What ELA is to Me -- My Blogging Finale -- i'll miss me too

     I fear that this summer will be spent worrying about the obviously challenging career i will have next year at Bard High School Early College. And the more i learn about it the more i realize that Bard is a school that is based off the idea that discussion and reflection through writing. For example, a class like science might start out with a discussion on what the scientific world has to offer to our society. What i think is so interesting about this is that ELA is the subject that is about us as a people. Communication is a language but not a content. We can know how to pronounce english words but not have any clue what we are saying. Therefor all of our subjects are taught through ELA. 

     I think that ELA is most closely related to theatrical arts in that people like and enjoy reading and watching tales based on their own lives. The only difference between the two is the medium but in reality in both scenarios the writer/actor, shows the reader/watcher, something about themselves that the reader/watcher cannot find by him/herself. Its things like these that make it so important to make sure that the arts and the act of clear communication is so important. Which is why online sites like Facebook are so threatening to our life's. If we get it in our heads that it is ok to tell someone something very important over a message or a text than we are admitting, knowingly or not, that we are to coward to see their reaction. And this then makes it ok to say these things. 

     Something i think is very interesting is that we tend to rely more and more on the fact that we have keyboards and computers that can type faster than we can handwrite. Of coarse this is a good thing but maybe not entirely and alternative. At least not for now. People still write entries by hand all the time and rely on the pen and paper. So when eight-year-olds are learning how to tweet their ideas and facebook their friends then we are left with people who cannot communicate properly with the world and are therefor set up for failure. This is why it is so important to teach kids ELA and the art of writing. 

What they Carried

So last week i reviewed a book while ten pages into it. A critical mistake that wont be made again. But here's the thing, it sounded like i was writing the wight thing at the time. I talked about how i thought this was another book about love letters and the Viet Nam war. I realize that it's about much more. The book is about a boy that shows so much promise: getting into Harvard and finally kissing his girlfriend when he is put into war. It's a non-fiction memoir about this boy wondering why he was chose in the draft and not some college dropout. The book touches on the idea of teenage idealism and how people going through that time in their lives want to know why bad things happen to them. 
So the boy drives away from his life hoping to leave his parents and his country behind along with all of the responsibilities. He finds himself at the Canadian border staying in the hospitality of an old man that owns a local drive-in. The man is described with the utmost care and love. He is a man that keeps his feelings to himself but the author makes it clear that the old man made the boy feel at home. He also crossed the boy as having a sense of understanding. 
This book is definitely not just another love story. Its a collection of real war stories that tell the story of a platoon during one of the most grueling time periods of all time. The Viet Nam war when the U.S. was absolutely scared out of it's mind of Communism. The support of the troops was thinning. 

What they carried

What They Carried By Tim O'brian is a book about a platoon of soldiers in the Viet Nam war. The story is told by the platoon leader which gives the story an interesting. He has letters from a girl back in North Carolina that he loves more than the platoon itself. He talks about licking the seal of the envelopes he's received knowing she has licked them as well. I'm about a third of the way into the book but I predict that he will get in trouble with his feeling. He already has, he had one of his men crawl through a tunnel with only a pistol. When the man was attacked he was thinking about the girl and was only able to save the man when shaken by one of his men. 
What i think is interesting is that they don't say his age. This is actually a problem for me. I picture a platoon leader as a forty or fifty year old. But he seems like he is in love and is going through his twenties or thirties like a soldier at war with a girl at home. I think the author does this to keep the reader openminded. The author now has the ability to do anything with the character and wont worry about the reader being confused.
But what i think is the coolest part about this book is that they don't mention the man's name. I think that the author is really trying to get us to think about how we forget about all of the different soldiers in the Viet Nam war. We think about the soldiers, the troops. But we never stop to think about each different soldier's life and how each different soldier had a different story to tell and different thing that they carried.

Friday Night Lights

I am currently reading the book Friday Night Lights. The book is about Odessa, Texas; a town that runs on football. The Odessa Panthers are the local high school football team and are frowned upon by the town when they merely make it to a state semi-final round. "The boys in this town aren't strong or large. They're not fast or tall, but they have more spirit and conviction than any  of the other teams. At first sight,. yes, it is rather corny. But when accompanied by poetic and progressively impressive writing it makes for a wonderful tale. There is of coarse a  problem though. Yes, this lifestyle of rooting and cheering for multiple 18 year olds is supposedly cherished by the writer. but he does, of coarse, write the story of the boy that is not on the football team.

The biggest problem with This town is not its addiction to a sport rather than, lets say,  education. But the real problem is that those few who dont make the teams bench are forced through years of misery and ignorance. For 17 year old Daniel, this means that when his father dies he has absolutely no one to turn to except for his grandmother living in a nursing home hours away in Armadillo. Its not like the boys wish's he was on the team, he hates the sport entirely, he just wishes he could be treated differently now that his father was dead. 

Amongst all of this bad news there is also the football that is so elegantly written into the story as thought  it takes absolutely no effort whatsoever. The story has thrilling tackles,  wonderful blitzes and impressive runs that take you through the book and TV series Friday Night Lights

Hunger games: the movie... the book

I am currently reading the book The Hunger Games. I don't like to think that it was due to the fact that the movie came out but i think that i was pleasantly surprised with the complexity of the plot. At first glance The Hunger Games is a gruesome novel about kids destroying each other to stay alive. Almost a Lord-of-the-flies-type scenario but almost more real. I think that it's technically post apocalyptic setting but most of the technology is the same or similar to what we have today. I think that this book, however, is about the idea of rebellion. What we as a people do when we feel powerless. It's an interesting idea. And almost a little bit ironic when it's put in context with other things. 


For example, at my sister's elementary school the kids are on strike. The book the Hunger Games is not allowed to be read on school grounds. For the reason that the teacher's feel that the book is not necessarily at a level for the maturity of the kids. Now i should also tell you that this is one of the liberal-arts-public schools that is known to let the kids do what they feel they should and mature at their own levels. But for this one book they had particularly strong feelings. I think that its interesting that it happens to be the book where the main theme is the idea of rebellion. 

I am reading the book Motorcycle Diaries by Ernesto Guevara. The book is a no-fiction retelling of the authors epic journey through almost all of South america. The journey goes from Argentina through the whole length of Chile, through peru, ecuador, colombia, venezuela and finally brazil. With almost no money and a rattled chap motorcycle Ernesto and him friend, both scientists, go on this journey to see the continent and assist those without medical attention. 


He finds that most of the poor villages are just shut out from the world and all of modern day society. But he is also amazed at the hospitality that comes from the lack of propaganda and modern day culture. When the two run out of gas they often are picked up by someone in a car passing by. They go most nights with the hospitality of someone's bed and a roof. They even get feasts of meats and spanish alcohol mate. 


But I dont think this book is just about one man, and his friend's, adventure throught the desserts, forests and mountains of south america. I think that this South american native is trying to get people to understand what the continent is like. That these people, theses hopeless people, are actually where some of the worlds most interesting and purist culture is.

The Wednesday Wars

I am currently re-reading the The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt. The Book is about a boy, Holling Hoodhood, growing up the the kennedy era of nuclear anticipation and the beginning of the Vietnam war. This boy, though, is not jewish or protestant but rather presbyterian and therefor and nowhere to go on wednesday afternoons when all of the other kids where either at church or hebrew school. This leaves him with his, anything but simple, teacher Ms. Baker. At first sight Holling immideatly assumes that she has the utmost hatred for him and wants nothing more than to get him in trouble. But as the book progresses he realizes that the teacher actually not only likes him the most, but does to the point that she expects the most of him. 


During their "wednesday wars" the two discuss Shakespeare and all of his works. He describes slowly beginning to understand and comprehend the complicating subject mass. My favorite part is when she is questioning him on romeo and juliet she asks him why he thinks Shakespeare made both of them die (this is shortly after he asks we he bothers to kill anyone off at all). They discuss why he thinks anyone should die. Even in movies, what is the significance of death in a play as a theme and a point.