Here in Grand Rapids, where you can’t find a bookstore north of 28th Street, a lack of literary outlets leads to this kind of thing:
Police blocked off an area of downtown Grand Rapids for a time Monday evening after a suspicious package was found in a parking garage. A GRPD bomb squad was called to the scene and X-rayed the package to find that it was a Dick Tracy book.
An entire city block roped off for nearly three hours because of a book. Or, perhaps, a lack of a decent bookstore.
Not that you asked (or care), but here are some of my favorite books of the past year.
The absolute best is Diane Ravitch’s superb Reign of Error. Anyone who cares about public education (and, to a larger extent, our future as a democracy) must read this book. It’s that important. When any public servant tells you he or she is “for education reform,” find out if he or she has read Ravitch. If they have, good. If not, put a copy of Reign of Error in their hands now.
Rounding out my top ten, in no particular order:
The Circle, Dave Eggers – What if a company took over Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google, and Amazon, and had the capability of knowing everything about everyone? In the age of NSA and Edward Snowden, The Circle has come around at the right time.
The Dog Stars, Peter Heller – After a flu epidemic wipes out most of North America, two men and one dog struggle to survive in the flatlands of Colorado. Dystopian, heartbreaking, and hopeful, with shades of Cormac McCarthy.
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemmingway – Yes, I know it’s been around for awhile. I finally took the plunge this summer. I knew what was coming, but Hemmingway still managed to break my heart.
If your child’s fifth-grade teacher tells you she’s reading at a lexile of over 1000, you should be impressed. After all, that means you daughter is reading at an eighth-grade level, right?
Not quite. Lexile scores analyze sentence length and vocabulary to determine the complexity of a text. Lexile scores are a key factor in determining which book are appropriate for each grade level in the Common Core State Standards. Lexile scores, however, cannot measure the complexity of the ideas within a text, or for that matter, whether a book is age-appropriate in terms of content.
CCSS will measure your child’s ability to read based on lexile scores. Why should you be concerned? Because according to this type of analysis, John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is less complicated than The Hunger Games series or Mr. Popper’s Penguins. The Sun Also Rises is less complex than Charlotte’s Web (see chart below). The New Republic published a great piece on this, and it’s lexile level is one you’ll be able to comprehend.
Just watched a live webcast of the announcement of the 2014 World Book Night titles. (Yes, this is what I do during my free time. Wanna make something of it?) Here they are:
The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
Presumed Innocent – Scott Turow
The Dog Stars – Peter Heller
After the Funeral – Agatha Christie
Same Difference and Other Stories (graphic novel) – Derek Kirk Kim
Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain
Sunrise Over Fallujah – Walter Dean Myers
100 Best Loved Poems
Catch-22 – Joseph Heller
Hoot – Carl Hiassen
Pontoon – Garrison Keillor
Wait Till Next Year – Doris Kearns Goodwin
Miss Darcy Falls In Love – Sharon Lathan
Ruins of Gorlan (Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 1) – John Flanagan
Young Men and Fire – Norman Maclean
Bridge to Terabithia – Katherine Paterson
Bobcat & Other Stories – Rebecca Lee
The Botany of Desire – Michael Pollan
The Perks of Being a Wallflower – Stephen Chbosky
The Lighthouse Road – Peter Geye
Code Name Verity – Elizabeth Wein
Enchanted – Alethea Kontis
Wild – Cheryl Strayed
Waiting to Exhale – Terry McMillan
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – Jamie Ford
Where’d You Go, Bernadette – Maria Semple
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs
Tales of the City – Armistad Maupin
When I Was Puerto Rican – Esmeralda Santiago
The Zookeeper’s Wife – Diane Ackerman
The Weird Sisters – Eleanor Brown
This Boy’s Life – Tobias Wolfe
Interested book givers can apply beginning Friday, October 24. Share the love of reading by giving away books!
Perhaps folks in the Tar Heel State didn’t get the memo. Banned Books Week celebrates our right to read whatever we darn well please because, well, FREEEEEEDOM!
And that whole First Amendment thing.
But the Randolph County school board decided last week to pull all copies of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man from its library shelves, deeming it to be without “any literary value.”
Somehow, it managed to win the National Book Award in 1953, and the Modern Library and TIME magazine placed it on their lists of Best Novels of the 20th Century. The College Board has referenced it on the AP Literature exam more than any other novel. 
But because one parent objected to it, Ellison’s Invisible Man is no longer available to the students of Randolph County, North Carolina.
Free people read freely. Except in Randolph County, North Carolina.
We grammar gurus tend to clear a room in a hurry. Here’s a typical conversation:
Unsuspecting Normal Person: “What do you teach?”
Me: “High school English.”
Both: *Uncomfortable silence*
From The Washington (Amazon?) Post, some helpful tips on correcting grammar without becoming a grammar snob.
“How will your students have changed?”
That question, once posed to Professor William Vande Kopple, is now one I will ask myself every day for the rest of my teaching career. Not “What did I teach?” or “What did they learn?” but “How will your students have changed?”
Professor Vande Kopple, co-chair of the English Department at Calvin College, passed away suddenly last week, shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A loving tribute to him was published in Calvin’s student newspaper, The Chimes, yesterday.
Today, his family, friends, colleagues, and former students gathered for his memorial. As with any event that includes an English department, it ran longer than the usual memorial.
Then again, Professor Vande Kopple wasn’t your usual professor.
My words cannot do the man justice. I never even took a class of his. Instead, I got to know Professor Vande Kopple from hosting many of his student teachers in my classroom. What fun it was to see his towering presence coming down the hall during passing time, watching dozens of high schoolers turn and stare at this man. What fun it was to hear his bellowing laugh while observing a student teacher. What an honor it was to listen to him talk with those student teachers about their work.
What an honor it was to know him in some small way.
During today’s memorial, I learned that Professor Vande Kopple was like so many of us in the teaching profession. In the classroom, he was full of energy and enthusiasm, he radiated excitement for what he taught (English grammar!), and his students soaked it up. But at home, he was a quiet, unassuming man, content with the blessings given to him, especially his loving wife and sons.
After I said farewell to my most recent Calvin student teacher, I thought I’d take a break from hosting another. But after today’s memorial, I talked with another Calvin professor, James Vanden Bosch, who spoke so eloquently about their working relationship. I told him I’d look forward to working with another Calvin student teacher next year.
I suppose, like Professor Vande Kopple, I consider teaching, and teaching future teachers, a calling.
(NOTE: The following notes contain nothing specific to the actual reading/scoring of the AP Lit Exams as this blogger would like to continue reading/scoring for many years to come.)
Eight days in beautiful downtown Louisville, Kentucky. I love spending my first week of summer break there. This is not sarcasm.
Imagine 1000 English majors in the same room, roughly 600 from academia, the rest from high schools, all working on the same task for one week. Cooperating. Collaborating. It’s a beautiful sight.
People pole vault in the streets of L’Ville on the weekends. I am not making this up.
The Louisville Bats could use a few more in their lineup. Pitching would help, too.
Noah’s Mill and Angel’s Envy are new faves in the bourbon department, but Blanton’s is still soooooo good.
The Seelbach and Brown Hotels are absolutely stunning. Next year, I will devour a Hot Brown.
The readers/scorers of Question Two are SO over The Rainbow.
The readers/scorers of Question Two have the most compassionate and caring question leader.
The readers/scorers of Question Two are jealous they missed hearing Taylor Mali read “The Black Walnut Tree” in his Christopher Walken voice.
Hearing Taylor Mali in person is a treat.
Seeing Taylor Mail in person is awesome.
Getting Taylor Mali to autograph one of his books for one of my students is just plain cool.
The next essay I score was written by someone’s daughter, someone’s son, someone’s student. I need to give it a fair and thorough reading.
AP Exam readers do that over 1200 times in one week.
I’m surprised so many readers smoke. How do they make it though a typical school day?
The food is great, so long as you’re not eating in the KICC. Doc Crow’s ribs, Against the Grain’s Sofa King Wheat, and Einstein Brothers’ $1 coffee refills satisfy both palate and pocketbook.
My table had readers from Florida, Ohio, Georgia, Texas (by way of Romania), Illinois, Michigan, and England.
We love teaching literature.
We fear for the future of public schools.
We can’t wait to do it again next year.
New books for his lending library.
O, Michigan, my Michigan! What in the name of our pleasant peninsulas is going on in Northville? Pornography in seventh grade? Say it isn’t so!
Okay, it isn’t, but one “concerned” mom with too much time on her hands thinks that The Diary of Anne Frank shouldn’t be used in her daughter’s classroom, and has filed a formal complaint with the school board. This Mama Grizzly (seriously, straight out of the Sarah Palin Pageant, with Lens Crafter specs and a modern mom hairdo), claims one passage, where Anne Frank describes her private parts, is “pretty pornographic.”
Keep in mind that her daughter – and all of the kids in this district – first became familiar with said terminology during sex education, two years ago, as fifth graders. Also, too: if this is porn, the seventh grade boys are going to be very disappointed.
Apparently, this Michissippi Mom has lost sight of why the book is used in classrooms around the world. You know, that whole Holocaust thing. Heaven forbid her daughter learn about that.
Thoughts on life, teaching, and writing
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Mostly Education; a Smattering of Politics & Pinch of Personal
"I'm too old to live my life in fear of dumb people." - Charlie Skinner, The Newsroom
"I'm too old to live my life in fear of dumb people." - Charlie Skinner, The Newsroom
A site to discuss education and democracy
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