Nah.

I'll preface by admitting I'm a WASP. And a male to boot. So I sit squarely in a sector of society that has done its fair share of throwing stones and probably has received far too few stones thrown in return. That said, I have some grievances with Ms. Christensen's article.

First, I believe she needs to carefully consider the audience whom she is claiming to represent. A good portion of the cartoons she considers in her article are not only outdated, they are virtual millennia apart from contemporary children watching cartoons -- even at the time of her work's publication. Popeye? Looney Tunes? For crying out loud. In between the time of these cartoons' original screenings and a contemporary audience have come six major U.S. wars, the Civil Rights Movement, and the onset of political correctness. Of course there are stereotypes in these cartoons. Of course they should be glaringly obvious to high school seniors and college students and hopefully even young children. But stereotypes weren't the exclusive domain of Popeye and Looney Tunes and Song of the South -- what about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's? How about my grandfather who called the Asians he fought in WW2 Japs until the day he died? Cartoons were reflections of a culture, good or bad, but to say that cartoons had an unusually negative influence or that these particular cartoons are still having a substantial influence on contemporary children is preposterous.

Using such cartoons in studies such as this one leads me to my second beef: that Ms. Christensen is baiting her audience. It is easy to pluck cartoons and scenes to support the notion of gender and race stereotypes -- and I am not saying they don't exist. But cartoon storytellers must at least be given the benefit of the doubt in that a character's entire story arc must be considered. Yanking the market scene from Aladdin shows a girl in need of rescue. But considering Jasmine's entire character, she is a more complex character than that brief moment allows. Each cartoon examined by Ms. Christensen is ripe for the picking. To validate her claims concerning the genre, I wish she would have chosen some cartoons/movies that were a little more difficult to decipher.

Ultimately, Ms. Christensen is creating students that are as one-dimensional as the cartoons she lampoons. As one of her proteges proclaims: "I will never be reduced to a carbon copy of some fictional being." This type of thinking is as cliche as any Disney princess -- in fact, it is the tagline of many Disney princesses of the past twenty years (e.g. Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, etc). So much so in fact that Disney willingly divorced characters from their original contexts so they could embrace the same sensibilities as Ms. Christensen's student. Frankly, that's what concerns me more: we are so afraid of stereotypes that we are willing to redact and revise stories from their original culture and forms and ignore the historical truth that we do make generalizations about people. Disney is certainly not the first to do so and will not be the last.

Invisible

Reading "The Inner World of the Immigrant Child" was heartbreaking. Hearing stories of children rendered effectively invisible by their language barriers gave me a new appreciation for those in the school system who work both to cherish the languages and cultures from which these children emerge and also help them gain linguistic and social currency through English language acquisition. The article sparked an old question in me as well: how effective are we as educators at reading what is happening behind the calm face of a child?

I have heard it said over and over again: "children are so resilient." And that's true. Children are able to adapt much more readily than adults in many instances. But sometimes this seems to be a throwaway phrase, a justification for hardship we place upon children, a release from the hard work of understanding and assisting a child. I think about this when reading some of the voices of English-learning children. It would be easy to assume from their silence that they are processing, progressing, "making it" -- but I wonder what outlets, if any, we can provide for them to voice some of their anxiety, loneliness, confusion. How as a teacher do you provide a forum like that in your classroom?

The question goes beyond ELLs, of course. When I stand in a classroom, it is not hard to see many of these same emotions bubbling right under the surface of children who speak English, yet still lack the language necessary to share those emotions with others. Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson brush on this (specifically regarding boys) in their book Raising Cain. As writing teachers, we talk a lot about voice, and I wonder how to help students -- through writing or other forms of literacy -- put a voice to emotions that are almost by definition voiceless.

MGRP Reflection: Video Game Source Material

My MGRP considered the use of video game source material in children's writing.

This project led to a shift in my thinking concerning gaming and writing. I had grown tired of reading violent text generated by young gamers and was wary of its connotations – namely that in allowing such writing in the classroom, I was condoning its content to the writer and other students as well. The shift came as I realized the gap between game conventions in storytelling and traditional storytelling in conventions was not nearly as large as I imagined. Even when considering violent source material, many productive questions both about content and craft started to emerge. Ideas began to germinate of how such writers could be engaged and challenged.

Research regarding video games and literacy remains surprisingly scant, and this was a challenge in the project. It was hard to form a well-rounded approach to the issue and my paper often resorted to parroting a small cadre of particular authors. Those that have tackled the issue, however, present intriguing points and case studies. I am continuing to do research on the links between game and traditional storytelling conventions and look forward to adding to the discussion.

I believe it’s important to communicate to teachers (myself included) that video game source material does not need to be feared. It is not an entirely new animal. Students whose storytelling experience lies largely in this genre need not necessarily fall behind – there are ample opportunities for these developing readers and writers to connect their experience (even with violent games) to craft and concepts that will be communicable to a wider audience.

Nail in the Coffin

I always had an inkling that I wanted to teach in upper elementary, but reading Chapter 5 in Ms. Allen's book was the nail in the coffin for me. I struggled with some of our earlier reading this semester that encouraged "just getting words on the page." I have come to grips with that and agree it's best for younger students and beginning writers. But as I've workshopped with fourth graders over the past few weeks, it's become clear to me that getting words on the page isn't that hard anymore for the majority of them -- now the question is: how do they turn this into good writing? And that's the exciting part for me.

The first section of the chapter -- Show, Don't Tell -- is the essence of the difficulty I had with our first readings for the course. It is the opposite of getting words on the page. It's usually the act of taking them off. It's the ability to look at a very descriptive paragraph and boil it down to an essential action. I read the first book of the Twilight series and am reading the first book of the Fallen series now. The reason I won't ever make it to the second book of either series is their authors' inability to stop telling what the characters are thinking and put their desires/traits/emotions into actions the characters take. I hope that we can raise a generation of writers who won't make their audience put down a book in the middle and never pick it up again. I have read too many books like that in the past five years.

One of the closing sections -- Kill Cliches -- also made me happy. I wish, however, Ms. Allen would have offered some suggestions as to why they are so harmful and how to steer students clear of them. I also wish she would have expanded the idea a bit further -- far worse than trite axioms like the ones she lists (e.g. "heart to heart") are cliched characters and situations (e.g. the mother and daughter who need to have a "heart to heart" because there's a boy at school who doesn't know the daughter exists, etc, etc). Cliches like this come when students lack experience or research to develop more original content. Experience comes with time, but students can get in the early habit of doing research and developing more compelling material.

I was in publishing for a brief period, so part of me loves the red pen. I'm glad one of our authors is giving it some liberty.

Stop Being Funny

When I've read children's writing in the past -- and this has been evident once again in my field experience this semester -- it is clear that many (if not most) children make humor their primary goal in writing. I'm sure studies have been done on this, but I'm curious as to why this is the case: is it that children find life as it is to be generally amusing? Is it a stress release? Is it to gain social currency? Is it an act of mimicry? Of cynicism? It's probably all these things and more. I wonder, though, if it doesn't often get in the way of expressing other thoughts. How can we -- at least on occasion -- help students to shelf the jokiness and access other emotions?

I appreciated Ms. Allen's cursory take on this in the Poetry chapter, particularly in the six room technique. I'm not entirely sure the exercise necessarily diverts students from the "silly" as she suggests, but it could if handled correctly. Ultimately, I hope students have an understanding that there are many voices to use and each can be appropriate for different contexts and poetry is a natural method of teaching these voices. Garrison Keillor writes:

"What makes a poem memorable is its narrative line. A story is easier to remember than a puzzle."

Poetry does not need to be (nor should it be) cryptic or inaccessible. For young students, poetic writing doesn't need to be separated from story writing -- it's only a shift in rhythm and structure. An emphasis on story combined with a paucity of language can be a key for entry to stories that might not be funny, but are important for a student to communicate. While children will often gravitate to silly if given free rein or exposed only to "silly" poems as is sometimes the case (the only poems I remember my teachers reading were the funny Shel Silverstein ones -- not the reflective and sometimes dark portion of his work), providing children a wider poetic spectrum to consider can help them understand the far-reaching resonances of poetic voice. And teaching certain structures, like six room or using repeated phrases for emphasis, or imitating the voice of another poet can help them bridge the gap.

Here's a favorite of mine that I would use when teaching the "non-funny" voice:

Slowly (James Reeves)

Slowly the tide creeps up the sand,

Slowly the shadows cross the land.

Slowly the cart horse pulls his mile,

Slowly the old man mounts his stile.

Slowly the hand moves round the clock,

Slowly the dew dries on the dock.

Slow is the snail - but slowest of all

The green moss spreads on the old brick wall.

The (Little) Hole in the Donut House

First of all, it's probably becoming apparent that I like to play devil's advocate. So let me say first: I love the Donut House idea. It's creative, it's engaging, it's effective. I just want to suggest one more emphasis.

That students who dreaded writing were able to engage in so much of it in this project is astounding. And talk about confidence building: how many students at this age could claim to have experience in writing stock certificates and loan application forms? My one hang-up with this project is that it ultimately is a little one-sided. Encouraging practical literacy is at its core promoting literacy that is immediately beneficial for relevant communication. At only limited points in the scope of this project did students receive communication from others. The fact that they loved receiving personal letters from stockholders and returned to them often for re-reading is a crucial point, and one that could have been carried through to a higher degree.

What if local bakeries had been enlisted not only to speak to students, but also to write to them? What if recipes had been contributed by older family members? What if customers had been asked to fill out comment cards? The result, I believe, would have been twofold. One, students would have made more explicitly the connection between literacy and shared ideas; a two-way street of communication. Two, they would begin to accumulate a broader vocabulary related to their interest: what is a business model? A whisk? What does it mean to be satisfied? After the joy of reading the letters they did receive, it seems there could have been many more opportunities to have written communication flowing to the students.

So that's it. One small beef. Speaking of which, who knows what kind of vocabulary the students might have gained if they had served something like this.

"Bad" Video Games & Literacy

The question I'm asking in my MGRP is: Is it OK for video game source material – even violent material – to comprise content of elementary students’ storytelling?

Not surprisingly, I've found a lot of material suggesting that "good" video games can be helpful in promoting some form of literacy among children. After all, they are learning much about why characters make decisions, conventions of story, and how to form compelling material. The articles I've read, however, have offered only a cursory treatment of what I'll call "bad" video games -- ones that offer heavy doses of violence and realism, ones that further offensive gender stereotypes, etc. While some games might offer content and depth that promote healthy literacy habits like those mentioned above, what about games such as these?

It seems to me that none of the authors I've read would be entirely dismissive of the violent/suggestive genre of gaming, although I'm yet to see the research to justify a claim of any kind. The question is, however, as one author puts it: "is one type of narrative better or more valuable than the other?" (Ranker, 2006) The driving question for this paper came about as I saw more and more students with whom I worked consumed with violent gaming to the point where any opportunity they were given to write/draw ended with gore-soaked depictions of the games they played. From a strictly literary standpoint, you could do work with their content and craft. But is it OK? Should these students (often low-income males in my experience) be told: "I'd like for you to make some other choices in regard to content?" And if so, when?

I tend to lean toward the literary -- let them write what they write and work on craft. But it's content I would hope my sons would not write, and as a teacher, where do we draw the line between explicitly promoting literacy and implicitly condoning sex and violence?