Hungry Minds

I think that the title itself draws attention to the article. I thought that first and foremost the mere fact that this was all taking place in a church. I know of many churches around my home that incorporate soup kitchens during the day. It's comforting to know that things like this go on in many major cities such as New York. I said in the beginning that the title intrigued me because I didn't know where the writing was going. Being hungry is a terrible feeling, but I think that the author was trying to convey that being hungry to write is just as important/noticeable as being hungry for food. When I first started reading about the writer's workshop that was being held there I honestly found myself, ashamed, stereotyping those who would be going to a soup kitchen. Normally we think of homeless people, or even people in need of a free meal like that as being unintelligent. However, that really isn't the case at all. The author recalls so many stories of the people who came in and out of the workshops and the impressions their writings had. One point in this piece really stuck out to me: "In the workshop’s fourteen years, several participants have died. Pierce, a tall, white-haired man with bushy black eyebrows, was a volunteer at the soup kitchen. Almost every piece he wrote centered on the most important moment in his life—when he attempted suicide by jumping into the East River. After police pulled him out, he quit drinking; many of his pieces ended, “One day at a time.” A few years ago when the workshop reconvened, we learned that Pierce had died of a heart attack not long before." Even a man like this had such an impact on Frazier. We don't know what is going on with other people in their lives, but Pierce had the opportunity to showcase it to everyone by writing and sharing his work. His life changed because of it, and I want to think that this may have saved him slightly before his time to die had come.

I personally knew a man one time who was homeless for 4 years. The man was a local at our Taco Bell and he always sat outside. He never asked you for money or food, but one time he did ask me for a pen and a notebook. Most of the time I went to Taco Bell right after school. Tim was sitting there one day when he asked me, and I happened to have my book bag in my car. I got out a notebook that hadn't been used yet, and I gave him a pen and pencil. I asked him why he would want such a thing and he brought out, from his trash bag, and old tattered notebook and handed it to me. Page to page was filled with writings. This particularly was a journal he had been keeping. Tim told me he wrote in it everyday. When I asked why he simply said "I have a life too, and maybe one day someone will want to hear about it." I never really thought about that day until reading this article.

Everyone has a voice. Today's society lends us the opportunity to have it heard. Right now for instance I am writing on a blog that the entire world could view if they wanted to do so. Another form of writing is graffiti which almost anyone can do as well. We all have voices, and that is what I think this particular writing is telling us. The great thing is that it's real. There really is this opportunity that has been given to so many to have their voices heard throughout a room full of people who truly are going to support them. Below is a video of a writing workshop being used in a very young classroom. It goes to show that with the right preparation and state of mind, anyone willing can learn. I think it's a great video to showcase the variety of ways this concept can be used.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi9hkwvF2Dg

Linking Our Mini Lessons to Image Grammar

We have been doing these mini-lessons in class recently. I have honestly enjoyed doing mine, and taking what others have to offer from theirs. I like the idea of doing such short lessons within our classroom time. It does have its down side though. I hate when the students who are trying to create these elaborate lessons must be cut short. Of course it would be ideal to give us all much more time, however we aren't given that luxury by only having class once a week. Anyway, back to Image Grammar. Many of us have been given the lessons that we are supposed to take right out of this book by Noden. Many of these particular lessons come right out of the book. The fictional lesson was one of my favorites. We took fictional writing but placed our own spin on it. Noden's book is filled with a lot of strategies that will help us as future educators. One of my favorite strategies is on page 90. It's called "Read a Scripted Fantasy."

This strategy allows students to close their mind and really try to get a grasp on items that they are going to be writing a poem on. The best thing about it though is in the beginning the students have no clue what they are doing this for. They simply are told to think of a machine and an animal. I like that afterward there is a set of steps that the students are supposed to follow. I like it because although it is a very organized strategy, it leaves enough independence to the students to create their own kind of poem. Creating poetry actually is one of my favorite things to do with students.

Poetry allows us to write whatever we want to write, and it really can't be a "bad/wrong" piece of writing. We are given the option to rhyme or not, make it long or short and we can choose whether to have it make sense or only be understood by us. The ability we have in poetry is endless. I think that is a message that Noden is trying to relay to us in his book that our possibilities as teachers are endless. He gives us strategy after strategy that we can use in our classroom. He also gives us topics and scenarios that would allow us to think outside of the box as a teacher. Many times we ask this of our students but we never do it ourselves. Below is a video of an alternative form of "poetry." These kinds of ideas and ways of "performing/creating" poetry are alternative ways we can help encourage our students to participate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xdta43fVmes&playnext=1&list=PL1C2B0C673BAC96EC&index=9

The Professor & the Madman

This book was actually really interesting to me. My girlfriend had to read this for a separate class last year, so I was already very familiar with it. I think the concept behind it is brilliant. It truly depicts how writing can bring people together. James Murray and William Chester couldn't be more different from each other. Although Chester may have been considered "normal" before the murder, he was still discharged from the Army for weird behaviors as well. However, through the use of a pen and paper, these two men found a bond piecing together one of the greatest reference books in the world. When I think about a dictionary I honestly can't imagine the work that has gone into one. Looking at page after page of words being defined honestly gives me a headache, and I only turn a few. Yet, where would we as English majors be without the dictionary? It's hard to imagine that these words took that much time, effort and thought into defining them for a world to reference to constantly.

I thought for a while how this book would relate to us as future educators. As I said above, I think one of the messages in this novel is that writing can bring even the farthest strangers together. I think applying that to high school classes is a huge task, but one that is inevitable. My job, in my eyes, is to create a room where I teach not only how to look at literature, but how to put your writing down on paper. Now, that seems simplistic, sure. Yet, after observing in Akron and student teaching now, I think that's really the first couple of steps. Kids need to get back to the basics and then I can act as Vygotsky and take them further. I think that while teaching my students will no longer be separated by differences they may have, but united in the fact that as of now, they are all in the same boat. I think this book shows that concept. A convicted man behind bars, adding to one of the greatest books, with the help of a well respected man from Oxford.