Working Bibliography (example for 102)

Book search: Silnet: marathon running



Target 26 : a practical, step-by-step, preparatory guide to running the marathon /by Brown, Skip, 1949-
Collier Books, c1979. checked this book out on 10/9



The marathon, what it takes to go the distance /by Bloom, Marc, 1939-
Holt, Rinehart and Winston, c1981. at SWIC but checked out; check back later

Book search: IShare: marathon running

uthor: Switzer, Kathrine. Title: Marathon woman : running the race to revolutionize women’s sports / Kathrine Switzer. Edition: 1st Carroll & Graf ed. Published: New York : Carroll & Graf ; [Berkeley, Calif.] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, 2007. Physical Description: vii, 418 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. Subject (LCSH): Switzer, Kathrine. Women runners --Biography. Marathon running. Notes: "A memoir"--Jacket. Includes index. needs to be ILLed

ebsco search: academic search premier and health source: marathon running: cover story


1.
No Finish Line.Preview (cover story) By: Wolff, Alexander. Sports Illustrated, 11/5/2007, Vol. 107 Issue 18, p50-58, 7p; (AN 27396790)
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2.
YOU? WALK A MARATHON?Preview (cover story) Prevention, Apr2007, Vol. 59 Issue 4, p156-157, 2p, 1 chart, 1 color; (AN 24367201)
HTML Full Text

Library Assignment for ENG 102

I have copied an assignment below. Please copy and paste it over to your blog and complete it by answering the questions. I have placed capital X's in areas to indicate where you should place answers. Follow all of the steps in order.

1. Articles and More
Under Find Articles & More, click on Magazine, Journal and Newspaper Databases.
Enter EBSCOhost. Select at least 3 databases.
Which 3 (or more) did you choose and why? XXXXX
Perform a search for your topic. What search word did you use? XXX
How many results did you find? XXX
Click on Advanced Search. Click the “cover story” box and redo the search. How many results did you find this time? XXX

Identify one source you are interested in using from the search performed in EBSCO. *Hint: Click on the title to get to the full abstract for more information.
List the: Title, Author(s), Source Title, Date, Volume and issue #, Page #s,
Subject Terms, Database within ESBCO where the source is located
XXXX

Perform another search for your topic. This time combine your original search term with one of the relevant or interesting search terms found in the source identified above.
How many results did you find this time? XXX
Add any sources you would like to look into further to your folder. Once you have identified all of the good sources, save the contents of the folder to a disk/flashdrive or e-mail the results to yourself, so you may skim through them at a later date.

Return to the Articles and More page on the library’s main page. Instead of EBSCO, choose another database from the list. The one that will be best for you will depend on your particular topic. You may want to ask the librarian for more information about the available resources or click on the “available databases” link.
Identify one source you are interested in using from the search performed in the second database.
List the: Title, Author(s), Source Title, Date, Volume and issue #, Page #s,
Subject Terms, Database within ESBCO where the source is located


2. Books, Videos, DVDs, CDs
Under Books, Videos, DVDs, CDs, click on SWIC Library Catalog. Go to the SILNET Library Catalog link. Do a Title Keyword search.
What search word did you use? XXX
Describe the results. XXX

Do a Subject Keyword search.
What search word did you use? XXX
Describe the results. XXX

Under Books, Videos, DVDs, CDs, click on Search Other Libraries. Choose one of the 3 options and perform a search.
What were the results of this search? XXX
Do you intend to use a book source? If so, which one? If not, why not? XXX

3. Other reference tools
Under Find Articles & More, click on Reference Tools.
Which (if any) of these resources will be useful for your paper topic? XXX
Under Get Research Help, click on Search Tips.
Click on the “check out this page” link. Identify one useful piece of information you learned from this page: XXX
Under Get Research Help, click on Useful Sites. Identify at least one useful site you learned about: XXX. How will this site be of use to you for this paper or your personal life? XXX

My Own Post about Music

I've just asked my 101 class to post about how they make sense of music, so I am going to do something similar.



I've recently started to notice how the music that I really listen to-- the kind that I choose when it's just me in the car-- was mostly influenced by what I liked and disliked about my parents' music when I was younger and then compounded by the things I started to like in junior high. I think we all have a certain affinity for the stuff that we really liked when we were just starting to be teenagers because that was the time when we could start exploring our own tastes, so we like it with more passion that it possibly deserves. That's got to be why I will still stop to listen to "Bust a Move" or "Ice Ice Baby" whenever I hear it. There's little possible other explanation.



But back to the observation about my parents' music. They made us listen to country. I vividly remember seeing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers sing "Islands in the Stream" at a county fair we went to. I do not like country very much today. There's still some stuff that I will listen to that is country, but not anything like what I felt was forced on me back then. (I have, however, found myself unintentionally listening to and singing along with a John Denver song) The stuff that I still like that my parents listened to was their more personal tastes. My dad is a big fan of long, sweeping songs with lots of harmonies and instrumental parts. Think Santana, Chicago, The Eagles, Crosby Stills Nash and Young. My dad loves any song he can sing along to. In fact, he doesn't even care if he knows the words or not; he just wants to sing. And to have enough harmony options to switch to a different tone of voice when he tires of singing in one way for too long. My mom chooses music she can dance to. Now, my mom doesn't really dance-- she does what we call "the Mom dance." She holds her hands in fists like a boxer and twists and pumps her arms to the beat of the music. She never sings along. She prefers 80's music, country music, obscure music...really eclectic taste (Emmylou Harris and Bob Segar to Beck's "Loser" to 80's hair bands like Poison).

So anyway...this post was to say that I can tell that much of what I like is a direct result of what my parents really enjoy. And it's the stuff that they enjoy on a visceral level, the songs that make them move or sing or turn up the volume. I don't care as much for the music that they react more mildly to. Then the other major influence is the music that was important and meaningful to me at different points in my life. My junior high music and my college music will always be important to me. In fact, The Beatles and Dave Matthews Band were the two bands I listened to the most in college, and they are the most represented bands in my iTunes.

Book Review: Misunderstanding the Assignment

Hunt, Doug. Misunderstanding the Assignment: Teenage Students, College Writing, and the Pains of Growth. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2002.

This is a 160 page ethnography about a first year writing course at a Missouri university. A team of researchers followed a class of 19 students throughout their writing class one semester. They videotaped all class meetings and did many interviews with the students and the teacher. The book excerpts portions of those class meetings and interviews in order to study 6 students and the class more intensely.

Two main observations about the observations made in this book: 1) Commitment to the class is not entirely dependant on either the teacher or the student; background issues and current struggles mix with whatever level of motivation is present or lacking to determine the student's readiness for the material, and 2) writing assignments that are meant to teach critical thinking are intentionally ambiguous and open-ended, but this creates definite problems for the students who are not yet ready for them.

Ok, first observation. The study followed 6 students who all came from different backgrounds. One student who really struggled with the semester seemed to be having a major identity crisis, perhaps even learning that she was bi-polar. A couple of students needed to get good grades in the class or risk leaving school because of financial difficulty. Some of these students used that fact to motivate them to do whatever it would take to pass, while others used it as an excuse to opt out of the semester, as in "it doesn't matter because whatever I do won't be good enough and I won't be back next semester." Some students were very mature, working difficult jobs to get through school and dealing with the time management issues that arise from that, while others were at school to avoid starting their adult lives. This is all over-simplifying these students into these neat little dichotomies, but what I'm trying to say here is that the students all had multiple mitigating factors in their success or failure. There is no typical 18 year old freshman student. They all come with differing amounts of baggage and even the baggage itself does not determine success or failure because for some it will make them work harder while others will sink under the same pressure.

I know that the same tenet applies to the students I have in class each and every semester. The ones who really worry me I'll recommend to Project Success so someone can get them help if they want it. But what became obvious from reading this is that I have had students who have hidden their worries successfully. I don't know if this is a blessing or a curse. I do know that it can ultimately affect the writing assignments and their quality. What I sometimes take as a lack of experience with a topic could be a reluctance to deal with the topic in a way that is uncomfortable to the student. What looks like naivety or laziness could be a personal reluctance. Of course, it could also be naivety or laziness. Who's to say? The book doesn't construct any kind of answer for this question that lies beneath the surface. I don't necessarily think that looking for these personal motives will help me to help the student any better; I'm no psychoanalyist or therapist after all. But I don't think the student completely ignoring them is any better. And what makes the whole thing worse is to really avoid this complication, I would have to come up with the safest, lamest topics ever made, and I am unwilling to do so.

Alrighty, on to observation #2. This is one that I've known for years now and have seen every single semester in my teaching. There is a fine, squiggly line between a writing assignment that is challenging enough to yield great thinking from the student while also being clearly defined enough for the student to believe he has a reasonable shot at succeeding at "what the teacher wants." Of course, what the teacher really wants is a paper that relates to the assigned topic, is clearly defined and strongly supported and shows real evidence of life behind the mind of the student who wrote it. This is what I want from each and every assignment, which means I also want for students to come up with their ideas on their own and do not want to force the assignment on them too much. Then we get into the problem of how every assignment is forced on the student by the very nature of its being an assignment. I cannot change that factor no matter what I do. Even if it was completely a free choice, the student could still ask, "But what kind of free choice paper do you want?" whether out loud or subconciously. I get into the problem of I want students to think for themselves and I want it to be about such and such and what we've discussed in class in some way and then I also want it to be strong writing. I realized by reading this book that I intentionally try to give off a vibe that I'll be pleased with whatever they choose to write about on the topic while also giving off a second vibe of having high standards and wanting the writing to look like something substantial. These two vibes are like one and the same to me, but they are two distinct vibes to the students, I think. Then, what often happens is the students pick one or the other vibe to go with, and honestly they can find success in either one or be doomed in either one, so it is all really very confusing. This now leads me full circle to my main point with this observation. I do have a picture of the assignment I would like while also having many hazy images of the assignment that I would also like if they were well done. All the while, I do not want to spell out too clearly what they could do because I do not want students to merely copy the ideal assignment, but I want them to discover it on their own. You see, if they did copy it, it would hardly be real learning. It would be mimickry. While some learning can occur through mimickry, it usually does not transfer over to other learning. The learning I want needs to come from within the student and be attached to their schema and made real to them to be accessed later in a different writing assignment in my class or one of their other classes. And that I why I refuse to spell things out super clearly. But where or where is that fine, squiggly line and how do I find it? How do I create assignments that are clear but complicated enough? And then when I do find a magic assignment, how to I create another one down the road that does the same thing without just repeating the same formula? The irony of all of this is that in asking these questions I am modelling what I want students to do with each writing assignment. It is not enough for them to merely spew out one essay without thinking, but they should question their motives for writing it that way and also think of the affect it will have on their audience, and then, even if that paper earns an A, they will still have to do similar but different thinking for the next writing assignment and not just repeat some formula that once worked.

And this is why each and every semester at some point, I throw my hands up in the air and say that I should not be a writing teacher anymore. I then swear that I am going to teach something more quantifiable until I hear the sound of the scantron machine.

Reflections about the Computers and Writing Conference

I just attended my very first Computers and Writing Conference last week in Athens, GA. I liked the smaller, more intimate feel of this conference. Both the fact that it was held at University of Georgia and its timing of being held after the semester was over helped make it more casual than the big national conferences I've been to in the last couple of years.

A couple of thoughts about the conference in general. The first official day of the conference we went to a reception and I noticed there was very little diversity to the conference attendees. I think I saw one African American attendant the whole time I was there. Other than that, it was just white, white, Asian-American, white, white, Asian-American, white, white, white...you get the picture. I'm not going to interpret this observation but just leave it as it is.

The other main observation I had I will elaborate on. In one session, someone was reading a paper about Open Source and blatant Raymondism. Ok, yup, I have no clue who Raymond is or was. I gleaned some stuff from the paper, but only sideways. This was an actual paper presentation where a paper was read, word for word, for almost 20 minutes. Those are always harder to understand. Anywho, I'm straying from my point here. At the end of this paper presentation, what I was able to understand was that whether or not instructors/institutions choose to use Open Source instead of corporate packages is a moral decision that involves whether we want to follow a factory or cathedral or market model...there were more models, but I cannot remember them now. The author was really intent on comparing Open Source to all these models he had read about by authors I've never heard of. I was sitting back thinking, yeah, so, that's all well and good to think of this as a moral and philosophical question when we are a week or two finished with a school semester and a couple of months away from the next one. These are not the things I am likely to worry about when I am in week 8 of the semester and students are whining about this or that being too much to understand, and the server is on the fritz for unknown reasons and Student 12 wants to know why she was 2 points away from an A on this or that assignment that is worth .75% of her final grade. And then it dawned on me: author man presenting his paper about obscure things with such a strong passion and encripted lingo must be a grad student! Or someone who only teaches 3 classes a semester and is expected to research the rest of the time.

I usually don't go into a conference with a Community College chip on my shoulder or even realize I am any different from anyone else at a conference, but I really noticed many things this conference, all stemming from the fact that I work in a different environment than they do. It would be so much easier to be all high-minded about Open Sourcing and which technology is the right decision for educators and the like if I weren't dealing with such a technilogical divide in my students, some of whom do not have reliable internet connection at home, others who are returning after many decades and have minimal computer experience. I'm still much happier working at a community college than a research institution. I would much rather focus my time on what happens in the classroom and how to best meet goals and objectives of the courses than reading obscure things and analyzing them in order to get yet another blurb on my C.V. or another checkmark on a tenure checklist. (I'm sure somewhere there are good motives for these things, but I see them as lesser items than the goals and objectives of a course-- things that are directly related to student learning and progress)

Some things from the conference I will try to use next semester:
1. Problems with Google Docs are best solved by belonging to their list-serv or blog ring. I need to join up, but I will do so closer to the next semester's start. Also, I need to talk to someone in networking or help desk about the problem I've been experiencing in the classroom as it seems to be a SWIC only Google problem. I had thought it was a problem between Explorer and Firefox, but it appears it may have much more to do with the log-in procedure and/or clearing the cache.

2. Have 102 students take a survey about how they feel about themselves as researchers. Joyce Walker and James Purdy wrote an article about the survey they did and I can contact Joyce for their survey if need be. I think it would be interesting for SWIC students to compare their answers to those of students from 4 year schools and to start questioning why students feel this way about their own research skills.

3. Whether or not I use a pre-packaged CMS or a number of things pulled together, I need to explain to students why certain applications are the best for what we are doing, so they too buy into it.

4. Students are not as concerned about privacy as we are. This does not mean that they should not be, but they also kind of have a point. Alex Reid gave a great example. He said that if a bunch of teenagers are in the Food Court of the mall talking loudly about their personal lives, they do not think they are doing anything wrong, but they will look at you like you are crazy if they catch you listening to them. Then, you're the weirdo. The same thing happens in on-line communities. If you were not invited to the blog or the intended audience for the blog, then you are the strange one for wandering over and viewing it; you do not belong. This just says to me that the students do need some warning about privacy and their blogs and whatnot and do need to be encouraged to keep their personal lives seperate from their educational lives, but also that I don't need to freak out about students who are willing to share and blend their personal lives into their educational lives because those boundaries are blurred for them. Anyway...I feel like I'm talking myself in circles here. Oh, and mental note to check out Alex Reid's blog.

5. Consider writing syllabi that are more natural in their written structure and less top-down to the students. Right now, I do a very Freirean thing of allowing students to decide the policies on absence and the like. My preliminary syllabus should probably be more conversational than it is at the moment. The discussion of the policies could be taken to chat or discussion board instead of small groups.

6. E-portfolios look like the next great big thing in education. Don't know how I feel about this.

Reflections about the Field Trip to see Ella

I am exhausted! I never knew that field trips were so much work. This field trip sounded simple enough. All students in the Learning Community go to see a play in St. Louis. In order for that to happen, I applied for a grant from The Foundation. That involved researching the costs and reserving the tickets, figuring out transportation costs, scurrying around for various signatures at the last minute.



I think last minute scurrying is pretty much the theme of the field trip to me.



Times I scurried during prep for the field trip:

-gathering signatures for the grant application

-locating proof that funding did not exist elsewhere

-finally sending payment to the Rep (which, I think, made it in time...just barely)

-getting the excused absence paperwork filled out 2 weeks after it was supposed to be filled out, but still in time to do it before the field trip itself

-getting the pizza to the students before leaving

-getting to the field trip location itself



I believe I left out a couple of scurryings; I certainly left out many additional harried moments.



In the end, though, the part of the play we saw was great, the students were very gracious, and I think I can honestly say that a good time was had and learning occured. I think I've come to the conclusion that I will probably do a field trip again (note all the qualifiers there), but there's no way I will do them on a regular basis.



The worst part of it all for me was the feeling that I was personally responsible if anything happened to the students while we were on this trip. Feeling responsible like that is exhausting. Driving a 12 passenger van is exhausting. Marathons around campus as I get paperwork taken care of-- also exhausting. I sense a new theme here.

Atonement by Ian McEwan

On the flight to and from Boston, I read Atonement.

Preface to any student currently reading this post: I was reading this book in lieu of reading papers because I do not like flying. I needed something to thoroughly distract me from the fact that I was flying. That, and I was paranoid about losing the papers. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. That's why I was able to finish a whole book while traveling for 16 hours but could not grade a single paper.

Basic plot: One moment (or two, depending on if the typed letter is another moment) witnessed by a young girl drives the young girl to later make a false accusation that leads to hardship for many involved. It happens in 1935. The book fast forwards to WWII. And then it leaps to 1999. Told from multiple perspectives.

Fascinating. A great read. The author focused on the right details and left the unnecessary ones out. He provided enough context for the narrative to continue in a way that made everything seem inevitable. In fact, as I read, that one word kept popping up in my head: inevitability. I seemed to hear Agent Smith from The Matrix saying, "Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability." Ok, so I may not have the quote exactly right, but at least I was not so geeky as to go look it up or rewatch the movie just to get the one quote right. So anyway, that got me to thinking about what created that feeling. Part of it was how the author would refer to how something would be important later, as in when it is said of Robbie, "later, he would regret that one decision." Or all of the references to Briony's writing and what she found to be of use to her later. The other was how all of the truly significant moments were told (and retold) in loving detail. And each telling focused on the details significant to the person doing the telling. All had a shred of familiarity-- the oddly real details, like the moisture evaporating from the damp spot near the fountain, anchor all of the narratives. Small things like that getting such big attention and emphasis in the text really make it seem significant. You get the whole sense that in this moment, time stood still, because after this moment, everything changed; therefore, the moment itself is of otherwordly importance.

The whole novel is really a study in how to write novels and write them well. One day, when I have tenure and my Ph.D. is finished and I have that almost mythological extra time in my life and career (will this ever happen????), I would love to teach a class on the novel. This book would have to be one of the last books read during a semester long study of the novel. It is that good for what it says about how to propel a narrative forward and what is authentic and what fails to ring true.

There were a couple of moments when I was reading where I though, "You know, that just doesn't seem right somehow" or "Why did the narrative skip like that just then?" Those parts become significant later. One of my friends who read the book before I did said I have to talk to her about it later because she really wants to know a couple of things or confirm a couple of things. After reading through to the end, I can guess what it is she wants to talk about. It's going to start a little something like, "Do you think such and such really happened this way or that way?" I know the way things happened and what the plot was vs. what it could have been because all of the clues were provided for the reader and I was drawn to notice the clues as I read along. And that mirrors and mimicks the false accusation perfectly! You can see exactly why Briony comes to the conclusion she does and how that leads to the false accusation, but then you are also given every possible clue as to who really did it and can see why some others think the way that they do. All the while, The Truth is there as second cousin to the "truth" that gets accepted as it is presented. It's like the real truth is there for us beneath the presentations of what we want to believe. And THAT is why I loved the book.

Have to admit though...I was blushing during the library scene. That is one part of the book where the author definitely did not leave anything to imagination.

Sidenote: I have not seen the movie, nor do I intend to. I read the book because the concept sounded really interesting but also sounded like something that would take a book to realize perfectly. I suspect I am correct in this. I have no clue how they'd adapt this book to film; however, I am grateful to the move trailers for a couple of things. First, Keira Knightley was perfectly cast as Cecilia. Having a mental picture of her in that role really helped. I also knew what the actress who plays Briony looks like and that helped as well. Third, the green dress that I've seen in ads for the movie was perfect. I would not have pictured it in the proper way without a visual reference already handy.

Book Club: Talk, Talk

Talk, Talk by T. C. Boyle

I meant to post about this long, long ago when I was actually reading it, but I haven't had a spare moment to do so.

This book has a deaf woman, Dana Halter, as a protagonist. She has her identity stolen by another character, Peck/William. I guess we oughtta call him the antagonist. Then there are also the significant others. Bridger is Dana's boyfriend and Natasha is Peck's girlfriend.

The character development in Boyle's novel is excellent. All of the people in the book feel like real people I could have met before. The weird thing is I had a mental picture for most of the characters, but not for the main character. I imagine Bridger to look just like a picture of the author I've seen in the Intro to Fiction book, kind of lanky with spiky brown hair and bird-like eyes. Natasha looks like this one former super model. The only physical detail I have for Dana is that she has lots of auburn hair. There was this one girl at my college who had a super-full mane of red hair. It was just one big huge triangle of hair. Friends of mine actually referred to her as "The Hair." That's my only frame of reference for what Dana must look like. But I know lots of people who have personalities similar to her. I could definitely recognize the personality traits of all of the characters.

The deafness in the novel puts an interesting spin on things. My sister-in-law, Val, is taking a couple of classes on this right now. She's in a finger spelling class that does interesting activities to get the hearing students to think about deafness. I once had a deaf student in one of my 101 classes. It was the most ADHD class I have ever had (and that is saying something). The smalllish room was packed full with 25 students, me, and the two interpreters. Then you have distractable me talking to the students as a whole with one person signing next to me, and about half of the students incapable of keeping a thought in their head without it spewing forth from their mouths. It was chaos. I actually envied the one student who was able to shut the other students out just by turning away from them.

It's such a shame, though, that people look at those with hearing disabilities as somehow lacking in intelligence. The novel makes reference to this several times. Dana talks about "the look" that people give her when they hear how her speech is different and how some strangers choose to talk to the other people with her instead of recognizing that she is a real person who also has a real need to communicate.

There was a big emphasis on words that Dana accumulated in order to help her students prepare for standardized testing. Interesting that this habit stops after a while.

I'm not going to say much about the ending here, but I did find it appropriate. Unexpected, but approporiate.

Comments about Black, White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker

Black, White and Jewish is one of the LC's Book Club books. I just finished reading it over the weekend.

The book is about Rebecca Walker's experience growing up, well, black, white and Jewish. She is Alice Walker's daughter (the author of The Color Purple). It was interesting to read Rebecca's observations about how she made sense of herself and how others reacted to her. Part of the conflict she had was that her parents divorced when she was around 8, I think. After the divorce, she had to split time between her mom's house and her dad's house. Before long, her dad married a white woman. Really, most of the book is about shifting between these different worlds: her mom's house where she pretty much took care of herself and rarely saw her mom and hung out with a more multicultural crowd (sometimes with all white people, sometimes with Chicanos, other times with black people, and occasionally with another mixed family). When she was in her dad's world, it was mostly all white and also Jewish, but Jewish to differing degrees.
I felt like the book was as much about negotiating these different selves she was expected to be from one household to the next as much as it was about the ethnicity. The rules changed, geography and school types changed, friends changed. Not much ever remained the same for her.

It was really sad to me b/c she grew up so quickly. I'd have to look at the book to say for sure, but her first sexual experience was when she was around 12 or 13. She also roamed the streets of San Francisco with a same-aged friend of hers in search of pot when she was around 12. Part of it makes me want to say to Alice Walker, "Yeah, you wrote some great fiction and rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston, but at what cost to your own daughter? Where were you for her?" It's pretty clear from the book that Alice Walker tried to get Rebecca Walker to be as independent as possible and had great hope for what she could accomplish. That hope was there in the beginning when Rebecca is this tangible product of a genuine love between a black woman and a white man. Rebecca's parents, as civil rights people, believed they were doing a wonderful thing and she was a symbol of the peace and harmony that was to come. But the pressures of the day became too much and their marriage eventually dissolved, leaving Rebecca to question what she was now.

The time and places Walker writes about brought to mind experiences I have had. I believe she is about 10-15 years older than I am, but some of the fashion and music was stuff that I remembered from very early youth. I too can recall wearing purple corduroy pants and jelly shoes. The music of her teen years was around in the background of my elementary years.

What it especially made me think of was my own interaction with issues of race when I was younger. Rebecca Walker was often the only or one of the only people of color in some of her schools. I had a similar but also opposite situation. For the first 5 years of school, I was bussed to a school in downtown San Diego because the school did not have enough white children in it. Each class picture I have from then will show you 15-20 black children of differing levels of color and then 3 or so white kids. I'm always the goofy looking blond girl. Though I did not do this to the same degree that Walker did, to some extent I too learned a different world when at school and then another when back on the military base when I went home. School friends double-dutched and "based" on one another (kind of short for debasing, similar to dissing). Home friends were obsessed with Star Wars and Thundercats (Thundercats, ho!) and, because we were on NAS Miramar, Top Gun as well. I'm not sure how many of us were aware that when we went home we had different worlds from one another. I can't recall it ever coming up or being a problem. I do remember one family from the school had been in the newspaper in an article discussing mixed families. It was still relatively rare when I was a kid 10-15 years after Walker's life story.

I do know that at some point I started to realize that I belonged to a priveleged minority when I was younger. Though there were relatively few white kids at the school, I wasn't picked on. If anything, I think the way we were singled out was for more attention by the teachers. I went to 5 years of that school in downtown San Diego. I can only remember 4 of the teachers. 3 of them were white. The remaining one may have been Asian-American, and I cannot remember the fifth teacher at all (did I not go to 1st grade?). The principle was African-American. Anyway, the whole point is that it is not too surprising to me today that I was called on and singled out for student-of-the-month awards and GATE testing when I was one of a couple of white kids and had white teachers. I am a little surprised that there were never any fights, but I think race matters less to younger kids than it does as they grow older and pick up on things that adults have said or done.

An observation about boys

I used to be one of those people who believed if boys were not given toy guns to play with then they would not play guns. I now know differently now that I have experienced having a son. This did not prepare me for other elements of raising boys, though.

Forgive me a bit of naivete here. Please, understand that I have always had male friends, but I wasn't really around boys until I had one of my own. It pretty much goes without saying that males tend to have a one track mind. Perhaps you will think I am being sexist here, but there have been studies done that supposedly show that men think of sex an average of at least once a minute or once every thirty seconds or whatever. There's no naivete on my part yet. I know this exists...yadda yadda yadda. What I did not realize is that the character trait of only being able to focus on one thing until that one thing is carried out or fulfilled or whatever...I always assumed that started during puberty. I was unaware that it could also be applied to 4 year olds with video games!

I've seen my husband become incapable of conversation when playing computer games or those long strategy games like Acquire or Risk. He's told me he would stop playing a game in an hour and then finally stop about 3 hours later, completely unaware of how much time had elapsed. I actually think he only stopped because of hunger pangs or a bathroom break. I didn't know that young boys are capable of the same level of devotion to games and whatnot.

This is just strange to me. I've heard all of the research about ADHD and how boys are at least 3 times more likely to be diagnosed with it compared to girls. I've heard other mothers and teachers say that ADHD is over diagnosed and that people are just "diagnosing" something that is typical boy behavior....so, I was fully prepared for a boy who would stay with activities for shorter periods of time and lose focus easily. Instead, I have one who focuses too much on one activity. His every waking moment is dedicated to when he will get to play Lego Star Wars on the playstation. How is this typical boy behavior and also ADHD typical behavior? The two things are at odds with each other, unless....ADHD gets the blame in the school setting because the child does not focus on school subjects and is instead interested in other things that capture his attention.

The obsession with playstation is somewhat annoying at times, but it has also proved useful. We now have Nathan doing 4 activities each day in order to earn his Playstation time. He also asks if he has been good enough to earn the right to play his game. This would be super cute, except the other day, he woke up and then asked, "Mommy, was I good overnight? And can I play Lego Star Wars now?" Ok, it was still cute, but after hearing 20 such requests in one day, it gets old. I have heard this may also be a 4 year old thing.

My Short Attention Span

Well, I got to thinking and talking about my habit of jam-packing every moment of a 50 minute class with some activity of some sort. I have come to the realization that I have a relatively short attention span (or more accurately attention tolerance span) and I like to have long spans of doing the exact same thing broken into smaller tasks or actvities or the ability to multi-task several things at once.

I do not know if this is because of my age, the fact that I am a mom of two young kids and am required to prioritize and multi-task or my reliance on technology that allows me to do these things. Anyway, I just know that it is so and I expect that my students feel the same way.

So that got me to wondering if my students ever feel like I am just rushing through things with no opportunity for reflection.

Today in the Learning Community class, I wrote down 5 activities would we try to get through in 50 minutes. I actually felt bad about these 5 things because they were something that I settled on the day of class instead of meticulously planning for in advance. One of the items was to allow students to share something from their journal assignment for the day. This is something that can seem like a throwaway 5-10 minutes that can be done or left out, but it really, really worked today. First, I think it shows students that their journal writing matters. Second, it made the discussion relevant to what mattered to them. Third, who wants me to regurgitate what they have read from the handbook (also assigned)? Anyway, we managed to cover that (the journal and handbook assignment--kind of) and then a handout about what things in writing that annoy me, a life list assignment and the writing assignment for their first paper. And though all of that was accomplished in just 50 minutes, it seemed to work out just fine...not too fast, not too lingering.

But perhaps I should check with the students to see how they felt about it...

That darned dreaded assessment thing. How to assess when students "get it" or feel as confident about the lessons as you did...??? If I ever answer that question, I will become a rich woman indeed.

Word of the week: perhaps. Why do I keep saying perhaps? Why do I keep making myself seem so much older than I really am?

Oh, the little things that make me happy

Denise made my day today. At 11:15ish today, she informed me that there will be not one, but two episodes of Chuck on tomorrow night. Not only will there be episodes of Chuck, but they will be new episodes!



Now the great debate is do we watch both of them tomorrow or ration ourselves on Chuck? Do I spread my John Caseyisms out over a week or indulge in two hours of bizarre pop culture references and geeky behavior?



I may just have to dig out the tape from before the writer strike to locate the very last episode we watched and review it in preparation for the new Chuck episodes.



I'm beginning to think I belong on the Nerd Herd.









Ok, so quite seriously, I very may need to be on a Nerd Herd. I have had music on the brain lately because of the music themed 101 class. Yesterday, I was rereading the introduction to Leonard Bernstein's The Joy of Music while Nathan was (yet again) playing Lego Star Wars on the Playstation. So, here I am reading about music and how inexplicable it is when I happen to hear the familiar strains of Star Wars theme music. I had a complete flashback to two moments. If you are picturing this in real time in your brain, it wasn't a split-screen experience; it was more like two images overlapping in my mind. The one was of my childhood living room. My sister and I were laying on the floor on our stomachs, looking up at the t.v. while Dad was in the recliner-- all three of us watching Star Wars, me reading the text at the very beginning of the movie. Then, either fast-forward 20 years or play the image simultaneously...a movie theatre in Kankakee, IL. The rerelease of the Star Wars movie. When that familiar music played, I got goosebumps. I was a little ashamed...until I remembered that at least I didn't stand outside in the cold all night for tickets or come to the theatre in costume.



A friend of mine has had his students write papers about their own personal theme song. He refers to how we all have soundtracks to our lives. I believe this too. It's just sad how many of my songs on my soundtrack are also songs on real soundtracks. Are these songs taking me back to the movie moment or a real moment in my own life? For me, the Star Wars theme and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" are both songs from movies that I watched when I was younger, but they mean so much more than those movie moments. They mean bonding with my sister and my dad. They mean recreating the "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" moment from Top Gun for my mom, who was reading a book in her bedroom. The one song from Ghost (also by the Everly Brothers) brings up no memories of that movie for me but instantaneously takes me back to when my college roommate and I were driving to Julio's house singing the song as badly and loudly as possible. "Rebel Rouser" from Forrest Gump has no Forrest-like associations. Instead, when I hear it, I can remember summer days driving down Schwaegel Road (now Greenmount) in my Volkswagen Golf, going as fast as was safe (to feel the bumps on the edge of the "pavement" a little less), with the windows down because the air conditioner had run out of freon long ago, and actually getting along with my sister for the length of those 15 minute rides from our house to the Mielke's house to watch World Cup soccer.

My Top Ten List about Music for ENGL 101

I assigned the Music-themed 101 students to create a "top ten" list of songs or artists or albums or whatever to represent what music they like and why. In all fairness, I decided to take on this task as well. I know this will be easier for some people than others. And I'm not particular about what number anyone ends up with; the point is, after all, to just list what you like and why.



Nicole's Top Ten

The Beatles Early Beatles. Middle Beatles. Late Beatles. I like 'em all. And there is a time and a place for just about all Beatles music (excepting dreadful songs like "She's Leaving" from Sgt. Pepper's). Favorite songs of theirs at the moment: Norwegian Wood, Revolution, Something, In My Life, When I'm 64, Hey You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, Come Together...the list could go on an on and on.

Dave Matthews Band This probably shows my age. DMB was my college rock. I've seen them in concert 3 times (and I am not a concert-goer). I like Under the Table and Dreaming for everyday moods and Live at Red Rock is great background music for when I am writing (especially "Seek Up"). Long long ago, my sister gave me a taped copy of "Long Black Veil" (DMB's cover of a great Johnny Cash song). I played that song on the way to work. When I got to a certain point in the song, I rewound it and played it again. That was the only part of the tape I listened to. Until a week ago, I didn't have a non-tape version of it. I found it on iTunes last week, and (not to be too overly dramatic about this), you would have thought I'd been reconnected with a long-lost friend. It was as welcome as a call from a college friend I haven't heard from in a year or two. (which coincidentally happened the same week that I refound LLV)

U2: Joshua Tree and Rattle and Hum I can live without all of U2, but these two albums are ones I do not have to be in a certain mood to hear. I can listen to them whenever, wherever. "With or Without You," "All I Need is You," and "Bullet the Blue Sky" are particular favorites.

Eric Clapton from classic guitar rock like "Cocaine" to "Layla" to the beautiful "Wonderful Tonight" to the 80's-ish "It's in the Way that You Use It" to the great-to-blast-in-the-car "She's Waiting" to the bluesy songs on From the Cradle, I like 'em all. He doesn't have the best voice in the world, but he knows how to use it and use those fabulous guitar skills are pretty much beyond compare.

Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young When looking over my musical tastes, I can usually point to a certain time period where I was immersed in such and such or I can see where I've picked up my mom's musical affection for songs with a certain backbeat. CSNY is purely my dad's influence. My dad sings along (not always correctly) with various parts of CSNY's harmonies. For the longest time, I didn't know what the "do do do do doot" part of "Suite: Judy Blues Eyes" sounded like without my dad's voice in there too. Speaking of that song, I love how it feels like 5 songs in one. Just when you think one part of the song is closing, it moves into a different movement which is distinct on its own and yet belongs to the song at the same time. I also love, love, love "Southern Cross" and Stills' "If You Can Be With the One You Love, Love the One You're With" (which should possibly lead me to explain that some songs are loveable not for their main message but just because they are good music).

Paul Simon/ Simon and Garfunkel I firmly believe Paul Simon is the best song writer. What amazes me is that each album of his is a distinct creation, born of a new sound inspiration AND the lyrics are meaningful and cooperate with the sound in such a way that both the lyrics and the music are stronger for their partnering. Simon and Garfunkel faves: The Boxer, I am a Rock, America, Leaves That Are Green, Cecilia. Paul Simon solo faves: Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard, Gone at Last, You Can Call Me Al, The Obvious Child.

The Who This spot on the list is really due to just two songs: Who Are You and Baba O'Riley (Teenage Wasteland). I really understand why Pete Townshend's hearing is so poor. When I play these songs in the car (when driving without the kids), I blast them and play the drums on the steering wheel.

The Black Crowes "Hard to Handle" "She Talks to Angels" and "Jealous Again"

Stevie Ray Vaughn "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Voodoo Child" "Lovestruck Baby" "Tightrope." Sadly, I have noticed that all of the blues music that I listen to is by white guys. I think that's a bit backwards, but it is what it is.





Ok, I am now finding this harder to do. It's really difficult to choose between all kinds of artists to fill out 4 more spots, so I am going to cheat a little (as the 101 students are allowed to do as well) and leave the top ten format to just list a bunch of songs that tend to get repeated in multiple playlists on my iPod. I feel they need no justification if you are familiar with them, and if you are not, well, no explanation of mine will help.



Ain't No Sunshine Bill Withers

All Along the Watchtower (DMB version or Hendrix)

Are You Gonna Go My Way Lenny Kravitz

Baby I Love You Aretha Franklin

Beverly Hills Weezer

Blister in the Sun Violent Femmes

Brown Eyed Girl Van Morrison

Bust a Move Young MC

Danny's Song Loggins and Messina

Drift Away Dobie Gray

Handle with Care Travelling Wilburies

Here It Goes Again Ok Go

Hey Hey What Can I Do Led Zepellin

Hurdy Gurdy Man Donovan

I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) Proclaimers

I Can't Make You Love Me Bonnie Raitt

If I Had No Loot Tony Toni Tone

If I Needed You Emmylou Harris

In Your Room Bangles

Into the Mystic Van Morrison

Loser Beck

Morning Has Broken Cat Stevens

Never Tear Us Apart INXS

Only Happy When It Rains Garbage

Red House Jimi Hendrix

Roadhouse Blues The Doors

Seven Bridges Road The Eagles

She's Always a Woman Billy Joel

Should I Stay or Should I Go The Clash

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing Jack Johnson

Smoke on the Water Deep Purple

Solsbury Hill Peter Gabriel

Some Kind of Wonderful Grand Funk Railroad

Son of a Preacher Man Dusty Springfield

Soul Man Sam and Dave

Steal My Kisses Ben Harper

Sundown Gordon Lightfoot

Testing 1, 2, 3 Barenaked Ladies

The Joker Steve Miller Band

The Ring of Fire Johnny Cash

Up on Cripple Creek The Band

What Have I Done to Deserve This? Pet Shop Boys

Wish You Were Here Pink Floyd

You Can't Always Get What You Want Rolling Stones



This list is rather incomplete. It also highlights what I've been listening to lately...which for some reason includes more '80's stuff than usual. You can credit the iTunes essentials lists for that. I've been trolling through a couple out of curiousity and then I can't help but add some to my "to purchase from iTunes list" which kept growing in anticipation of gift cards for Christmas.

This may be more than anyone cares to know about my music habits, but I tend to compartmentalize just about everything, so music is no exception. When I am buying music without a giftcard, I buy just the things that I really, really want. Then, when I get a gift card, I buy the songs I have wanted but just haven't yearned for because I figure the gift cards are like free money, so why not buy that song you've always wanted but have yet to purchase, you know? At the same time, if the gift card came from someone whose musical tastes I share or appreciate, I also try to buy songs I think they would be happy for me to have. Michelle, if you ever read this, your gift card purchased "Long Black Veil" and an Emmylou Harris song as well as "Piece of my Heart" by Janis Joplin.

That also reminds me that I have started creating playlists by names of people in my life. I haven't gotten very far, but so far my mom, dad, husband and son all have one. Only my son really listens to his, but I like having songs that remind me of certain people lumped together.

This post is much longer than intended and has strayed into just informal blathering, so let's end it!

Steps 1 and 2 from CR

This is me editing in class.

Language Acquisition

I've been meaning to return to posting thoughts in this blog, but I just kind of coasted over break instead.

One thing I've really enjoyed lately is my 19-month old daughter is going through a language explosion. She is learning and using so many more words right now than she did just 2 weeks ago. It's interesting to see which words she decides to learn and use. Now, I know she knows many more words than she actually says, but you have to wonder what goes through her head when she decides this is a word she should try out loud. One of her favorites right now is "scratch." She has a scratch or "ow-ie" on her hand right now, so I don't know if she just likes having a word for this mysterious thing that is on her hand or if she likes the sound of "scratch" or something else entirely.

I'm really pleased that Ellie has started saying "Thank you" now. Well, her version of it anyway. She says something that resembles "taaaaaaaaaaaaanks" with a barely perceptible "n" in it. She has also started singing the ABC song. I can recognize the A-B-C part as actual A's, B's and C's. The rest is a little hit or miss. It goes into jibber jabber for a little while and then returns at LMNO (which most kids see as one letter transaction, not 4 distinct letters), and then she gets into singing really high pitched at the QRS time (just as me and her brother Nathan do and which my husband thinks is just wrong).

It's also funny to see the differences between my two kids in language acquisition. My daughter is very deliberate about her words. She likes to point to things and get us to label them for her and then she eventually points and labels them on her own. My son would point to things and say, "zis?" with a cute little high-pitched i in it. "Zis" stood for "What's this?" But he was more interested in the question-asking than he was the answer. His early language use was really about sound. He used words he liked the sound of. Even after he learned the basic words of his everyday baby/toddler world, he just liked to repeat words that sounded cool. He went through a "nacho" phase. He was 22 months old and really enjoyed hearing Spanish words. He had no idea what an enchilada was, but if we said that or chimichanga or anything like that, we could have him in fits of giggles. Ellie isn't interested in word sounds the same way. She's like a girl on a mission. She wants to know what she can call things and be understood. So she knows the words that are most important to her, which include fairly standard things like: mama, milk, more, mine, etc. (As a first child, my son didn't learn "mine" until much later.) But she also knows words for her favorite things, which are unfortunately: baby, shoes, toothbrush.

Why oh why are my kids obsessed with toothbrushes? It could be much worse, I suppose. I just wish they weren't also attracted to my toothbrushes.

Their language acquisition fits their personalities. Nathan has always been very easy going. He would know what he preferred to do, but was easily swayed to go on to something else (and had a short attention span). Elizabeth wants what she wants when she wants it and she wants it right now and stubbornly insists upon doing it her way. Nathan's early inquisitiveness has not faded one bit. He loves asking questions. In fact, his grandpa taught him at an early age to say, "I'm inquisitive." He still likes sounds and has to have sound effects for every activity and also makes up songs to go along with his activities (which he gets from his mother). It makes me wonder what Elizabeth will be like in 2 years.

I'm really enjoying watching her develop as an 18-24 month old. Check back in a month to see if I'm still enjoying it. Everyone talks about the terrible twos. She went through part of that at 12-16 months with the "mine" and "I can't do it myself" and "I want that" attitudes appearing early. I'm hoping that means I am relatively safe until she gets into the climbing into anything and everything and coloring on walls stage that happens between 2-3 years of age.