Great Inches in Art

Inspired by Thomas Newkirk's The Art of Slow Reading, I worked with my 8th grade students on individual lines from Anne Frank's text.  In our writer's notebooks, we created short lists of self-selected lines of text that we liked or found interesting.

Lines of text could be a full sentence or two to anything clipped from within any piece of text written by Anne Frank.

The challenge was to treat one of Anne's line as a "golden line" of text, to borrow from Kelly Gallagher's Teaching Adolescent Writers.  In the past, we have extracted our own lines of texts where we explore what idea, concept, big picture, we were really writing about.  Now, we are asking ourselves what idea, concept, big picture, Anne was really writing about.

I asked the students to create a bumper sticker of the selected line of text written by Anne Frank.  With this, use imagery to help the reader see the line through your eyes.  Avoid imagery that is decoration or window dressing--find a way through imagery, color, text manipulation, to show the reader how you feel, interpret, think about the line.

In his book, Newkirk shares the anecdote about a colleague who, when reflecting on the practice of students focusing on one small piece of a novel asked, "What's next, great inches in art?"  I laugh--I'm really fond of that line.  However, I have found that by slowing down and opening up the conversation to hear, read, and see what my students hear, read, and see in the text we have found a rich and meaningful experience (in my mind) accessible to all.

 

My mentor text / bumper sticker (above) included a spelling error in the word "contradiction" that I completely missed!  An eagle-eyed student pointed it out to me.  Another told me to pass it off as an intentional contradiction. That gaffe aside, my piece includes drawn faces of many different emotions and lines of text behind them--I included many of Anne's emotional statements.  It was intended to be a reflection or study of her wide mood swings and tender temperament.

On the back, I included a reflection of the line and the imagery I chose--essentially I am trying to make connections for my readers.  I'm digging deep into why this line matters...to Anne...to me...to all of us.

I learned, through a mixed bag of final products, that some of my students struggled with the concept of using imagery, manipulated text, and color as a way to work with the text beyond just decoration.  Of course, this leads into all kinds of discussions about media and the influences we encounter everyday online, in the car, on television...everywhere.

In the mix of student work samples below,  I included five sample that I felt achieved at least some success visually.  You'll find a mixed bag regarding the reflections included on the back of each piece:

It only takes one bomb...

This bumper sticker caught my attention for the possibilities beyond the cranky scrawl of a boy for a couple of reasons--what he observed and the connections he made.  The starkness of his lettering on the front feels so appropriate for the plain, somber, message.  Furthermore, the student equates the term bomb as a potential metaphor for mistake.

(segment of student text) I choose this quote because it represents something more than a single bomb.  Any one movement, one noise, one accident or even as the quote suggests one bomb could spell doom for them all.  A movement or noise could alert (illegible) in the shop below, who would turn in the Franks to Nazi S.S. forces.

When will we be granted the privilege of fresh air...

 I found myself really pleased with the focus on the lush green nature of this bumper sticker.  It feels soft.  It looks pleasant.  And there, dominating it all, the word "privilege" looms and puts nature and fresh air into a fresh perspective.  To be fair, we had been discussing this concept (Anne and nature) and had looked at this quote as a class.

(segment of student text) This quote hit me because we don't normally think of trees and grass as a privilege.  We take advantage of things like this and its weird to think that it takes being trapped inside for 2 years for someone to realize this.

 

I firmly believe that nature brings solace to all troubles...

Here I found myself drawn to the image of the girl, alone in nature, complimented by the bold text of "believe" and "solace"...when I think of Anne, I return her longing for someone to hold onto and her profound conviction that happiness can be found through the sun, the trees, the air...finally, I love the clouds.  How often do younger students include fluffy white clouds into an outdoorsy image?  These are like puddles of eggplant, oil slicks...they move, in my mind, across the gloaming.

(segment of student text) This quote reminds me of every sunset I've ever seen.  I imagine the sliver of the oranges, yellow sun in the center surrounded by the reds and pinks that blend together until they fade into purples and black.  I am reminded of all the places that  have the best sunsets, like the beaches in the Outer Banks and the shores in Hawaii and the Chesapeake Bay.  As the memories come flooding back I remember the sense of comfort and warmth that sunsets have always given me. 

Himmelhoch jauchzend und zum tode betrubt. - Goethe

On top of the world or in the depths of despair.

 The image speaks to beauty and destruction, freedom and containment, fragility and severity.  Inside the bird, the student wrote "On top of the world." Hugging its feet, the words "or in the depths of despair seem to cling to barbed wire themselves.  Adding to the feel of the piece for the reader is the simple tone of the colors of graphite and paper along with the text written in German.  It  makes me feel uncomfortable and wary--yet, a sense of longing exists as my eye, after tracing the line of barbed wire back and forth, constantly comes back to the bird with its back to us...looking off to its right, off the page, unaware of us behind him.  Is it looking in, or out?  My gut tells me...out.

 (segment of student text)...Anne is torn between whether she's lucky or in a deathtrap.  The picture I drew "the bird on the barbed wire" symbolizes how the bird is free and on top of the world but if he takes the wrong step and isn't careful he could die.  In German "zum tode betrubt" translates into "in total silence."  Throughout Anne's diary she is conveying her sadness and longing to be free and happy once again.

What I could be if...

The manipulation of "if" strikes a melancholy chord.  I love the sunrise (or sunset?) behind and framing "if" and the fact that the long narrow lane fading into the horizon almost perfectly splits the dark and light diving the sky also seems appropriate.  The overall image makes me contemplate the line, for sure, but the combination of the sky and the word "if" asks me to dwell on the melancholy.

(segment of student text) Her usual hopelessness puts a great weight on five words that sometimes are used for trivial things, but in Anne's world she clung to a perfect place she would live in after being in hiding, that was, if she lived, if she would not be tortured, if she could make it past this traumatic experience mentally sound, but she didn't.

There is no smoke without fire...

Perhaps my favorite visually, the student looked surprised when I praised it.  A difficult task is to take a cliche such as "Where there is smoke there is fire" and create imagery with a relevant connection to the literature.  Although the image is only smoke and fire, there is something enormous, out of compass, and untenable about the message behind the image.  It elevates the line beyond the cliche and provides a slice of the horrific and shameful.  It makes me want to look at it.  It makes me think about the line of text as it pertains to Anne's situation...and then I read the student's reflection on the back.  And I am surprised again--the line comes from disagreements with Mrs. Van Daan over Anne's skirt length.  And I reflect again on the image and love it even more--the toothsome ranklings of a fourteen year-old girl!  I felt Anne's spirit when I read this student's reflection (below).

(segment of student text) In Anne's case, she is "immature" because her skirts are too short and she is too loud.  It shows you just easy it is to label someone personally wrong.  This quote connects to me because sometimes I feel the same way as Anne.  Some people see me as irresponsible because I like to have fun while doing something serious.  Its like someones personality affects on how other people see them, but then nothing happens without a reason, so sometimes I say if those people don't like me, then maybe its a sign that we weren't supposed to be friends.  Because if they do judge me without knowing me, that it isn't meant to be.

Without Any Comfort

Long pining for comfort, Anne Frank wrote on Christmas Eve of 1943, "Crying can bring relief, as long as you don't cry alone." I can't help but wonder how often each member of The Secret Annex wept alone.

Did they hear each other weeping gently in the dark?

Without the ability to comfort each other, did they just leave each other be to cry alone in a private space?

At one point Anne describes crying large round tear drops. They stained her dress with dark blotches--she sat alone in the water closet for privacy. Was this her private space?

She also wrote of a time, alone in the office, where the tears steamed down her cheeks. Long thin ribbons of anguish--a common experience among the thousands in hiding--shared with no one.

The image I chose for my poster (the small child comforting another) speaks powerfully to me because this simple act seems so inaccessible for Anne.

She turned to her diary, her writing, for comfort.

She turned to Peter.

She turned to her father.

She turned to Miep and the brief moments when Miep and the others brought books, food, or news.

Anne turned, and turned, and turned.

Alone.

Anne's words are important. They tell us that friendship and family nourish us. We really can not survive without the daily dose of close friends or the unconditional and unwavering love of family.

I'm also reminded of the fragile condition of being human, of being a part of a family, of being a friend. We need to play both roles...we need to embrace both roles.

Sometimes we lean on another and we cry.

Sometimes we have to be available so that another may find their comfort.

But always we must be aware and respectful of those relationships so none of us ever has to turn, and turn, and turn.

Without any comfort.

YA Nonfiction Review: Flesh & Blood So Cheap

Digging through the "maybe" pile sometimes brings an unknown gem.  In my case, that gem is Albert Marrin's Flesh & Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy.

My bookpile, larger than usual, has expanded due to the fact that we need to pick some new literature for the upcoming changes in curriculum.  So, I have been forcing myself to read any recommendations, award winners, and well-reviewed fiction, non-fiction, and verse in the hopes of getting it right.

The rough draft of what the new literature may be contains a variety of male and female authors along with books of varying cultures and life experiences.  However, one of my objective was to try and include some literature that directly related to the curriculum in other subject areas--we have a great opportunity to do this especially when we consider the professional and financial support of literature circles. 

I liked that Marrin's writing style will be accessible to 8th grade students--while the print is large and photos appear on most pages, the subject matter is detailed, direct, and meaningful.  The photos are terrific, by the way.  Tasteful, they certainly do contribute to a very gritty patina to an already grisly story.  As it is, we cover the Triangle Fire in our social studies curriculum, but I like that this book takes the reader deeper inside the lives and histories of the immigrants who struggled to put bread on the table while working in the garment district of New York.

As a matter of fact, the reader does not reach anything about the fire itself until page 104 out of a 163 page book.  For a thirteen year-old, the book is thorough and will support good classroom discussion and cause for writing.

Consider the final chapter where Marrin lays out in detail how the mistakes of the Triangle Fire are still being repeated around the world...and in New York City again.  For example, Marrin raises to light the ghastly conditions children suffer as workers in Bangladesh and Thailand, and then turns around and adds, if it weren't for the existence of these sweatshops the only other option might be being sold by their family as slave beggars--where children are maimed or blinded to attract the coins of tourists.  Suddenly, a sweat shop may not seem like such a bad option.

Packed with good starter history of the progressive movement, suffragists, unions, government and corruption, immigration, America as the land of opportunity, organized crime, fire safety codes, and current world affairs, I am strongly considering this book for my creative writing class literature circles.  Strongly.  It is certainly out of the maybe people.  I'm hard pressed to think of a reason why it should not be on the final "yes" list.

On a personal note, I also learned about Ruth Sergel in the book.  In 2004, Ruth began a history project of honoring the memories of the 146 workers who died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, New York's most infamous disaster before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  On every March 25th since 2004, Ruth organizes a group of volunteers to inscribe the names and ages of the victims on the sidewalks of New York City--more specifically on the sidewalks in front of what was once their homes.  I'm moved to go and take part in the event--March 25th falls on a Sunday this year.

YA Book Review: Crossing the Stones

A colleague laughed at me yesterday when I referenced Crossing the Stones by Helen Frost as beautiful...so beautiful I wanted to read it a second time just as I finished it the first time.  And I did.

Part journey, part love story Crossing the Stones (in its own way) balances Aristotle's pathos--ethos--logos.  While this novel is not a persuasive essay per se, it does stir up several topics that would serve as wonderful starters for persuasive essays in the middle school classroom.  The appeals of logic, emotion, and character stand firm and clear--no one apologizes for their thoughts or who they are--these are fictional characters built on the real emotion and reality of a volatile moment of American history.

Our nation changed not only on the surface, but also down to the core of families--families were torn apart by death and growth.  While the looming threat of death exists, this novel presents so much more than death.  True, one could argue that the death of the traditional American family plays out here as well--yet this story emerges as so much more than that.  Beauty is born out of these circumstances, and Frost takes the reader on that journey.

Written in a combination of free-verse verse and cupped-hand sonnets, Crossing the Stones is a coming-of-age novel set in 1917.  Every significant character in this novel goes on a journey of some type--some return, some do not.  All are changed by their individual journeys as well as by the journeys of loved ones around them.

Each page or so is a different poem (a vignette) told from the point-of-view of any one of five characters: Muriel, Frank, Emma, Ollie, Grace.  While this is eighteen year-old Muriel's story, all of the characters play significant roles in the plot and each connects with the reader in some way--they each have striking moments in which you can not help but like them and root for them.

The conflicts in this story are built around family and the obstacles or challenges each must overcome as they face World War I and the emerging Suffragist Movement.  As Frank and Ollie hurtle on the path to manhood (walking into the teeth of war) many at home are criticized for not blindly supporting the war.  Muriel questions it much to the dismay of her teacher--why does everyone just listen and go to war?

Muriel is the perfect vehicle to connect with her Aunt Vera marching with the other Suffragists in front of the White House in support of women's rights--which in the end is really about a woman's voice.  I really liked that Muriel wrestles with her own voice at home.  She questions her voice, yet late in the novel it is her voice which serves as a healing balm and soothes her sister back to health--almost falling to the deadly influenza outbreaks soldiers unintentionally brought home from the front.

As the reader concludes the book a note from the author brings the form together--this note moved me to reread the book immediately.  Frost explains the poetic form and offers a few insights that definitely enhanced the reading of the novel.  However, I think the book is best enjoyed naturally--just read it for enjoyment.  And then consider Frost's notes.

Crossing the Stones is beautiful--I stand by my statement no matter who laughs at me.  Any story taking the reader on a journey where families are torn apart by death and by the growth and expansion of the world echoes a line from Wallace Stevens: Death is the mother of beauty.

This I Believe

tudents are submitting essays and podcasts today to our classroom wiki for This I Believe. We will be submitting both to the This I Believe website in the hopes that some may be selected for publishing.

The following is my This I Believe essay which I wrote alongside of my students:


I believe in the two million pennies in my mother’s pocket. She conjures love and karma with them.

The secret has been that my mother reaches her hand into her pocket and shares every penny—whatever anyone needs, the pennies are theirs--and while raising me as a single mother she worked job after job after job to fight to secure every last penny she could.

We lived in the same row house in Philadelphia in which she was raised, and we shared meals, daily, with the aunts and uncles and cousins who also lived on that same street.

In fact, we shared in so many meals together with family that it was a small treat to eat some meals, just the two of us, at our modest kitchen table.

My mom stored some pennies in a petite white and blue porcelain jar on a windowsill. Standing on my toes, I used to peer inside when she wasn’t around to see how many pennies might be in there.

Working a regular job during the week and part-time jobs on some weekends didn’t leave a lot of time for herself. Instead, with that time, she chose to offer me the world on just a penny.

She took me to my first art classes at the Fleischer School of Art, reached into her pocket and offered me pastels, charcoal, colored pencils, paint, and paper—again and again and again. My enthusiasm wandered and I stopped taking the lessons...yet a love of art was born in me.

She slid a guitar out of that pocket, and acquired an instructor for me--whom I impatiently quit.

She showed me a newspaper ad for ice hockey and then poured enough from her pocket onto the counter to equip me—picking me up right after her shift at work was done twice a week, we’d drive an hour to and from Philadelphia just so I could skate for the first time.

I’d never skated before--yet she used what she had to make it happen...and patiently watched me shuffle around the ice in my equipment, leaning on my stick to keep me upright, and continued to nudge and drive me along until I could skate, could play, could compete.

Alone, I’d stand by the door each night we had hockey, already dressed in my hockey gear except for skates, gloves and helmet, and wedged myself into the passenger seat and often acted like a child—I complained that she was late, and we were going to be late.

It was a dark winter in 1979, a gas crisis crippled America—every penny counted for everyone. Yet she continued to count every last one for me and others.

Mom placed me and a cousin safely in her pocket of pennies and carried us to Disney World later that spring for nothing less than magic and love—she has been there many times since, upwards of 7 or 8 trips. While I haven’t been back with her, I like remembering that I was there with her during her first trip when she simply fell under its charming spell and has never awakened from it since.

Mom has tugged years of diapers from that pocket of two million pennies for that same Disney World cousin’s infant—single mom sharing pennies with another single mom.

Mom donates to the SPCA, to Susan G. Komen, and many other organization, yet still is happiest working for pennies. Don’t get me wrong, she’s held lucrative jobs, but she laughs and smiles answering phones one day a week at the salon my cousin works at as a stylist; she beamed this past weekend when she shared that she made fifteen dollars teaching childrens Zumba at the YMCA.

While I take great lessons from my mother’s infinite generosity and making the most out of what she has, I also take note that there is karma—just this month she has won her fourth trip from Regis & Kelly; that’s over $20,000 in trips in just over three years.

Some marvel at her luck, and some want to know her precise secret. After all, she watches the show, takes notes, enters the contest...there has to be some secret, right? Others even wonder why the show’s producers haven’t blacklisted her from ever winning another trip from them.

There is only one secret to her life--and it is also the answer to all questions: two million pennies in one pocket. The symbol of, and I’ll say it again, her infinite generosity.

$20,000 is a lot of pennies, but I know I have seen all two million of those pennies go from her pocket into the hands of others.

You’d think two million pennies in one pocket would be really heavy for her.

But they aren’t--empty pockets weigh heavier.

I refused to close my eyes

oday's writer's notebook topic was on dreams, lullabies, nightmares, spells, or magic.  We will be beginning A Midsummer Night's Dream in the coming weeks and I wanted my classes to start writing about some of the imagery, ideas, themes, and words.  My entry written side by side with my students is below:

Dreams fascinate me as does the notion that people study dreams--and study them to interpret them which then tells us something about ourselves.  You can't predetermine what you want to dream about--sometimes you can't even recall what you dream about--and there are dreams which never leave us--the dreams I had as a child have stuck with me through well over 30-35 years--one recurring dream I had as a child always rises to the top of my dreams memories: a marching band of soldiers approaches me--I couldn't see them and never did--simply stopping their feet to the slow rhythm of several bass drums--I was in a neighborhood, and no one else was outside--the band still approached, relentlessly, tirelessly--they were close, just on the other side of the hilly road I stood in the middle of--there were no cars--no traffic, so sound except the sound of feet and drum, feet and drum--the sky was blue and cloudless--all of the houses were one story tall--each house and lawn was neat and tidy and bright--the day was bright like the sunshine in an Edward Hopping painting--and yet there was nothing friendly, nothing welcoming--it was an imposing moment which I dreamed over and over and over--it frightened me--as I layed awake many nights I refused to close my eyes--and often lost--not wanting to shut my eyes for fear of standing frozen in the middle of that neighborhood street before the advance of a dull thud of a band of soliders I couldn't see.

Edward Hopper: Sunlight on Brownstones

Why I Write

y Tweet to #whyiwrite in recognition of today being National Writing Day: I write because it is an imperfect art accessible through its forgiveness of our imperfections and humanity. 

Yesterday, I gave my students the prompt Why I Write in anticipation and recognition of today being National Writing Day.  As I've learned to do through the NWP I write alongside of my students--yesterday was no exception.  The following is what I produced in my Writer's Notebook writing alongside of them:

I write for the _______  --there are so many reasons why I write that I find it difficult to place a thumbtack on one reason.  I write now, in this moment, to show you, my students that I do write, that I write alongside of you, that my writing isn't necessarily great or creative or inspirational--I write to show you that we all can struggle with it--I write because it is an imperfect art accessible through its forgiveness of our imperfections and humanity--I write for myself outside of class because it allows me to be private in public--in the moments that I write I am alone with my thoughts and I still realize others may read it--I wrote last November to grieve over the death of my beloved dog, Rain--I wrote last December to remember and celebrate the many loving uncles and aunts and grandparents I've been blessed by--I wrote Monday afternoon with my Nature Journal club to observe the outdoors, to relax and refocus myself--it can be a kind of therapy or cleansing as much as it can be a way to play and explore and create...