So I went to the local library to do some work and when I see the wall of magazines, I just can’t help myself. “Just a few minutes,” I say to myself. “I had a full day, I can indulge.” So I pick up a copy of the latest Vanity Fair. Why do I care about Lindsay Lohan? Well, I do. She was adorable in the remake of The Parent Trap. She looks like a young Ann Margaret. I haven’t seen Robert Altman’s Prairie Home Companion, (title)but I hear she sings with Meryl Streep. I wanted to read some other articles about Sarah Palin and how her inner circle is becoming even more dysfunctional, (I guess), and another about Frank Sinatra, but, library was closing. And there’s no internet café near my place; good thing because I wasn’t getting anything done.
In class, seniors are finishing the rough drafts of their profiles. All the examples we've read to them and discussed all seem for naught. Only a few are moving beyond the interview sheet I gave them and are finding a “unique perspective” of their partner.
I realize I need to teach/encourage more prewriting strategies, one of the areas in need of improvement. My prewriting involves just sitting and writing; fiddle dee dee, no preplanning for me. But this method requires a lot of rewriting.
There are a few more profile pieces (or just pieces) that I want my students to read; one by Sarah Vowell called “Shooting Dad” and another about Mr. Rogers that was in Esquire (?) by Tom Junod. One student started the Vowell piece and said it was boring. I’ve heard her on NPR; she’s not boring!!! It never fails that I take their comments personally. I also want to give them pieces that might challenge them, such as a piece in The New Yorker about Phillipe Petit, the man who tight rope walked between the Twin Towers. I might show them part of the documentary to entice them to read the profile. Bait them…I have also assigned a memoir/autobiography of their choice. It feeds into the narrative/college essay unit, we will attack soon.
Wow, you do some pretty heady stuff with your students. You must have a bright group and clearly you have faith in their intellect.
ReplyDeleteI have played Sarah Vowell's "Shooting Dad" for the last couple of years and had students just listen and write down powerful language that makes them laugh or is easy to visualize or moves them, etc., etc. They've liked it and always come up with a nice list of descriptions, and it makes for good discussion. One warning: I have to preface the podcast that she has this fantastic but lispy, nasal voice. Otherwise, they spend the first two minutes of the podcast making weird faces.
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