A Literacy Story

 

When I was 9? 10?  I wrote a secret letter to myself that I wasn’t allowed  to open until I was sixteen.  I sealed it with scotch tape and put it in the top draw of my desk.    What was so secret about it you may ask?  What was so secret even from myself who had actually written the letter?  Well… I wrote with my eyes closed, so I didn’t know what it said, and I wrote it with my right hand!  I am left-handed! Craziness!  Top Secret!  Very important stuff!  I remember writing in my room right before bed time.  I might have been in pajamas or perhaps my mom was pestering me to get into them.  My mom was in the bathroom, my brother was getting ready for bed too.  I was sitting at my desk under the pink plaid curtains covering the darkness outside.  I took a normal piece of notebook paper out and wrote a message to myself in a foreign hand.  I think I wrote something like: “This is Christine Taylor’s handwriting of her right hand” and the date.  I wrote it in pencil.  I immediately turned it over.  I folded it in a special triangular fashion.  I made an envelope out of another sheet of notebook paper and I put the evidence in.  I sealed it and it stayed in my desk for a long time.  What so possessed me to do this?  I have no idea. Periodically when cleaning I would see it and think about it and wonder what my foreign hand writing looked like.  Was it intelligible?  Was it big?  Was it in a straight line? Was it the same as my left handed handwriting?  Could I do some unimaginable task and write beautifully with both hands? I would think about opening it.  But I always over came the temptation. I don’t remember when I opened it.  Strangely enough, when I reached the age of 16, it wasn’t that important.  My right-handed hand writing sucks.  I might still have the letter.  It might be in my parents’ attic.  But I probably threw it away.  Perhaps when I was 9?10?  my right hand possessed supernatural powers.  I guess we’ll never know.   

Fireworks

 

Fireworks.  Thats what I will write about.  This Independence Day weekend, I saw two fireworks displays and both times I imagined writing a story about a fireworks show choreographer.  I wondered about that job the specifics of it, the difficulties and complexities.  Do local municipalities have professionals choreograph the shows.  Do the firefighters who shoot them off plan it?  Does a city worker plan it who ordered the fireworks?  Do cities order individual fireworks or packages? Shows? All these questions are getting me anzy to know the answers.  

 

According to Slate.com, “first, the sponsor of a fireworks show will tell the pyrotechnics company what music they want to use for their display.  (Sometimes they let the company decide.)  The choreographer then listens to the music several times through to et an idea of which shells to use.  Felix Grucci, who does the choreography for one of America’s most prominent fireworks companies, will play the piece six or seven times at high volume before he starts writing out his ideas.”   

 

 

Writing out his ideas!  Even my pyromaniac students need to write!  + math:  “In general, the bigger the shell, the longer it will take to burst and the higher it will go.  By inserting the size, firing time, and type of each shell into a firing script, a choreographer can lay out a series of effcts that unfold at different heights in time to the music.  If he’s using a fireworks choregraphy software package, he doesn’t have to look up (or memorize) all of the hight and timing information for each shell.  Instead he can drag items from a digital catalog directly into an online script.”  

 

“More advanced notations for fireworks choreography have been proposed over the years.  The pyrotechnics expert Takeo Shimizu used a musical score to represent his designs: Each stave corresponded to a different firing location, and each note represented a particular kind of shell fired at a particular time.  In his classic work on fireworks and fireworks choreography, Shimizu argues from simple arrangements of color and form: “Mixing red and yellow stars sometimes succeeds,” he says, “but red and green looks dirty.” He also pointed out that some effects like tight, round bursts–build tension in the viewer, while others–like the willow effect–tend to release it.”   http://www.slate.com/id/2144779/

 

A whole avenue of possibilities here.  Building of tension, the release, the orchestration of colors, sounds, shapes.  The gathering of people to see, to create, to keep safe, to have fun, to make money, to celebrate, to cause trouble.  The new technology, yet the ancient art and metaphors behind it.  Maybe each year around the 4th a bunch of fireworks books come out.  Or make this is something I could take, research, and make something new with.   

 

My 4th experience was awesome.  On Friday, we went to the zoo with my parents.  We saw meerkats and two giraffs.  We went to the Racine Zoo and it is right next to the lake, so afterwards we went down to the beach.  

 

Then we had a cook out at my parents house.  We played bags: my brother, Stephen, and I and William and my dad were on teams.  It was close.  It was fun.  It is a game where you do not really need any skill.  You throw bags at a hole in a board and see if you can get in the hole (3 points) or at least on the board (1 point).  You stand on the opposite side of your partner next to you opposition.  You and your opposition take turns and when you have thrown all 4 bags,  you average the points or well.  Lets pretend that you are positive numbers, and your opponent is negative numbers.  You add the numbers together.  So if you got one bag in the hole (3) and two bags on the board (2)  you have 5 points.  But your opponent got all 4 bags on the board (-4).  So you end up only having one point.  It was so cool because during the first game. My brother and I were doing pretty badly.  We had 6 to 12.  But then I got 3 bags in a row in the hole (9 points)  moving us up to 15 points.  We lost that game, but then we won the second.  We didn’t play a tie breaker although it would have been fun.  This could be a cool game to teach positive and negative numbers.

 

On the fourth we went over to William parents house and hung out not doing much of anything.  Then around 4 we went over to Indra’s house and we ate there.   Cafe grilled mexican sausage and skirt steak.  Indra’s mom brought puerto rican rice.  Maria, my mother in law, made beans and mole (which i don’t like).  Indra has 3 kids, so they, Julian, Andrew, Edgar, and Paco all ran around and played.  We lit off some small fireworks.  Then we decided to drive to Kenosha and watch the fireworks there.  We drove there.  Julian hadn’t taken a nap all day so he was tired and cranky.  The fireworks didn’t really keep anyones attention because we were like a mile away from them.  We were on rocks on the coast, and the fireworks were a mile north of us.  We got there 45 minutes early so I had to walk along the rocks with my son, to amuse him.  He off course wanted to jump and dive around the rock and get himself hurt.  It was a little stressful, trying to give him the appropriate amount of independence.  I am pretty sure I erred on the side of cautiousness.  It was fun to be with family, but not a fulfilling fireworks experience.  People around us were not engaged with the fireworks and neither were we.   They were dandelions, small and blown away quickly with the wind.       

 

We drove home yesterday and when we got in around 7, our neighbor told us how the fireworks here got rained out on Saturday so they were doing them Sunday night.  I really wanted to go and used Julian to talk William into going.  I said, “I want to go see fireworks.”  And Julian echoed with more persuasiveness and cute-ness that I could ever manage.  We have never seen fireworks here so we drove over to Parkland.  The suggested donation to park at parkland was 5 dollars.  So we drove down Mattis and parked in one of the parking lots there.  We gathered our blanked and with Julian on William’s shoulders we followed the crowd walking towards the many fields of Dodds park.  We walked over a bridge and kept going.  I wanted to try and get to where the music was playing but we decided to stop in front of a ball park fence, behind some trees and it turned out to be the perfect spot.  We got to sit right underneath them.  They could have fallen on us.  Julian used a ring from top of a cupcake to save us from them.  He seemed to be a little scared at first and then ready to fight them, able to conquer the whole sky, beat back the beasts of staccato blasts, loud pops, bright stars, swirling light,  raining fire.  As we were stuck in traffic on Mattis trying to get back home all the way across town back to Urbana, I asked William if it was worth it, and he shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yeah.”    

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writing Process Draft

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/cftaylor/uiwp/writingprocess.mov

Writing a Novel?

The idea of me writing a novel is scary and intriguing and daunting idea. It is an idea and goal that holds a lot of sway over me. The fact that my writing group thinks it is something I could actually do, like it is no big deal is amazing. In my mind this is a seemingly impossible task that I have pretended to attempt in the past, but never seriously, at least not in my adult life. I’ve always thought of myself as a writer, but lately I have been trying to admit to myself that I don’t really write that much. I don’t spend a lot of time writing. And when I do write, it is a lot of beginnings. I start things and do not finish them. When I was younger I wrote more. In third grade, my first “publication” experience, I got a story published in the school district and got a young author’s award. It was about getting hit on the head by a hammer and shrinking and all the adventures the ordeal caused. I can even remember the title: “Big Me, Little Me.” I got various other stories read and valued throughout school. I also had a poem published in my high school literary magazine called The Thirsty Elephant.

But now, the idea of writing a novel is like lifting a car off my child, which I don’t think I could do even with an adrenaline rush, even though I would have an innate need to do it, if I ever had to. Maybe this is a natural progression of life. As a student, you have more time to write, your business is learning and exploring. Now my business is being a mother, being a wife, taking care of a house, being a teacher, planing, grading, having meeting, passing back papers, helping students with homework, being a photo club adviser. I feel like Mr. Holland in Mr. Holland’s Opus. In that movie, he starts teaching in part so he’ll have more time to work on his magnum opus–his great work. But it gets pushed to the side, growing dusty as he helps students, attempts to parent his son, and becomes an awesome teacher. Now I didn’t go into teaching to have enough time to do something else. I am pretty sure I came into teaching with opened eyes, knowing it was a time consuming life. But writing has always been there, a possibility, a goal, desire.

I see writing a novel as such a big, scary task because it is something that I have never done so I don’t really know if I could do it. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban when Harry is waiting for his father to come rescue them from the dementors. He is standing on the other side of the lake watching the dementors suck the life out of him and Hermione. He says, “My dad will come, I know it. I want to see him.” But Hermione looks forlornly across the water and says, “We’re dying, Harry.” None of this is verbatim of course but almost. Then Harry runs to the water side and shoots out his patronus, strong and magnificent, beautiful to charge across the lake and shoo all the dementors away. It wasn’t his father whom he had seen, it was himself. As they’re flying away, Hermione asks, “How did you do it? How did you make such a patronus?” And Harry laughs, “I knew I could do it because I’d already done it! Does that make any sense?” And Hermione replies that it doesn’t make sense at all. But it does. It makes perfect sense. He’d already seen himself do it. He knew what happened and was just filling a role, just playing his part for that period of time. If I knew the future, if I knew that I already wrote a novel and that I could do it because I’d already done it, I think this whole doubting thing would go away. Of course, Anne Lamott says it never does. We always doubt whether we can pull it off this time, or the next time. That’s what makes Harry Potter a YA novel. In real life you can never know. You can never know the future. So while Harry Potter can have all the magic he needs and the right friends and the right mentors, in real life it doesn’t work that way.

I really felt heartened by Janice Harrington. It is so weird how we can gain strength from other people. How other people’s energy and beliefs really can be transferred unto us. And my writing group this week really heartened me as well. They didn’t think it was a totally crazy idea for me to write a novel! I shared some more that I added to my sad man with no name character. And they were asking, “Are you going to turn this into a novel?” Well, I don’t know, I have been preventing myself from thinking about that idea seriously because I don’t want to disappoint myself again. I don’t want to get high expectations. I don’t want something else that will create more self-disappointment. But maybe I could actually could do it. Like Janice Harrington and Ann Lamott say, small assignments, small increments, everyday. Like anything else in my life, it is something that requires work, not just thinking about. Last year, I really wanted to be a grad student. So I got letters of rec, wrote the essay, submitted the application, paid the fee and got in. I am working on my masters. And it is such a fulfilling task. I love this work. I relish it. So why is writing so different? Why is it something I dream about and not work on as much as I should, so far in my life? I’m not sure, but now all my insecurities about this topic are out there for all to see, which is scary, yet satisfying.

Translating

I think there are a lot of things I have gained that I can take back to the classroom, which is good because probably in reality it will only be half of what I think I like now.  I really liked Hilarie’s demonstration.  I want to find that book: Lessons that Change Writers and use it.  I’ve really found value in the idea of looking at writing instruction through a different lens.  In Ellen’s demo, we really thought about writing instruction through other ways of knowing.  It opens up the possibility of realizing that there are other ways of knowing besides traditional “school” ways of knowing.  The book and my discussions with my reading group also enforce this.  We have talked a lot about boys and literacy.  The book I’m reading is about boys and the stories they like and write and respond to.   I really like the whole idea of creating a workable blog at wordpress.com for my class like Charlie illustrated and Ryan is attempting.  So I am excited about what I have learned and what I can do with it in the future.

A character study: A man with no name

 

He is old or at least, he says he is.  He complains of aches and pains.  He won’t get up in the morning if his neck, back, legs, stomach, anything hurts.  He gets a pained look on his face when he burps.  His mouth will go up and furl out like his lips are too loose.  When he is about to sneeze His whole face lifts up in anticipation,  his eyebrows, his nose is sniffed back, his mouth held back in an upside down crooked moon sliver, and he will hold this pose for 10 seconds or so before sneezing.  He complains that he is fat.  He will sit on the recliner.  The first thing he does when he comes home is take off all his clothes and be naked.  He isn’t coming home from a job.  He doesn’t have a job.  He comes home from errands that take much longer than they should.  An hour at spent at the post office.  Two hours at the hardware store looking for nails.  A half hour at the grocery story looking for a loaf of bread.  He is perpetually late.  He spends an exorbitant about of time on the computer.  Since he lives alone, his computer is hooked up to his 42 inch TV.  He sits in front of it naked, looking at online comics, or browsing through wikipedia.org looking up useless pieces of information that he will just use to make others feel inferior.  When the doorbell rings, he crouches behind the couch, even if he isn’t naked, not wanting to answer.  Usually it is the Schwan’s man, with his monthly order of cheese sticks and frozen pizza puffs.  He will leave it hanging in a bag on the door handle, the man has already paid online with a credit card.  Sometimes the man also orders cookie dough ice cream, but only when it is on sale.  The man’s diet consists of his food from Schwan’s, Slim fast shakes, and cereal, the kind with the marshmallows in it.  It is not that the man is socially awkward or dysfunctional,  although he may be, becoming so.  He used to have friends.  They still come by occasionally.  His son just moved out, for good this time.  The newspapers that the man still pays for each month still come and pile up on the driveway.  The son will come every other Friday to put them in the recycling bin.  He does not go inside.  He sees the glow of the enormous computer screen from between the blinds over the window and watches it, caught in it, hypnotized.  But he shakes his head and turns to his car, engine still running and heads to his apartment where his girlfriend is waiting so they can go out to dinner.  The man might hear the engine and the car door open and shut, he is always complaining that his windows are too thin; they are covered in plastic, on both sides.  He does not turn from the screen or go peek out the window on the stairs, the one with the cherub etched in the middle looking angelically up towards the bathroom doorway.  Sometime though, he does go peek.  When the headlights of his son’s ‘98 honda accord disappear down the street, the man traces the cherub’s cheek and then he turns and goes downstairs to get a bowl of cereal and look up cherubs on wikipedia.org.        

 

Starting Up

I would like to imagine that this is the start of a beautiful friendship between blogging and I, however other blogs have come before.  And now they are in the ether of the world wide web.  They have become white noise, or rather white space.  I have started up other blogs before and then stopped.  False starts.  Well no, I do start, that isn’t false, I just never finish.  Starts with absent finishes.  Of course we are speaking about how writing is a process.  There is always more, no finishes, but a continuous process imbedded in all life.  Anne Lamott talks about false starts but I forgot what she said about them .  She gave some great reasons why to keep going that she learned from dying people.  She says, “Dying people can teach us this most directly.  Often the attributes that define them drop away–the hair, the shape, the skills, the cleverness.  And then it turns out that the packaging is not who that person has really been all along.  Without the package another sort of beauty shines through” (p. 83).  To get to that inner beauty, one must keep on keeping on.  Plug away.  We’ll see, whether I plug away on this blog or in a journal, hopefully I’ll keep searching for that inner beauty and truth.