Guest Speaker Questions

I am very excited for the guest speaker to come in today. I plan on asking him questions mostly dealing with his experience in education as a Palestinian. I'm not sure if he went to high school in the United States, but I am particularly interested in gaining some insight and clarity to the following questions:

1) If you did go to high school in the United States, do you feel like your school had an inclusive curriculum that appropriately educated students about your culture?
2) If you did go to high school in Palestine, how do you feel the education values differ over there?
3) Do you have any Palestinian or otherwise Middle Eastern literature in mind that you feel would be great contributions to an English classroom? How do you feel about Kite Runner?
4) What do you think the greatest anxieties facing Middle Eastern students in America are today?
5) What suggestions do you have for me as a future English teacher in embracing my Middle Eastern students, Middle Eastern culture in general, and incorporating Middle Eastern studies successfully into my curriculum?

Thoughts on "War, Terrorism, and Our Classroom."

I came across two articles from the " war, terrorism, and our classroom" site that I would absolutely consider using in my classroom. The first one was an article called "Not in Our Sons Name," written by the parents of a man who was lost in the World Trade Center attacks. In the article, they talk about their reactions to the grief they felt and the way the government seemed to be handling the attacks. They said:

"Our son died a victim of an inhuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times."


The article then suggested using this in the classroom by having the students read it and then respond the the following prompt:

Discuss how Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez would respond to the policies of the U.S. government in the weeks after they wrote this letter.

Find a newspaper letter to the editor about post-September 11th events - terrorism, the war in Afghanistan, the new anti-terrorism legislation, etc. - and write your own letter in response. If you like, write this from the Rodriguezes' perspective.

I love this idea because it breeds empathy for those directly effected by the attacks, but not in a way that calls on violent vengeance for the death of their son, which is a sentiment I feel many people instantly gravitated to.

Another interesting article I found on this website that I would consider using in my classroom was "Letters to this Universe," where students write anonymous letters addressing the issue of how they personally deal with the grief of losing someone. Everyone drops their letters into a "Letters to the Universe" box, afterwhich the box circulates the rooms and students take turns pulling out a random letter and reading it to the class. I like this idea because it connects students to each other, but more importantly to humanity. It allows them to understand that everyone deals with grief and although there are different ways of coping with the sense of loss, it is an experience that is shared universally.

Teach Me!

I am a little ashamed to admit that I honestly don't know a whole lot about the middle east. I know the names of various countries- Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc. I know that they speak several different languages, Arabic and Farsi included. I guess a bit about Islamic culture and traditions too, but I'm pretty ignorant as to many of the actual beliefs of Islam, other than that Mohammed is their prophet, they don't drink, they refer to God as Allah, celebrate Ramadan with fasting, and worship the Quran. I also know a bit (a very small arcane bit) about the ancient history of the middle east, such as, we get our coffee drinking habits from that region.

There was a pretty large middle-eastern population at my high school and for a little while around tenth grade I hung out with a crowd of them a lot. I picked up some vulgar phrases in Arabic from them and learned a bit about the family life habits of some middle eastern families living in America.

Realizing that I pretty much know absolutely nothing about the middle east has made me extremely eager for this unit to enlighten my feeble little American brain.

451

I love Fehrenheit 451. I've been a huge fan of dystopian literature for a few years now, and am so glad that we were assigned this one because I hadn't read it yet. I'm very happy that I can add it to my repertoire of dystopian lit knowledge to hopefully bring into a class designed around this important genre someday.

That being said, it always amazes me how so many of these books follow the same general format-- boy is a perfect member of his sick sad society, boy meets free-thinking girl who corrupts him with her "perniscious" influence, boy grows disillusioned with society, boy and girl strike back (sometimes together, sometimes not), something messed up happens to girl (death, total forced assimilation into said society), boy runs off to live in the wild amongst renegade intellects, society crumbles/stays at large. I like to think me and my boyfriend's story so far pretty much adheres perfectly to this construct, sans the part about something messed up happening to girl...yet...!

While Fehrenheit451 pretty much adheres to that same plot structure sequence by sequence, I like the little twists it throws in with professor and the whole concept of there being no books at all. I'd love to teach this book to an upper level high school class-- I'd also love to teach it to my more disillusioned students, as I think theres quite a bit of connection one could draw between the attitudes of beatty and the other firechiefs and much of the way education seems to be run these days. I'd be interested in finding a way to get reluctant/resistant students really interested in reading ithis book.

Boy Meets Boy

I enjoyed this book a lot as it initially reminded me of Francesca Lia Block, whom I love. The characters were inspiring and very relatable, i thought. I liked that Paul was the central character whom all other characters stories were shared through. I also liked the focus on the adolescent issues often construed as "cliche" (relationship woes, friendships, even fashion). Juxtaposing the normalcy of these issues with the surrealism of the setting and of the general attitudes/ideas of the characters was clever and a good move on Levithan's part. I myself was big into memoires in high school and i think i would have really enjoyed reading this as a teenager.

When considering teaching this book my first questions were what kind of unit it would fit into and what kind of themes to draw from and teach. I wasn't really sure at first, the literary merit seemed somewhat pale in comparison to the entertainment value. However, I do think this book would be great on a coming of age unit, a stereotypes in literature and life unit, or when when teaching the qualities of magical realism and stream of consciousness. I would consider teaching this book in conjunction with Block's Weetzie Bat (which touches on similar teenage issues and LBGT issues but with slightly darker undertones) or even Romeo and Juliet. My only real criticism of this book it actually seems a little too innocent to me; i recall couples doing a lot more than kissing when I was in high school, but thats just my own experience. I do think the innocence is a plus when placed in the context of using it in defense of teaching this book.

Hey Girl Hey

Loved the drag show. I can't really say that i didn't expect I would; those types of shin digs are usually up my ally...by "types" i don't specifically mean a drag show per se, rather, i'm referring to any gathering of people with interesting, unique personalities ready to showcase themselves and their interests to everyone. Being in the atmosphere with all that good crazy energy made me miss a few of my gay friends whom I haven't seen in a while but I know would have loved to attend. I was instantly put in a good mood. I was also very impressed with Chris Praedel's (sp?) rendition of Fergie's Glamorous. I'm glad he wasn't too reserved about dressing up like a woman and dancing around on stage. I think everyone was proud to see him among the rest of the contestants just doing his thing and showing his support. I don't want to go turn this entry into another of my Live and Let Live rants, but it seems like that's where it's heading..not really sure what else to say other than that I think it's awesome that the Sexual Orientation group requested our presence at this event.

As a side note, i would highly recommend the movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch to anyone interested in in LGBTA issues, particularly to those fans of Outspoken's drag show.

Ok, so additionally:

I think that the LGBT community is portrayed through the media in somewhat of a minstrelsy fashion. On reality TV shows and on sitcoms like Will and Grace, there seems to be a prescription for gay men as being flamboyant, promiscuous, and brash. While they characters themselves are charismatic to audiences, which may indicate a surface level of encouraging societal acceptance/appreciation for homosexual men, it is still an example of marginalized peoples playing up their stereotypes to a dominant mainstream audience, in this case, heterosexuals who buy into the prescribed image of gay men. I do feel that there is a little more room for lesbians to be portrayed uniquely in the media, as in shows like The L Word. However, lesbian scenes tend to include sexier "lipstick" lesbians, which i assume is thought to be more visually appealing to a mainstream audience.