deal with and in what ways? 2. What messages does your chosen fairytale deliver and are those messages positive, negative, a mixture? (Think in terms of stereotypes, class, values.) 3. Analyze your fairytale for how it portrays gender roles. What messages does your fairytale send about how women or men should behave? Do you believe the fairytale’s message about gender roles is positive, negative, a mixture? Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman (novel) 2006. Doubleday. 0385515308 Contributor: Erika Dyquisto dyquistoe@smccd.edu
Synopsis
What course(s) or
learning communities do you think the book works with and why?
The cultural icon
and stereotype of the stepmother.
Would you
recommend using the entire text or specific portions?
Pre-Reading/Schema Activation
Vocabulary
Mapping of Events
in/on Central Park Discussion Questions
Have students use the Questioning Circles or Questioning Levels to come up with their own questions for group/class discussion. Show how those can be turned into theses for papers. Journal Prompts
Writing Prompts
Additional Readings (when love and forgiveness is a theme in a literature class)Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, Paula by Isabelle Allende Questioning Circles Questioning Circles is a teaching strategy (Christenbury 1994) that provides a structured framework for developing questions about a text. The strategy helps teachers to devise questions that are interesting and engaging to students; it helps students to think more critically about a text and to see how the text connects personally to their own lives. The questioning circle consists of three overlapping areas of knowledge that expert readers bring to bear when reading: Knowledge of the text being read Text Personal response to the text Reader Knowledge of the world and other texts World As the following diagram shows, the three areas overlap and create a central dense area. The dense centre represents the highest-order thinking about a text. Students need to inquire into and reflect upon these complex questions. . Although teachers may frame the questions, a more powerful strategy is to encourage students to work collaboratively to devise questions using the framework. Introduce students to the idea that the question is the answer i.e. in thinking carefully about framing a question, the answer to the question is explored. The following questions are based on the poem ‘Domestic Quarrel’ Domestic Quarrel The walls of the house are paper thin. Lying awake in the pit of the night He hears his parents arguing, And lights a candle stealthily. The world’s two halves are closing in A sounding shell; the voices flicker, Knives that violate the night. He lies imprisoned inside a whale, His blind eyes trace its arching ribs. The dark beats down. Somewhere, offstage, ripples of distant thunder. The windows frames momentary bleached photographs Cold as a moon landscape. He blows the candle out and waits For sleep or the consummation of rain On the tin roof, the tides of drowning sound. S McInerney Text Why can the boy hear everything that his parents say? Why are the window frames “momentary bleached photographs”? Text/Reader Have you ever felt imprisoned like the boy in the poem? Do you sympathize with the boy in the poem? Reader How do you feel when members of your family quarrel? Reader/World How are your views about parents influenced by the experiences of your friends? World What are some of the causes of family disputes? Do you think that quarrels occur in all families from time to time? World/Text Do you think that the boy’s experience of lying awake at night listening to his parents quarrel is a common one in Australian society? What is the poet’s attitude to domestic quarrels? Dense Questions:How do people generally react to the type of situation that this boy is in? With sympathy or disinterest? What might the poet say about the power of poetry to comment on important issues in society? For more information about Questioning Circles see: Wilhelm, J. D. (2001) Strategic Reading, Boyton-Cook/Heinemann, Portsmouth. Christenbury, L. (1994) Making the Journey: Being and Becoming a Teacher of English Language Arts, Boynton-Cook/Heinemann, Portsmouth. Downloaded from: http://wwwfp.education.tas.gov.au/english/questcirc.htm
Rose of No Man’s Land by Michelle Tea (novel) Contributor: Kathleen Feinblum Synopsis Trisha Driscoll comes from a dysfunctional family. Her mother is a reclusive hypochondriac and her mother’s boyfriend Donnie is a semi-employed “slacker”. Trisha’s sister Kristy is a cosmetology graduate from a vocational education program and works in at Jungle Unisex, a salon in the mall. Kristy gets Trisha a job at the trendy clothing store, Omigod! as a fill n for Kim Porciatti, an employee who is out because of a suicide attempt. Trisha cannot fit in with the store’s “pretentiously hip” image and is fired, but not before swiping the cell phone that belonged to Porciatti. She meets up with Rose, a misfit who works in a mall fast food restaurant. Both of them leave the mall and decide to hang out together. Kim’s phone rings and Trisha answers it, posing as Kim. The caller sounds rather sleazy. Fired up by curiosity, Rose and Trisha hitchhike a ride to Paulie’s and his father Harry Chester’s house in Revere Beach. Rose and Trisha find out that Paulie has been taking nude pictures of Kim and that he is a drug dealer. They buy crystal meth from him, and then precede on a drug, sex, and tattoo spree which results in a hot affair between Trisha and Rose. Trisha returns home to her dysfunctional family but realizes that at least she has established herself as an individual among the chaos. What course(s) or learning communities do you think the book works with? This book, a coming of age story, would work with students in English courses below the first-year or transfer level and in integrated reading-writing courses. Do you recommend using the entire text or specific portions? I’d recommend using the entire novel. There are some good stylistic passages that an instructor may want to use. Pre-Reading Prompt: Think of a time in your life where you rebelled against your family and/or society. Did you know what you were rebelling against? How did you choose to rebel? Was the outcome of your rebellion constructive? Destructive? What did you learn at the end? Questions and Journal Prompts:
House of Thieves by Kaui Hart Hemmings (novel) Publisher: Penguin Press Contributor: Linda Vogel Synopsis House of Thieves, written by Kaui Hart Hemmings, is a collection of nine short stories of bold characters in modern day Hawaii. Hemmings style is dramatic. She has a clear vision of the paradoxes within American families even when they are in so -called paradise. Her stories are told from different points of view: the frustrated teenager; jealous mother; lonely teenager; and others. The characters struggle with timeless issues of parental neglect, love, acceptance, coming of age, abandonment, and anger. "Rooted in the circumstances and situations of island people, they reveal the mundane cycle of small triumphs and tragedies that make up the lives of ordinary people everywhere. A single mother's discovery of a pornographic magazine in her thirteen-year-old son's room sends her down a spiral of jealousy that ultimately guarantees her loss of him. A middle-aged man struggles with his secret hatred for his brother…. A white man who is left by his native Hawaiian wife struggles to understand why he and his daughter, abandoned together, feel such deep resentment for each other…" The stories reflect the complexity of families today. Learning Communities or Courses: The entire book might work in the Kababayan English class, a woman’s re-entry course, first-year comp or transfer level English course, a sociology/English class learning community. A portion of the book could be used to develop various themes, such as interracial marriage, parental neglect, love, etc. Suggested activities: Compare the themes of two stories, e.g. "Island Cowboys" to "Begin with an Outline" Choose 2 stories that have an ironic/sarcastic tone and discuss specifically how the author develops ton Compare/contrast two characters, e.g., Scottie in "The Minor Wars" to Nicole in "House of Thieves" Rewrite the ending of "The Minor Wars"
“I Stand Here Ironing”
by Tillie Olsen (short story)
Synopsis
What course(s) or
learning communities do you think the essay might work with and
why? Journal and Discussion Prompts
How this reading
could be used
Using other texts, students could:
Other short stories of a similar thematic nature that could be used in tandem with Olsen’s
Poems
Novels
Television Media
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