This spring I hope to incite Fridamania in a few of my classes. It is for this reason: many of my past students have (happily) chosen to base their research papers on the strength, courage, and creative genius of Frida Kahlo.  IT WORKS.  In her life and her art, they all seem to find something that’s meaningful to them.  Upon the second week of the semester, we will begin reading a fictional account of this artist’s life, love, and death.  The novel is titled The Secret Book Of Frida Kahlo.  The author’s name is F.G. Haghenbeck.  I’ve read it now like FOUR times:  TWICE in SPANISH,  and TWICE in English.  I’m hoping the reading of this book will inspire more insightful interesting research papers, like for example:  Frida’s physical disabilities;  her cheating husband;  her fervant feminist views; her sexuality; her passion for Mexican culture.   Not only will we learn about the real woman behind the paintings, at the end of the semester, each of us will share a personal analysis of  one of her self-portraits.  We will all present the STORY behind the STORY on th last day of class.Spoiler Alert:  This will be our Final Exam.

At the beginning of each semester, I traditionally  begin with an “About Me” assignment. I ask my students to introduce themselves on our class discussion board with a visual representation of WHO THEY ARE, WHAT THEY ARE ABOUT, and/or WHERE THEY ARE GOING.  Like, what are their dreams and goals.  For many of them, my English class may be the first English class they take in their college experience.  To learn how to read and write on the college level will be a great challenge, to say the least. I know that.  My goal this semester in the design my assignments is to offer something for everybody.  The more we engage, the more we learn.  Each week, our reading and writing will bring us closer together.

Instead of sticking to the tried and true “About Me” assignment, I plan on drawing upon my Inner-Frida.  What would Frida do in a class of freshman English students: many of whom have settled in to their standarized textbook high-school assignments;  many who may very well be intimidated to express themselves in front of a room of students they haven’t met.  ( I know.  That’s how I was!) Frida kept a secret diary.  This is where she sketched out her ideas and explored her thoughts.  She may have never wanted for anyone to see the pages in this diary, but I have a copy of the book on my shelves here in Mexicali.  F.G. Haghenbeck must have one too.  In his novel, he devotes a significant amount of time to describing Frida’s life-long quest to be herself, a strong and independent woman. In her painting, I believe, she both explored and established her own identity. So, I came up with this idea. I will ask my students to design and  share their own self-portraits on our canvas discussion board.  I mean, it won’t take long for my students to recognize the relationship between her her life and her art.

I will ask my students, “How Will You Represent? – Here Are Some Ideas to Get Them Started:

• Interested in baseball? – Use a baseball in place of an eye.
•  Have ancestors from another country? – Paint the colors of the courntry’s flag across your face.
• Like to fix things? – Use screwdrivers or electrical cords in place of your hair.
• Like to take pictures? – Use a camera lens for an eye, a cord for your hair, or a tri-pod for your neck.

Half of my waking hours, I spend preparing lessons, like this one, for my English classes.  The other half,  it seems, I’m grading them.  When I’m not preparing lessons or grading student work, I’m reading Spanish-language novels.  I take this time to get far away from my computer as I can.   To avoid online distraction,  I take my books and pens to a  coffee shop, or  VIPs, a nearby gasolinera; this place works for me.  I like the large tables they have inside where I can spread out my study materials and drink my coffee.  I live in Mexicali, Mexico.  It’s not rare when  someone who sees see me highlighting my books that they ask me if I’m studying the bible?  Jaja.  That’s when I tell them, “No, estoy estudiando Mexico.”  This is where my real Spanish-language  practice  begins.  Many of those pens you see in my self-portrait, you can also see directly in front of me in my coffee shop image.

Why Are We Doing This?  In my view, our self-protraits will draw us deeper into Frida’s story. Our research essays will make real connections between Frida’s life and her art.  Through the course of the semester, we will discuss essays, articles and videos about Frida.  Salma Hayek’s biopic Frida is available on our campus databases.  Film director Julie Taymor brings many of Frida’s portraits to life. A few of my students may want to write about Frida’s “Self-portrait with Cropped Hair.” She created this painting upon the discovery of her husband sleeping with her sister. At the top of the painting she includes the song lyrics, ““Mira que si te quise, fué por el pelo, Ahora que estás pelona, ya no te quiero…” She cuts her hair and poses in a man’s suit. If you love her, she seems to say, you accept who she is. She’s not going to define herself by what you do or think.

Lucky for me, I’ve been posting about Frida for years in my classroom blogs.  This works out well for me because in in The Secret Life of Frida Kahlo, we will read about a famous New York socialite’s true-to-life request to Frida to create a painting to commemorate a dear friend’s daughter.  I already knew the story behind Frida’s The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, and now, so  will my students.

Because of her devotion to Mexican culture,  Frida harbored a different outlook for death. To her, pain of loss can be diffused by the memory of life, so in this painting she chose to concentrate on the beautiful eyes of the deceased. Dorothy had once been a successful Hollywood movie actress, but now she couldn’t find work and was living on the generosity of friends.  As her desperation progressively worsened, she entered a deep depression that she couldn’t come out of.    Mexicans often take gruesome, detailed pictures of death to Church to inspire their mourning.  At the bottom of The Suicide of Dorothy Hale,  Frida showed trickles of blood escaping from Dorothy’s ears, nose and mouth.  She  felt the color highlighted the true beauty of her face. 

I’ll share this post with my students as writing model for their own analyses.  Frida had been told that Dorothy’s eyes had often been compared to those of Elizabeth Taylor.  In this painting Frida showed the building, the blue-gray sky, and Dorothy’s upside-down figure  still in tact, her dress still glistening, and her eyes wide-open the very moment before she splatters against the sidewalk below.  In The Secret Book of Frida Kahlo, chapter eighteen begins with the blood curdling screams of Claire Booth Luce upon seeing The Suicide of  Dorothy Hale for the first time.  Her cries reverberated through her Fifth Avenue office building.

For Frida, there could have been no greater compliment.