Mid-Year Project

            Because of the holidays, 2^nd quarter always seems to fly by!  That’s why, despite that it feels we only recently chose our topics for this quarter, we need to start thinking about our midterm.  Therefore, last week I presented my idea to the class.  Rather than taking a test (impossible with nineteen individualized subjects) or writing a traditional essay about their work during the midterm block set aside for their class, the students are going to work on developing, implementing, and then reflecting on a personal project related to their reading.  As I said, we began brainstorming and completing the initial planning phases last week, so I already know, for instance, that Eric is planning to create a “Hobbit Hole,” and John-Luc is going to take contemporary photographs of local sites of historic significance and compare and contrast them to their original states.  Jess is going to paint a portrait half in the style of van Gogh and the other half in Kahlo’s style, and Mike is going to build an octagonal tree house!  I can’t wait!  The project guidelines are below.  After we finish, I’ll send an update on anything that we plan to adjust for the spring project. 

 Mid-Year Project

Due by 7:30 am on Tuesday, January 20th

            Because this is not a traditional English class, we are not going to take a traditional midterm.  Instead of coming in for a long test for which you have (hopefully!) studied ahead of time, you are going to plan for, complete, and blog about a project of your choice.  This project should be based around an interest that arose during your reading for the semester, ideally second quarter since that will be freshest in your mind.  We will spend approximately five hours of class time on this project.  The rest must be done on your own.  Everything that you do in relation to this project (research, planning, execution, and reflection) must be posted in your final blog of the semester, by 7:30 am on Tuesday, January 20^th.  Please take this blog post extra seriously, as it is the representation of a project that counts for 10% of your yearly grade.  This means that you should write an outline and an initial draft, then self-edit and additionally have someone else look it over before you post a final version for me (and any other viewers) to read. 

             

Guidelines:

There are three stages to the project:  research/planning, action, and reflection.

Between these three elements, your project will take approximately 20 hours.

Requirements:

1.      The project must justifiably relate to one of your quarter topics, ideally 2^nd quarter. 

2.      Evidence of research, planning.

3.      At least ten hours where you take action and do something.  Action must be recorded in written testimonials from other people, photographs, or videos.

4.      Reflection/Blog Post (1,000 words):  This reflection should first lay out what you set out to do and why.  Feel free to post excerpts from your planning and link in articles that relate to your topic or goals.  Next, explain not just your project but the results, the way that it affected you (or didn’t), and its connection to your reading.  You may also discuss any challenges that you faced in completing your project.

Because this assignment takes the place of your midterm, it is worth 10% of your grade for the year.  That means that if you get a zero on it, your grade will go down 10 points.  You have more than a month to complete it, including a week and a half of vacation, so please make sure that you complete it to the best of your ability.

            I hope that it will be a great experience for all of us.  I’m really looking forward to seeing what you come up with and especially for witnessing how choosing your own topics to study has affected you both personally and intellectually.  Whatever we learn from this experience, we will apply to a final spring project.

Good luck! J

            I recently finished my two latest books where childhood is a major motif: All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr and The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer.  The “children” in these books are closer to teenagers, but they initially seem as innocent as much younger children.  So, what’s my project for the quarter?  Mostly grading theirs, if I’m being honest, though weekends of overnight babysitting for my three nieces and baby nephew, all six and under, should count for something, too!

                                                                                                            Happy Holidays,

                                                                                                                                    CJF

Points of Emphasis and Inner Exploration

            While this class is designed to be both nontraditional and independent, there are some traditional values that are still important, such as knowing proper grammar.  That is an area that I am really focusing on in my comments this quarter, and I’ve also been asked students to revise their posts more often.  Though I understand that most of them are not at the stage where they can write a grammatically perfect blog, I want this to be a point of emphasis because I think it’s important in the real world, no matter what future education or job they pursue.  So hopefully anyone who is reading this is going to see that blogs are being revised and that there are fewer and fewer mistakes throughout the quarter. 

            Secondly, though most students who took this class did so because they felt their strength was more in independence than in collaboration, I do want this to feel like an environment where they can work together to improve.  Hence, I’m making it a weekly part of class for students to take a day to just read each other’s blogs and comment on them.  At times they will do this in partners, evaluating each other’s blogs and then revising them, and at times they will simply scroll through the subjects to choose entries that they want to read.  Hopefully, this will spark in person discussion outside of class.  I heard a bit of it during class today, as Sean was asking Luke some questions about a blog that he posted about a family who turned a van into a home in which to tour Asia.  Luke also revised his blog for yesterday to include a citation.  And later, I went back and read some of the comments that were left during class today, and they were very thoughtful.  So those are two things that we are going to try to push further second quarter.

This week I thought I’d showcase Eric’s blog.  He does happen to be writing about one of my favorite topics, which is self-exploration, but I also thought that his posts were thoughtful and effective when he was posting about a topic in which I had very little interest!  So here’s Eric talking about an amazing book, Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. 

Monday, December 1, 2014

Finding Inner Space

After Tolle explains in A New Earth that people must be accepting if they are to be happy, he further progresses into the process of spiritual awakening by teaching the reader how to find their inner space. In a fascinating story depicted in this section, Tolle speaks of an established monk and a disciple. He says that while the student is trying to find the inner space within him, the uncomfortable, forced effort disables him from attaining this peace. After some time, the monk asks the student calmly if he can hear the distant stream. At first, the student’s focus on Zen defers the very concentration he needs to reach this mindset. Then while focusing on the sound, the student’s current and clear mind naturally notices the little stream, exemplifying the very essence of Zen. In using this story, Tolle states that finding one’s inner space does not result from forced concentration, but from letting the concentration go.

While deliberating on the topic of inner space, Tolle says, “Whenever you let go of these patterns, you de-emphasize who you are on the level of form and who you are beyond form emerges more fully. You become less so you can become more” (Tolle 254). In order for the true Being of a person to blossom, he must let go of what he once thought was his self. This “form” that Tolle discusses about is the structure of the ego, or the believed to be “Being” of a person. In reality, a person’s self is not characterized in form, but is instead something nonphysical. Letting go of the ego, or the form, is not easily achieved, yet it allows the emergence of something spectacular; trueness.

Image by therevolutionchurch.me

In human society, the “Being” of people can be entirely misconstrued. Unfortunately, many people are entangled in the mess of distractions, barring their trueness from surfacing. There are interferences all around us and the best way to deal with these disruptions is to take them lightly. We must never forget that the true being of ourselves is comprised out of innate trueness and not of external forces. Unfortunately, the society that we live in today consists of pronounced distractions, and, sometimes, these things can detract from a person’s presence. For example, many people are intertwined in sitcom television and their careers, leaving little room for spiritual comfort. These people are practically “lost” because their life is driven by forces that only coat their true self. Additionally, they are distracted by futile things that only take away from their right to happiness. While it can be difficult to be completely present and have inner space, it is reassuring to know that the option to do so is always there.         

Posted by Eric Raimondi at 1:58 PM 

4 comments:

1.                   Topics in Literature 2014-2015December 2, 2014 at 5:31 AM

Yes, so how would you say that you are progressing with being present? The example of the stream always reminds me of Thoreau and how in the "Sounds" chapter of _Walden_, he discusses sitting in his doorway while hours go by without him noticing. In his case, it's not because he is thinking but because he is not. On another note, I tried out a new yoga program last night and began my meditation practice from that book on mindfulness that I was telling you about. I'm not sure I need to start at the beginning of the eight week program, but I'm going to anyway.

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Replies

1.                       Eric RaimondiDecember 2, 2014 at 10:30 AM

This sounds awesome!

2.                        Eric RaimondiDecember 2, 2014 at 11:05 AM

In response to your question, I find that I can sometimes lose the concept of time. In the morning while eating my breakfast, I often find myself staring out the window at the bird feeder. I lose my "identity," and I become merely an observer. I hope this answers your question.

2.                  Ben DLDecember 3, 2014 at 7:49 AM

I enjoyed reading this post very much. I too can relate to this idea of being caught up in modern distractions that I often find myself trying to be something I'm not. Our generation puts so much emphasis on being "cool" or "accepted" that we seldom find ourselves being who we truly are.

            So far this quarter, I’ve read four or five books that deal with childhood or have children as central characters.  Each have been intriguing in their own right.  Most intriguing was probably Sandor Marai’s Embers, most disturbing definitely Lianne Moriarty’s Big Little Lies!  My favorite books with childhood as a central idea will always be Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, though.  I can’t see how any others will ever beat those two out.

                                                                                                                        CJF

Second Quarter Topics

            This week the Topics in Literature students were busy researching and developing new courses of study for second quarter.  This quarter is slightly longer than first quarter was, and it spans two vacations, so most kids decided that they needed to pick out at least four books.  Many of them chose far more!  We’ll see how many they can get to.  I also decided to tweak a few things about the course.  We are upping the number of pages per week to 85 minimum before progress reports and 90 minimum after, and I am going to take a few percentage points away from each type of blog in order to have some to use in order to do spot checks of their composition notebooks.  First quarter some of the students did a great job keeping their composition book active, but others did not record much (or anything?) and went into each blog with their memories only, having to look back and find concepts and quotations to write about that night.  I want to avoid that this quarter, so I’m putting a renewed emphasis on keeping a log of reading/ideas.

Below I’ve included a list of who is studying what this quarter.  We’re all hoping for more readers/commentators!

Ben D.L. – J.R.R. Tolkien

Ben K. – Native Americans

Brayden – athletes and addiction

Chris – Beat Generation

Colten – Lee Child novels

Eric – personal philosophy

Jak – crime

Jess – Frida Kahlo

John-Luc – local history

Kelcy – mystery and crime

Lauren – memoir

Luke – alternative housing

Max – apocalyptic novels

Michaela – medical illnesses

Mike – nature

Nicolette – running

Riley – Stephen King novels

Sean – rap music

Yiannis – James Patterson novels

            All of these topics have great potential, and I’m looking forward to seeing the students excel, especially now that they are more comfortable blogging.  Personally, I think I am most intrigued by Luke’s topic, alternative housing.  I recently watched a documentary called Tiny and have found the alternative housing movement fascinating for several years.  But all of the topics are bound to teach me a lot, which, so far, is one of my favorite aspects of this class.  Some students will be reading about concepts about which I know a great deal (Eric, Nicolette, and Mike, for instance), but others will be totally new (Max’s and Jess’s).  That will make my reading rewarding even beyond the reward of seeing the students embrace literature and excel.  They begin posting next week!  As for what I’m reading, the last two books I’ve read, Matthew Dicks’ Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend and Howard Frank Mosher’s Waiting for Teddy Williams, have both focused on childhood, so maybe I’ll make that my topic.

                                                                                                                                    CJF

Oh, and here’s what the research says about all of this choice!

http://www.ohiorc.org/orc_documents/orc/adlit/inperspective/2010-03/in_perspective_2010-03.pdf

End of Quarter One

            Well, first quarter has come to an end, so we are all taking stock of what we learned and what we should do differently as we continue.  Therefore, rather than putting words in their mouths, I asked the students to write a final “blurb” about their topic and their adventure.  Some of them even included the number of pages that they read over the course of these eight weeks.  So, here they are.  Next post I’ll update everyone on students’ choices for second quarter.  Hint:  some of them are really cool! J

Ben D.-L. - For my first quarter topic, I chose to read books solely written by Michael Crichton. The majority of these books were sci-fi. While reading these books, I learned many new things. One important lesson I have learned is to never give up and keep looking for new solutions. The apparent answer may not pop-up at first, but through patience and dedication anything can be solved. I have also learned a lot about different philosophical ideas and strand points and have found myself questioning some of my beliefs. It has been a very enjoyable experience, and I look forward to more in the future. (1,350)

Ben K. - I have learned a lot about my topic of outdoor exploration. Perhaps the most important think that I have learned is that you do not need to travel very far or even spend a lot of time to explore the great outdoors. You don’t need to go somewhere that nobody has ever been. You can just explore a particular area in great detail, know where every tree and rock is. You can also just spend time in nature and explore the mechanics of how nature works. You can discover what it is like and how it works instead of mapping out new territory.

Brayden- I really enjoyed all the books I have read so far. It’s been interesting to see all the different types of things the characters/people have had to overcome. I cannot decide which book is my favorite because I have loved every book I have read. I have learned that I have a lot of the same qualities that some of the characters possess and that I can actually enjoy reading for fun. (756)

Chris- The first book I read this quarter was absolutely amazing.  It was incredibly profound, and I believe did, in fact, teach me something about happiness. Paradisio, however, was a bit disappointing. It dealt mostly with faith and divine mysteries and lacked some of the things I liked about Inferno and Purgatorio. It has been fun to finish that trilogy, but I don’t think Paradiso taught me anything, or at least nothing relating to my topic. (806)

Colten- Throughout the first quarter I studied the great visionaries of the last three centuries.  I was fascinated by the way they looked at the world and their complex plans for the future.  They were all determined to leave behind a legacy of great success and accomplishment.  I felt like the books challenged me to think about my future and where I want to be in 20 years.  Overall, I found the topic to be very interesting and would recommend it to anyone fascinated by history or the economy. (813)

Eric- Throughout this quarter I have explored the origins of good and evil. At first, I did not think Tolkien’s trilogy to be so centered around this topic, but it is. From much reading, writing, and thinking, I have come to the conclusion that good is something in its purest, most natural form. Evil, on the other hand, is an artificial creation of mankind. (839)

Jak- Reading about war has been very interesting and taught me a lot. My topic has taught me how hard it is to mentally live a normal life sometimes after war. War can be extremely mentally and emotionally scarring. I have also learned some life lessons on the way, one of which is to take more risks and have as much fun as possible in life. Just as Tim O’Brien said, “You are most alive when you are close to death.” (654)

Jess- Learning about Vincent Van Gogh has made me much more aware of art and the psychology behind it. In Vince Van Goths letters I learned about his process, love for nature, and personality, which humanized him more than any biography. I have even displayed some of Vincent’s art style in my own art as the quarter has gone by. (1028)  

John-Luc - Starting the year off with choosing a topic that I am personally hooked with really helped start off on this class. I have learned all about board culture from the origin of skateboards to surfboard-shaping techniques. By having a love for my topic I have been able to become a better reader and pick up on literary skills because I could relate to all of the authors. (700)

Kelcy-  I thoroughly enjoyed my first quarter topic of psychology because I learned so much more about Freud’s theories and the personal aspect of mental illness.  While reading Sigmund Freud Pioneer of the Mind, I learned how people around the world criticized his most famous theories about human nature and how his findings became popular after his death.  I also read Prozac Nation, which greatly described the life of a person with major depression and anxiety.  It took me along a journey of recovering and how it is possible to overcome mental illness. (1013)

 Lauren-  Reading crime books this quarter was definitely a great choice.  I found this topic to be very interesting to learn about.  New facts about crimes came up all the time while reading each book.  It really opened up my mind to what some people live like.  One main fact that I learned while reading was that he main cause of women’s deaths is when they are pregnant.  I found that to be very strange and not right at all.  Even though I didn’t get to read that many books this quarter, I am still glad I picked crime as my first topic. (815)

Luke- Learning about the Salem Witch Trials has been cool because every book I’ve read has had mostly the same characters due to it being a historic event. I’ve gotten to see multiple views of the same incident and same people, which I think just gives it more depth. People of Salem Village were crazy, and it’s shocking to think how easily people could be persuaded.

 Max- Reading dystopian novels is very interesting.  It let me look at a world not too different from the current one and see how it works.  What I learned is that not all dystopias are that far off [from the present].  Some are closer than we think; with few technological changes the world of The Circle or even Ready Player One could start to form.  I really enjoy the topic.  I’ve also learned that people and characters change a lot, which I thought I already knew.  However, seeing how drastically a character can change during its development may surprise me. (1093)

Michaela- Reading books about people discovering who they were really meant to be left me with a lot to think about.  I read three great books this quarter that I could really connect to, The Happiness Project, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, and Paper Towns.  Each of these books were unique in how they related to my topic.  I found The Five People You Meet in Heaven to be the most beneficial to me.  It opened my eyes to the power of forgiveness and to be careful how I treat others.  I am really glad I devoted my learning time to something that really helped me. (828)

Mike- This quarter I have learned a lot about a topic I had no prior knowledge in. I had always been fascinated by money and greed, and the theme came very naturally to the topic of Wall Street. I have learned far too much to talk about in a blurb, but I have also learned some life lessons. Never let greed and power get in the way of family and well-being. On the business side of things I have learned that no-one is good at everything, so find your passion and specialize in it: this will lead to your most success. Overall, I am very happy with the topic I chose and feel that the book Den of Thieves gave me everything I need to know and more.      

Nicolette- It was interesting to learn about something that hasn’t really been present in my life and something I haven’t necessarily done as drastically. In each of my books (except The Last American Man), the main person had experienced something traumatic that caused them to escape out in nature and refined themselves. Despite only exploring little trails and forests around my area as well as only swimming in the shallow waters of the Atlantic shores, I can imagine how the nature of our world helped shape or re-shape the people within the books I read and helped them region their strength and touch of inner self. (887)  

Riley- My topic for the first quarter was science fiction.  I found that science fiction is a genre like no other.  It’s unique, complex, and entertaining all at the same time.  But I found that science fiction, just like any other type of literature, can produce thought provoking themes within its narrative, which is the best part about it. (1376)

Sean- My topic taught me the relationship between all religions and things. I learned that it is important to look past differences in things, as these are illusions, and that all things exist for an equal reason.  

Yiannis- In the first quarter I read books on crime solving.  It was a very interesting topic that helped me get a better understanding of what detectives look for and how they process a crime scene.  Also, it showed the time that they invest into each and every case they look into as well as the dangers that they face while getting dangerous people out of the general public and in jail. (1419)

            This quarter I learned a lot both from the students’ topics and about their strengths and weaknesses, and I will be tweaking assignments accordingly as second quarter begins.  Overall, though, I think it was a great quarter, and I’m so excited to continue!

                                                                                                            CJF

What I'm Learning

            One of the aspects of teaching this class that originally excited me was that through asking students to learn about topics for which they had a true passion, I’d also learn about a variety of things.  Some of the topics that students have chosen for first quarter are ones that I was relatively familiar with, such as the Salem Witch Trials or dystopian novels.  However, there are many others that I realize I only have a passing knowledge of, so it’s been great to learn more.  One these subjects is art.  Though I have been to art museums all over Europe and America, my genuine knowledge of various artists and styles is minimal, but I knew that would change when I began reading Jess Castine’s blog on Vincent van Gogh.  Every week I learn not only about van Gogh as a person but much about his style and a great deal about the art world in general.  Jess is truly becoming an expert, and as you will see in the post below, she’s getting others interested as well!

Essential Question 9/26/14: What was van Gogh's process and motivation?

As I am coming to the last few pages of Letters to Theo, van Gogh's motivation is becoming more intense and his process, well, a little bit crazed. What was at the beginning a sweet, heartwarming story about a simple painter trying to make his way has taken a sharp turn into something much darker. At the point I am now reading, van Gogh has been hospitalized on and off during the year due to “overexcitement”, hacking off part of his ear, and thinking that his friends want to kill him. Although this has been a hard portion to read, I think that van Gogh's crazed, "overexcited" state has given me a lot of insight into who he is as an artist.

Van Gogh is, at his essence, a hard worker. Throughout his letters he has accounted the ways that he strives to bring light and life and beauty to the people through his artwork. He works day and night sometimes; usually his schedule is twelve hours of work and eleven of sleep with meal breaks in between if he can afford food that week. As I continue reading, van Gogh's working day goes from "I work only from nine until six..."(11) to "My money ran out on Thursday and I have lived for four days on twenty three cups of coffee, with bread for which I still owe." (393) Needless to say, his process has steadily gotten more intense and unhealthy as the book progresses. Van Gogh’s work day mostly consists of spending his money on paints instead of food and feeling like he cannot eat because he has not earned his bread by selling artwork. In general, this book is getting incredibly sad. I wish I could say it all turns out well in the end.

Upon closer look, one can see that van Gogh’s creation of art was never a cookie cutter process. One of his biggest desires was to be a master colorist, so the paints he used were often the most important part of his artwork. He thought very highly of his colors- he said that one should never use pure blue in flesh because it looks dead and woody, that the browns in leather are truly purple and red, that the mood of a person determines the colors of the portrait. The colors were certainly a big part of working for him. In one of his many paragraphs about the effect of colour, and one of my personal favorite passages, van Gogh describes his intentions behind The Night Cafe. He says “I have tried to express the terrible passions of humanity through red and green.” (383) and goes on to detail his intentions behind the placement and use of blood red, dark yellow, lemon yellow, green, orange, and violet. Van Gogh treasures his pigments as the life of his artwork, and they are by far the most important elements of his art.

For context, here are two of van Gogh's self portraits- one of his first, about ten years after he started writing to Theo, and one of his last, just a few months before he committed suicide. Note the difference in colors- the first was warm, loose, and precise, whereas the last is cold and a little harsh. Notice how he uses blue in the flesh, which as I mentioned before, he warned against because of the dead look it gives the subject.

 

Self Portrait with Dark Felt Hat. Spring 1886, Oil on Canvas, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam.

Self Portrait. September 1889, Oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

4 comments:

Topics in Literature 2014-2015September 26, 2014 at 5:14 AM

Jess,
I knew a lot of this information before I read your post today, and it is so sad. It's especially sad that often the people who give posterity so much pleasure by being unique and fascinating had such a difficult time during their own lives. I don't quite know what to think about that.
I love that you included his self portraits here. You explained the differences with the colors nicely, and I think the effect is clear. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would say the latter is more famous. Would you agree? Why do you think so?
Keep up the good work. I'm really enjoying your blog. :)
CJF

JessSeptember 30, 2014 at 3:41 AM

Ms. Fichera,
I'm glad you enjoyed the portraits, and I definitely agree that the second one is the more famous of the two. I think people like it better because it reflects Vincent's trademark style- bold strokes, exaggerated colours- and the first one is in a more traditional style like the paintings of the Renaissance. I personally think that they both show the same amount of emotion, though perhaps different kinds- the first one being somber and intellectual, the second being sort of angsty. That's just my two cents, though- in the end, it's up to the viewer to decide what each one means!

Mrs. LynchSeptember 28, 2014 at 5:36 AM

Hi, Jess.
I am glad to see that you are integrating two subjects in which you are interested: art and literature. I remember some of the artistic projects you completed in sophomore English, so this seems like a great fit!
I enjoyed reading your explanation about van Gogh's thoughts on the ways that colors represent moods. What does it say about me, that I prefer images full of blues, grays, and greens, as opposed to those full of browns and reds?!
I am also left pondering the same question Ms. Fichera posed: Why is van Gogh's latter self-portrait more popular than his earlier one? I have some thoughts about this but look forward to hearing your ideas.
Great blog post, Jess!

JessSeptember 30, 2014 at 3:46 AM

Mrs. Lynch,
Thanks for reading! I think most prefer the second one because it has a traditional 'van Gogh' look- it is done in the impressionist style, with varying textures and brighter colours than those found in real life. When the general public wants to see a painting by van Gogh, they aren't really thinking about his earlier, more traditional works, hence the latter painting's fame. The second one is my personal favorite, too, because of the colours, style, and truth to his face- judging by sketches that others have done of van Gogh, the second is more accurate to what he really looked like.

            So, that was awesome! J

In other news, I recently read Tom Rachman’s second novel, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers.  In reading it, I suffered through some of the most manipulative and downright terrible characters that I’ve ever experienced, and my heart broke for one of the others.  It was an upsetting, unsettling book, and though it kept me in suspense, I’m glad it’s over.  I’ve yet to find my next topical read, but I will post it soon.  Enjoy this warm stretch of fall!

                                                                                                                        CJF

Breakout Blog

            This week’s reading went just as well as when I reported it out last week.  Nearly everyone in the class was around 100 pages, and four students read 150 or above!  That’s really exciting, and I hope that more students start to read well beyond the page recommendations just because they are enjoying their books.  

            While all of the students seem to like reading and do great with that, not all of them are embracing the process of writing the blog.  I noticed more of a dividing line this week between people who are going through the motions with their blog (or not completing it, in a few cases) and those who are using their feedback and excelling.  One student really impressed me this week because he seemed to shift from the first group to the second.  This is John-Luc.  I opened his blog this morning and was immediately struck by the new background and how great the entire page looked.  Then I started reading, and I was even more impressed with the connections that he had made.  Instead of highlighting today’s post, though, I’m going to show the one he wrote earlier in the week.  It’s light, funny, but thorough, and it makes it really obvious why “Board Sports” is his first topic. It also made me think of my first experiences surfing, which were pretty rough.  Because I’m interested in his topic and now that he is doing such a great job with his posts, I might follow John Luc’s blog even if I wasn’t his teacher, which is pretty awesome.

            Below is the link to his blog, and you can also click on his name on the right of the page to check it out. 

http://john-lucsarkistopicsinliterature.blogspot.com/

            And here’s the first entry from this week that made me laugh, yes, but also showed me that he was getting it.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Quote Blog

“Kook means ‘beginner surfer.’  It is not a neutral term; it carries a slug of derision, a brand for the clueless, for those without hope, without grace, without rhythm” (1). The board sport world is known for its language.  Instead of sounding like chatter around the cafeteria, any event in this industry has this one tone of voice that everybody shares, and it is chalk full of new vocabulary.  Terms such as gnarly, spitted, stoked, shacked, pitted, groms, bunk, sesh, and shredded are often used all in the same sentence.  In my opinion, this is a very notable quality of the action sport industry as a whole.  Going back to the word “kook,” everybody is a kook at one point.  Similar to other sports, in surfing, kooks are often ragged on, called out, and sometimes are punished if they disrespect another surfer of higher ability.  In all honesty, it is very comparable to hazing.  The faster the kook phase passes, the better.  This is all based on natural ability for the sport, as well as a conscience for general respect.  With the term kook comes the term “kook move,” which are actions often carried out by kooks.  Examples of kook moves are dropping in on a wave that someone else is already “shredding,” getting in someone’s way on your paddle back out to the lineup (where people wait to catch the waves), and claiming every wave that rolls into the lineup.  As a novice surfer develops into a real surfer, he or she goes through their kook moments, and they stay in your mind to remind you what is right and wrong throughout your entire surfing career.

Photo: Ed O’Donnel

Like all other surfers, I have gone through some pretty humorous kook moments, moments that I would now call myself out on, openly laugh at or pick fun at the action with the guy straddled on his board the left of me.  One time out at Jenness Beach, I was getting a little board with the lameish waves rolling in to the crowded beach, and a little agitated by all of the surfers around me.  I knew of this spot from a buddy on the north point of the beach called Straws.  Straws is a reef break, meaning that the break is formed from a steep change in seafloor elevation.  So I got out there after a long 15 minute or so paddle through deep water.  Instead of a beach break most reef breaks, including Straws, have only one spot you can drop into the wave, and these kinds of drop-ins are brutally tough for a beginner surfer mainly because they require precision that only experience can get you.  It was my turn in the respected lineup; I paddled into it and got spun tail over nose as the lip of the wave brought me from its 6 foot peak to the two and a half foot deep water below, head first.  I was laughed at, actually called a kook, and I went back to the beach break.  Anyways, everybody goes through this phase, but the reward of such a technical skill such as surfing makes it worth it. 

Photo: James Kelley Photography

            I’ve had my own kook moments surfing in California with some pretty experienced guys (who were nice enough to keep trying to help me even while they laughed!), and if I were to head out there today, I’d have more.  That was one of the great things about reading this blog.  I could relate to it, so I wanted to read more.  Also, I loved John-Luc’s style and tone here.  I’m really looking forward to seeing how the rest of his blog turns out. 

            This weekend I finished a book called Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand.  The author, Helen Simonson, writes about the tension between making progress and holding on to tradition.  This manifests itself in a variety of ways, but the one that relates the most to my chosen topic is the conflict between old and new money.  That’s something that comes up in the literature of both my American and my British literature classes, though this time there was a slightly different spin.  No mystery to really be had, though, so I’m still considering my next book choice.

                                                                                                                                                CJF

Read. Then Read Some More.

When I designed this class, one of the most basic concepts that I was thinking about was that students are more motivated to study subjects of their choice than ones that we choose for them.  Obviously, they cannot always do so, nor would it be practical.  Sometimes they need introductions to ideas to even discover a concept that they would find fascinating.  However, knowing that I was offering this class to seniors made me confident that they were ready to delve into topics of their choosing, at least in one class.  I hoped that they would not only be more interested but that they would also choose to spend extra time on their work and read more than they would in a typical English class.  I decided that eighty pages a week was on the high end of reading for a senior CP class at Pentucket, so I set the bar at eighty pages a week, minimum.  Of course, I didn’t really want students to only read eighty pages a week, so I encouraged them to read as much as possible, and here are the tallies from last week. 

On topics of their choice:

                                                three students read below the minimum

six students read the minimum

                                                four students read at least 100 pages

                                                two students read at least 125 pages

                                                four students read at least 150 pages

            That means that the group was basically split between students who read the minimum or below and students who went above and beyond.  I think that could be better.  I know that last week was the first for writing two blog entries, though, so I’m encouraged that our page numbers will start going up, and genuine passion will start to be the norm.

            For my highlight this week, I chose Michaela’s blog.  I’ve enjoyed every entry of hers so far, and I especially like the topic of happiness that she’s been exploring in her first texts.  Below is her entry from last Friday, which is great, especially, in that she brings in multiple sources. 

Happy through a mixture of books and films

Gretchen Rubin’s life is turning around. She makes it a point the whole way through that nothing about her life is less than it should be. She has every reason in the world to be happy, and she is, but not as much as she could be. So far, she has made progress in her happiness project. Jaime, her husband, also points out that he can see the changes happening in her life. In order to get enough knowledge for her project, she spent time researching the topic. She came across many studies, books, and definitions. In attempts to understand this kind of lifestyle myself, I watched a documentary suggested to me. This documentary is called Happy, which streams on Netflix. This is a documentary done by Roko Belic. Roko is an American film director. One of his most famous works of art is Genghis Blues from 1999; this film was nominated for an academy award for best documentary feature. He is well known for traveling the globe in his documentaries. In the documentary Happy, he travels to all different parts of the world to discover what happiness means to people all over the world. This documentary held some incredible information that was almost hard to believe. One family, who was living in a tent in the Kolkata slums, is said to be just as happy as any American citizen.

The film is so interesting and definitely worth the watch; anyone interested should definitely not pass up this opportunity. However, I did not find the documentary to relate to my book as much as I had hoped. The Happiness Project is about one woman’s mission to find a life supply of happiness. The documentary, however, follows people’s lives that don’t have much, or have lived through great tragedy, to find the things in life that make them happy. There was an interesting parallel between the two of them, though. Even though I did not find the documentary to be as helpful as I had hoped, it was still definitely very astonishing. After I watched this movie, I thought it might be interesting to get some reviews of this documentary. I happened to find article writing by Roko Belic, himself, about his movie and how it came about.

This is the link to the article on the popular website, Huffington Post:  

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roko-belic/happy-documentary_b_1220111.html

I think the most interesting part of all of this is the inspiration behind the movie, Roko Belic says “A dirt poor rickshaw puller in a slum in India once told me he was the luckiest person alive. His hut was made out of bamboo sticks and plastic tarps, with raw sewage trickling out front, but still, Manoj Singh said he was happy, very happy, in fact. Though sometimes he only had only a few bowls of rice to feed his family, he said ‘I feel that I am not poor, but I am the richest person in the world’” (Belic, Roko). I think the most interesting part of this whole quote is the very end. Sometimes the people who have the least are the ones who find more joy in life; they are the ones who appreciate the things in life that most people take advantage of. I found that throughout the book, this seems to be something that Rubin tries to find a happy balance in. It is shown throughout the book that she is trying to fix the small stuff in attempts for overall happiness. As the book continues I am excited to see how her next months are going to turn out.

Michaela is a neat kid – very thoughtful, someone who is self-aware and compassionate.  I love working with her and think that she’s really taking advantage of various features of the blog, which is part of why hers is always so much fun to read!  I did correct a few grammar mistakes when I copied and pasted it, though; we all have improvements to be made.

            This week I finished The Vacationers.  It wasn’t my favorite book, but it did keep me interested.  It has less mystery than The One-Hundred Year House, but I felt more compassion toward the characters.  And the setting, Mallorca, Spain, was magnificent. J I have several books to choose from to start this weekend!

                                                                                                                        CJF