Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Blog

The return of the Lies Teachers Tell

Looking through my archive, I realized that I never completed the Lies ELA Teachers Tell series I started a while ago.  I wrote about the five lies we tell our students, but I had a whole list of lies we tell ourselves and each other.  Since the first series had gotten so much attention, I've decided to finish what I started.

All next week, come back here to read the 5 Lies ELA Teachers Tell Themselves (and Each Other).

In the meantime, catch up of the 5 Lies ELA Teachers Tell Their Students and some of the responses those posts got (if you know of other responses written on other blogs, please let me know.  These are the only ones I could find.)

"The Five Paragraph Essay is a good form of writing."

(I still regret writing that the five paragraph form could make good scaffolding.  People really latch onto the rationalization for teaching this dinosaur.  I never should have said that.  Why?  Because, teachers rarely ever take the scaffolding away.  They think that a more sophisticated form of writing will just magically appear.  If you are using something as a form of scaffolding, then you need to teach the more complex skills.  Period.  So, just skip the ugly behometh and teach the more complex skills.  I've never, ever taught the five paragraph form of writing, and my students write wonderfully.  Teach them what paragraphs really are - see below.  Teach them organization and beginnings, middles, and ends.  Then you don't need the 5 paragraph form. I retract my previous statement.  Death to the 5 Paragraph Essay!)

The 5 Paragraph Blog

"You have to learn the rules before you can break them."

"There are 5-7 sentences in a paragraph."

Are We Telling Lies?

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

"This book is VERY important to read."

(This post remains one of my favorite to this very day.  Some people's reactions were priceless.  You would have thought I killed Shakespeare and Dickens myself!)

Of Teachers and Authority

Children Need Tour Guides

People are the Curriculum

The Silver Chair in the Classroom

Lies Teachers Tell?

"Sound it out"

Finally, the Carnival

YA Lit Review: 'Uglies' by Scott Westerfield

Uglies by Scott Westerfield

available here at bn.com

Did you ever wish you could be one of them?  You know, the pretty ones.  They walk down the street with the perfect hair, the perfect skin, the perfect body, the perfect eyes ... Well, imagine a world where, when you turned sixteen, you could be one of them.  In Scott Westerfield's world, when you turn sixteen, you get an operation that makes you gorgeous - a Pretty.  Before then, you are an Ugly.  In fact, you are so ugly, you have an ugly nickname and have to live in a dorm with all the other Uglies.  The nice thing is that everyone is considered Ugly before they are sixteen.

Tally, the main character of the book, is just weeks away from her sixteenth birthday and she wants nothing more than to join her friend Peris in New Pretty Town where all the recently-made Pretties party nonstop.  (Uglyville is high school, New Pretty Town is that 'totally awesome' party school you can't wait to get into.)  Before then, though, she meets Shay who has the same birthday and who isn't quite as keen on being Pretty as Tally is; Shay is quite happy with they way she looks.  With just days away from their birthday, Shay decides to run away to The Smoke, where Uglies go to live a different life.  Tally turns down Shay's offer to come along.  On the day of her operation, Tally is taken to the Special Circumstances office and is told that unless she finds Shay and The Smoke, she won't be getting her operation.  Desperate to join in the fun, Tally makes the difficult decision to be a spy.  She finds The Smoke and a deep dark secret about her own world of Uglies and Pretties. 

After a slow start, I found myself unable to put this book down.  I finished the last 250 pages in one day.  The world Westerfield has created and the issues it brings up about our own society is intriguing.  The characters are rather complex for a piece of YA literature.  This is especially true for Tally who wipes the innocence from her eyes to find out what the world is really like.  Her story mirrors the process of becoming an enlightened adult (making an interesting connection to the Myth of the Cave).  It would be a lot easier to remain in the dark and party all the time, but once she has found out the truth she realizes that there is no going back.  Teenagers will get a lot out of this book.

This book, though, is not for the faint of heart.  It is a brick at 400 pages.  Most teenagers, except for those avid readers, may be put off by its size.  Those who delve into the book may have trouble with some advance vocabulary and the world Westerfield has created.  Those students who have trouble visualizing and comprehending realistic settings may find themselves struggling in a world that requires the reader to imagine, visualize, and go on faith.  I could see that some teenagers will fight through this struggle, especially upon hearing good reports from their classmates.

The book is like no other YA Lit book I've read and I think this will attract many readers.  It deals with real issues in the world (providing for possibly rich discussion), but at the same time deals with real teenage issues in the teenage world.  Because of its focus on beauty, I could see it as a nice lead-in novel to The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison.  What's even better is that it is the first part of a trilogy and the ending begs you to read the next part.  And, I will be doing that as soon as I can!

YA Lit Review: 'Cut' by Patricia McCormick

Cut by Patricia McCormick

available here at bn.com

This book tells the story of several girls in a residential treatment home called Sea Pines (nicknamed Sick Minds by the girls).  Some are anorexic, others overweight.  Some are drug addicts and other are cutters.  The main character, Callie, is in the last group.  Callie narrates the story as if she was talking with her counsellor. 

In the beginning of the tale, Callie is not speaking to anyone, least of all her counselor.  (This is quite reminiscent of the character in Speak.)  As the story progresses, Callie tells us a little bit about her life.  All is not well at home - her little brother has bad asthma, the mother is afraid of everything (perhaps related to her sons' sickness), and the father is distant.  We find out about how it feels to Callie to cut herself and the release it provides.  The turning point comes when Callie begins to open up more to those around her, starting with the therapist, which makes her realize that she is not alone and that everyone - even those who aren't at Sick Minds - have issues they need to deal with.  The moral of the story is that it is better to deal with and discuss your problems and face them head on, then avoid them.

The book itself is okay.  It is short, but it was not a page turner for me.  I think that perhaps teenage girls might feel differently as the girls in the story represent a wide group of teenage problems.  The reading level is do-able for most students, although underachieving readers might be a bit confused by Callie's use of second person, addressing the therapist as "you".  Teenage boys might have difficulty finding something to connect with in this story, even though the moral of this story would be relevant for them as well.  The only male characters are the brother and the father, and they play a minimal role.

The Republicans really, really want to energize their base

With the issue of gay marriage exhausted, Republicans have turned to issues in education to energize their ultra-conservative base.  Are they proposing burning down every public school?  Publicly hanging teachers?  Well, they're not that scared they're going to lose the mid-term elections.  They're just bringing out a national voucher program.  Ugh.

I love the quote in the NY Times article on the subject.  The author mentions the report that came out recently which stated that public school kids did just as well as private school kids.  What was Education Secretary Margaret Spellings reaction?  The results were "inconclusive" - which we all means, "they don't agree with our position".  You and I know that if the results came out saying the opposite, that private school kids did better, the administration would be lauding the researchers as heros.

They make me sick.

Writing lessons worth learning

Nancy at Se Hace Camino Al Andar is writing about her experiences at the Teacher College's Reading and Writing Project's Summer Writing Institute.  As usual, she has some great thoughts and has taken useful pictures of her experience.

What I commented on her blog was that the most important point I see in what she's written is the idea that we are teaching the writer, not the piece of writing.  See the post for my complete comments.

Something else that I thought about her post, but did not comment on was the relationship between what TC is probably training people on and how the NYC Department of Education mandates it be put into practice.  The keyword there is 'mandate' - which goes completely against the main philosophy behind the TC approach.  Since I'm not in the training, I can't say if there is a big discrepancy, but I'd put big money on there being one.

YA Lit Review: 'Peter' by Kate Walker

Peter by Kate Walker

available here at bn.com

Peter Dawson is a 15-year-old Australian boy who lives with his mother and older brother and who is an avid motorbike rider.  After hanging out with his brother's friend David, who is gay, Peter begins to question his own sexuality.  His experience with girls is minimal and he feels himself magically drawn to the 20-year-old David.  The book tells the story of Peter's struggle to identify himself in a community that likes its men to be men.

I heard about this book several years ago, but never picked it up until now.  I'm on a crusade to read as much YA literature as I can this summer.  When I saw this book on the shelf, I picked it up right away and it was difficult to put down.  Walker manages to accurately portray the struggles of a teenage boy dealing with his sexuality without demeaning the topic by resorting to stereotypes.  Many parts of the book are very tender, and at the same time, there are many parts which are quite humorous.  In one case, Peter's sex-obsessed friend Tony tries to hook Peter up:

   "I put in a good word for ya, OK?  I told her you fancied her."
   "Bloody hell! What'd you do that for?"
   "To get a bit of action going for ya!  You won't do anything for yourself.  She likes ya!  She lies it when you wear shorts to school.  She pervs on your legs! She told me so!"
   If I'd been wearing shorts at that moment, I'd have changed out of them.
   "You should have kept your mouth shut!"
   "It worked!  She's all spiffed up.  She's wearing a dress."
   "What's that got to do with it?"
   "Everything!  It means she's itchin'!  It means all you gotta do is go down there, crack a few funnies, hand her a few lines, give her a quick feel-up, and she's yours."
   "Tony, this is your sister we're talking about."

The reading level of this book is definitely manageable for most readers.  The only aspect that might trip up underachieving students the most is that there are several Australian idioms and slang.  While the main character of this book is dealing with being gay, this book really explores how teenagers deal with sex.  The wisest advice that is given to Peter (both by his accepting brother and an anonymous counselor on a helpline) is that he shouldn't let what everyone else is doing and talking about affect what he does.  Peter goes on an exploration of himself and being true to who he is and what he wants to do.  For this reason, I think all teenagers - male, female, gay, straight - will find something beneficial from this book.

The Webcast Academy Class of 1.2

I submitted an application to be part of the Class of 1.2 of The Webcast Academy.  I'm really excited about the possibility of learning how to do a webcast and it would be great to get some of the other teacher-bloggers out there doing this, as well (hint, hint). 

Last week, during the Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast, I really saw the possibility of this technology to bring teachers together and provide FREE, VALUABLE professional development.  Too often, the really good professional development is so cost prohibitive that no individual teacher can afford it (and, in most cases, neither can a school).  With blogs, podcasts, webcasts, ELA Bookshelves, and ELA Q&A Boards, teachers could really count on each other to provide professional support and development - sort of an open source PD. 

There's another Teachers Teaching Teachers webcast on Friday, July 7th at 9 p.m.