Stuff We Are Reading
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This week I make the finishing touches on my Fall 2020 online courses. Because I won’t be seeing my students face-to-face anytime soon, I try to connect with them through my writing. In many of my classes we are writing about sixties decade. My students are going to dig it. I’ve put together some exciting…
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This summer my students and I are writing in isolation, but I’ve developed a project to bring us closer together. My reading of Paulo Coehlo’s recent novel Hippie has inspired me to assign my classes a Sixties Research Paper. At home, my students must be watching the same images I am seeing on television: Nation-wide…
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During the Coronavirus Shutdown, I don’t see my students, but we exchange emails and assignments daily through our Canvas technology. They don’t know it yet, but I’m reserving the last two weeks of the semester for my “Project Marilyn.” We’ll be working online in groups. I’ve created collaborative research assignments for seven different phases and/or…
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Famous poet Bob Dylan once said, “Life isn’t about finding yourself…. It’s about creating yourself. “ Marilyn Monroe would probably agree. She once said this: "A wise girl knows her limits; A smart girl knows that she has none." Today, the rain is coming down hard in Mexicali. I’m inside preparing my course work for…
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Next semester in English 110 we read an anthology of fiction and poetry titled Mondo Marilyn. It’s Mondo – this means the collection will be striking, and/or remarkable. If it is about Marilyn, I think my students will agree. We’ll read about both Marilyn Monroe’s life and her death, with notable authors like J.G. Ballard,…
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In several of my English courses next semester, my students will explore both the LIFE and the DEATH of Marilyn Monroe. I kind of stumbled onto the significance of Marilyn through a classroom discussion. I find her story captivates the interest/imagination of my students like no other. Our classroom text will be an anthology of…
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This week, I concluded my summer of Girl, Interrupted by sharing my favorite scene in the memoir – author Suzanna’s Kaysen’s visit to the Frick Museum to see the Vermeer’s painting Girl, Interrupted at Her Music. (See below.) I think it clicked with my students. In groups, they in turn presented and discussed their favorite…
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This week in my English classes, I encourage my students to look deep into the characters of our reading. We’re discussing inner conflicts and external conflicts. Why or how do these characters make the choices? What motivates them to do what they do? I have introduced Joyce Carol Oates’s true-to-life, psycho-killer short story ”Where Are…
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This week we are completing our class blogs. I’ve asked my students to organize their best reading, writing, and music for publication. I’ll teach them how to create reading lists so they can keep tabs on their classmates over the X-mas break. I encourage them do something artful with their blogs, but I’ve seen their…