genius in shackles

Epictetus said "Only the educated are free." Recent reflection has me believing that the opposite is true: Only the aware can be truly imprisoned.

Tolerance

I respect the inherent right of all stupid people to exist. That being said, I demand that they be forced, by law, to stay out of my way and stop touching my stuff.

Kids are great

Confessions of a bibliophile

Ok, the following are my all-time favorite books-in no particular order. I offer no apologies.
The Count of Monte Cristo, The Diggingest Dog, Nineteen Minutes, The Tiger on Your Couch, The Oxford English Dictionary, Reviving Ophelia, Janet Daily's Calder series, The Golden Book version of A Child's Garden of Verses, Lace, The Christmas Cookie Sprinkle Snitcher, The Woman in White, Jane Eyre, The 776 Stupidest Things Ever Said, The Physician’s Desk Reference, Little Women, Rage of Angels, The Thorn Birds, The Three Investigators series from the 1960/70s, Little House on the Prairie, Interview with the Vampire, Small Miracles, The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, and any collection of poems by Robert Frost.

What's up with travel sites?

So, I went to Expedia.com to compare air fares to the next NCTE conference. Ok, it was a class assignment, but the point is I found myself looking at air fares. The LOWEST fare on Expedia was $697. Just for kicks and giggles, I went to the website for Southwest Airlines. The same flight, mind you. A list of about nine flights came up and the HIGHEST fare was $392. Same departure date, same seating. What's the deal? The convenience of checking six airlines at once (Southwest was not even on the list BTW) costs an extra $300? Where's the convenience if they're not going to show me the cheapest fares? I don't get it.

Same question, insert "fiction"

I got more out of the writing about fiction than the other “writing about” assignments. This was the first time I approached a piece of literature from the point of view of one specific critical theory. In keeping my critical focus, I disallowed myself the freedom to wander off topic and discuss all my thoughts and feelings about the story. This helped enormously in keeping my paper short enough. When it comes to critical writing, the most difficult aspect for me has always been knowing, or rather choosing, what to leave out. I doubt I’ll be working with critical theory in junior high, so, while it helped me with my writing; this assignment probably won’t come up in my work as a teacher.
The creative writing we did was, as usual, not a learning experience for me. I don’t like parameters. If I’m going to be creative, let me be creative. Don’t tell me to be creative in exactly this way. As a high-school or junior-high teacher, using prompts like those we were given may come in handy. Children function better when they know exactly what is expected of them. Not all students are creative and not all of them are self-starters. Not everyone is comfortable to just get in the car and go. A lot of people don’t feel safe without a map in hand. For some young writers, being told to follow the yellow-brick road may be the only way to get them to the Emerald City.

Writing a myth

Writing a myth is obviously different from studying myths, in that we are creating something new, as opposed to just looking at what someone else has done. It enhanced the studying of the myths by forcing us to put into practice what we'd learned. Reading about the elements necessary for a particular myth to fit into a given category or genre is dry and borderline boring. Using those elements in the writing of our own myths gives them color and purpose.
Myths are generally pretty interesting reading material. They get somewhat bizarre and take us to places we wouldn't normally go (and often don't want to go). Writing something like that allows for enormous creativity and can be quite therapeutic. I was quite angry when I wrote mine, so producing something as vile as the deer scene (those of you who read it know to what I refer) was a harmless way for me to vent that.
As far as using this for my future teaching career goes, I probably will. I think that, if the students are allowed to write their own myths and vent some of their craziness, they will be more open to studying existing myths and the craziness of others. Teenagers like to be gross (especially the boys) and they live to shock people. A lot of myths are both gross and shocking to modern-day readers. They'll probably get a kick out of studying a story that focuses on feces for a page and a half (a trickster tale I remember) or reading along as Zeus changes himself into a farm animal to seduce someone else's wife.