Gilberto just reminded me of a priceless EL student moment that happened last week. We were outside practicing our modernized Shakespeare scripts for class performances when Gilberto asked Jose, "What does this mean? It doesn't make sense: 'You are a lie your?'"
Jose: "What? Yes, it does. Lady Capulet's calling you, Benvolio, a liar for saying Tybalt started the fight."
And did it make me sad as his English teacher? No, because he got the more important point-- what was happening in the play. But our new favorite catchphrase in third period is "You are a lie your."
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Monday, April 07, 2008
Harmoniconverse
So, tonight I decided that I couldn't bear to see people glaring at me in my newly-bashed Sophie. Yes, alas, Sophie is officially cursed-- this marks her fourth collision, and the second major one, since I first bought her less than a year ago. More like I'm officially driving the equivalent of drunk due to lack of sleep, in accordance with the latest 60 Minutes sleep deprivation study that I caught a few weeks ago. Gilbert may have been falling apart, but at least his brakes always worked in time when I lost focus momentarily.
Anyway, as I was saying... Deciding I needed another Diet Coke refill for the rotting of the gut, I took a walk to the Carl's on the corner. As I shuffled back up the street to hit the grading again at home, I was admiring the look of the Converse on my feet, having pulled them out of the bottom of my closet where I relegate them when I'm teaching, not wanting my kids to think I'm trying too hard to be cool in hipster Chucks (though I think the Chuck resurgence has passed. In case it hasn't, though, I insist on calling them Converse as I did when I originally wore them in the 90s, because I am convinced we never called them Chucks until emo kids started bringing them back a decade later. In so doing, I open myself up to attack for being a dork...and welcome it.)
As I was making my way up the last block before the house, I looked up at the sound of a bluesy harmonica, only to see a man on a bicycle coming toward me. I pretended to be unphased so he'd continue. As he passed me and I turned my back to him to make my way up the driveway, he must have pulled his harmonica out because I heard him start belting a blues song at the top of his lungs, though I couldn't quite catch the words as he careened out of sight and also out of audio range.
See? Even Orange County suburbs got a little soul...
Anyway, as I was saying... Deciding I needed another Diet Coke refill for the rotting of the gut, I took a walk to the Carl's on the corner. As I shuffled back up the street to hit the grading again at home, I was admiring the look of the Converse on my feet, having pulled them out of the bottom of my closet where I relegate them when I'm teaching, not wanting my kids to think I'm trying too hard to be cool in hipster Chucks (though I think the Chuck resurgence has passed. In case it hasn't, though, I insist on calling them Converse as I did when I originally wore them in the 90s, because I am convinced we never called them Chucks until emo kids started bringing them back a decade later. In so doing, I open myself up to attack for being a dork...and welcome it.)
As I was making my way up the last block before the house, I looked up at the sound of a bluesy harmonica, only to see a man on a bicycle coming toward me. I pretended to be unphased so he'd continue. As he passed me and I turned my back to him to make my way up the driveway, he must have pulled his harmonica out because I heard him start belting a blues song at the top of his lungs, though I couldn't quite catch the words as he careened out of sight and also out of audio range.
See? Even Orange County suburbs got a little soul...
Friday, April 04, 2008
My First Quinceneara
After dropping not-so-subtle hints all year, I've finally gotten an invitation to a quinceneara that I can attend tomorrow morning and I CAN'T WAIT. I spent all night finding the perfect gift for Marisol...and bought a second one for Rocio, feeling guilty that I wasn't able to attend hers when she invited me because of a speech tournament I had to host all day long.
As I wrote them letters inside their cards, I couldn't help envying them this rite of passage. There was always something like that for the boys in my church-- when they were twelve, we gathered around them to bless them with the first level of the priesthood, and again when they were sixteen for the second level, and a third time when they were eighteen for the third. While that never involved a big party, Eagle scout courts of honor and missionary farewells do. I didn't really ever have a sense of becoming an adult until I went away to college and even then, I'd say I was never made to feel it was anything to celebrate in my culture. Not that these girls will find much more appreciation of academic endeavor from their families as a general rule. In fact, I'm a little worried it will all feel a little too much like a pre-wedding because as I looked at Joana's TOME of pictures from her quinceneara, I couldn't help feeling anxiety that it romanticizes the big church production experience at a time in their lives when they're too young to be thinking about that. I was happy to get the anticipated shrieks of horror when I told them Juliet was not yet fourteen when her dad was trying to marry her off to Paris and when she married Romeo, but I hope they'd react the same way if I suggested 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20...etc., etc. :)
Ironically enough, I introduced the students to Sandra Cisneros' novel, House on Mango Street, today after having them read an article about bad Latina stereotypes by Judith Ortiz Cofer for homework last night. The boys rolled their eyes a bit at our feminist rants until I told them about something I heard this morning on NPR about a new exhibit of Chicano art at the LA County Museum of Art. An artist was telling how his career as a conceptual artist began. He was on a date with another Mexican-American woman thirty-six years ago when he became outraged to find that there was not a single piece of Chicano art in the middle of a city with such a large population of Chicanos. When he demanded an explanation from the curator, he was told Chicanos don't make art because they're in gangs, so he came back that night with some friends and a can of red spray paint. In the spirit of Marcel Duchamp, the three new artists signed the front of the building (you can read the interview here). Then we read this vignette from the novel until the bell rang:
"Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
"But we aren't afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davy the Baby's brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that's Rosa's Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he's Fat Boy, though he's not fat anymore nor a boy.
"All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes."
The next project is a book of our own vignettes. The honors kids are going to design journal entries tied to the thematic focus of selected vignettes and the possible personal experiences of their classmates. Then all of the students will write in the journals I got them at the beginning of the year for a few weeks while we read the novel. At the end, each student will choose three vignettes to be included in a book that I'll get bound, my wallet willing. I asked the girls to promise me to write down their memories of their quincenearas while their memories are still fresh...
As I wrote them letters inside their cards, I couldn't help envying them this rite of passage. There was always something like that for the boys in my church-- when they were twelve, we gathered around them to bless them with the first level of the priesthood, and again when they were sixteen for the second level, and a third time when they were eighteen for the third. While that never involved a big party, Eagle scout courts of honor and missionary farewells do. I didn't really ever have a sense of becoming an adult until I went away to college and even then, I'd say I was never made to feel it was anything to celebrate in my culture. Not that these girls will find much more appreciation of academic endeavor from their families as a general rule. In fact, I'm a little worried it will all feel a little too much like a pre-wedding because as I looked at Joana's TOME of pictures from her quinceneara, I couldn't help feeling anxiety that it romanticizes the big church production experience at a time in their lives when they're too young to be thinking about that. I was happy to get the anticipated shrieks of horror when I told them Juliet was not yet fourteen when her dad was trying to marry her off to Paris and when she married Romeo, but I hope they'd react the same way if I suggested 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20...etc., etc. :)
Ironically enough, I introduced the students to Sandra Cisneros' novel, House on Mango Street, today after having them read an article about bad Latina stereotypes by Judith Ortiz Cofer for homework last night. The boys rolled their eyes a bit at our feminist rants until I told them about something I heard this morning on NPR about a new exhibit of Chicano art at the LA County Museum of Art. An artist was telling how his career as a conceptual artist began. He was on a date with another Mexican-American woman thirty-six years ago when he became outraged to find that there was not a single piece of Chicano art in the middle of a city with such a large population of Chicanos. When he demanded an explanation from the curator, he was told Chicanos don't make art because they're in gangs, so he came back that night with some friends and a can of red spray paint. In the spirit of Marcel Duchamp, the three new artists signed the front of the building (you can read the interview here). Then we read this vignette from the novel until the bell rang:
"Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared. They think we’re dangerous. They think we will attack them with shiny knives. They are stupid people who are lost and got here by mistake.
"But we aren't afraid. We know the guy with the crooked eye is Davy the Baby's brother, and the tall one next to him in the straw brim, that's Rosa's Eddie V., and the big one that looks like a dumb grown man, he's Fat Boy, though he's not fat anymore nor a boy.
"All brown all around, we are safe. But watch us drive into a neighborhood of another color and our knees go shakity-shake and our car windows get rolled up tight and our eyes look straight. Yeah. That is how it goes and goes."
The next project is a book of our own vignettes. The honors kids are going to design journal entries tied to the thematic focus of selected vignettes and the possible personal experiences of their classmates. Then all of the students will write in the journals I got them at the beginning of the year for a few weeks while we read the novel. At the end, each student will choose three vignettes to be included in a book that I'll get bound, my wallet willing. I asked the girls to promise me to write down their memories of their quincenearas while their memories are still fresh...
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