English Professional Learning Community

If the group decides to consider my work and its connection to world lit as they formulate lessons, they will need to look at girlhood around the world and how it is represented in texts. Girls suffer in the world and experience it as a dangerous and frightening place. Studying girl protagonists from around the world provides glimpses of the human condition and dismantles then reconstructs assumptions. It is important for young readers to learn about the global range of crises that impact girls, as well as the hope, courage, and
resourcefulness they model. The imaginative and intellectual lives of girls are also unveiled in this kind of approach. Introducing girls from world literature provides new entries for discussion of an old problem: the marginalization, erasure, and objectification of girls. It helps reconsider these issues in important new ways. I understand the group is already considering a variety of texts. I would
encourage them to look carefully at those with female protagonists. Too often the texts chosen in high school have only male
protagonists. I hope this is useful. I am sure Kim can provide a similar synopsis as pertains to her own work, which is about at-risk boys and world lit.
--
Elaine

Elaine:
I think your perspective is an important one for us to consider in text selection. Far too many of our schools are stocked with "classics" or not stocked with many supplemental texts at all. We have a real need for both world lit titles and works with female protagonists. Could you give us some titles you'd most recommend that fit both needs?

Jim Brooks
West Wilkes High School

< replied-to message removed by QT >

Elaine, I think this is such a valid point. The more I read about literacy and struggling readers (which are usually males) the less I am seeing about females and their roles in the world. We have My Forbidden Face (10th grade) and Speak (9th Grade), but basically this is the only female works we use as a focus. "Girlhood" is an excellent topic, especially looking at girl protagonists around the world. We really need to make sure our students see what is going on in our country but also those around us. I would love to know of additional readings or supplementary materials that are available. Since we have talked about all the doom and gloom in World Literature, the realization that there is still hope, courage being shown is so refreshing. Thanks for the suggestion. Elaine Cox

< replied-to message removed by QT >

A long teaching career of working with at-risk boys in the English classroom has helped me know much about their likes and dislikes. The years have taught me that there are many ways in which teachers can potentially reach this particular student population whose background is deeply rooted in generational stereotypes and whose particular learning styles tend to be tactile and auditory in nature. World Literature texts offer a way to be especially successful in the English classroom with this population. I will offer ways to approach texts like Things Fall Apart, Kite Runner and Cry, The Beloved Country that have proved to be appealing and meaningful to at-risk boys as well as a general population of students.
While I have discovered ways in which to reach this particular population, I have by no means discovered any sort of silver bullet. My hope is that the group will help me by sharing titles of other works and activities they have used with those works that have worked for them.

This is the kind of professional conversation that I like to see on these sites. Get your order in for books as soon a you can. I am never sure when funds might be taken away.

Linda, how do we handle the book order? Should we submit our titles to you or is there a purchasing office at ASU that would do this for us?
Everyone, we need to be have titles and prices ready at our next meeting so we can get our order together and give it to Linda at that time.

In response to Jim and Elaine: Some titles with female protagonists you may want to consider: Colibri by Ann Cameron (Guatemala), Secrets in the Fire by Henning Mankell (Mozambique), The Bathhouse by
Farnoosh Moshiri (Iran), Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (Iran, a
Graphic Novel), A Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn (China), The Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee Dwakaruni (India: the Mahabharata retold from Princess Draupadi's perspective), Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier (South Asia/American), Our Secret, Siri Aang by Cristina Kessler (Kenya), Does My Head Look Big in This by Randa Abdel-Fattah (Australian-Muslim), either Looking for
Alibrandi or Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (Australian), Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi (Korea). Since World Lit is 10th grade (except for Watauga), most of these texts are for students ages 14, 15. A couple might be for older students (as is the case at Watauga). Some are considered Adolescent Literature, some are not, but all have young protagonists. I am sure most of you are familiar enough with European texts, so I didn't suggest any of those,
especially since there are so many. Also, I assume that all of you are familiar with texts like The Breadwinner (Afganistan), Red Scarf Girl by Ji Li Jiang (China), The Other Side of Truth (Nigeria) and So Far From the Bamboo Grove & Girl with the White Flag (Japan), since these and the others like them have been around awhile. Hope this proves useful to the group.
--
Elaine

Maybe we can use some of the money to buy any or all of these books. These are titles Elaine sent me that may work well with at-risk boys.

Iqbal by Francesco D'Adamo (Pakistan)
Finding My Hat by John Son (Korea)
A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird (Israel/Pakistan)
Facing the Lion: Growing Up on the Maasai on the African Savanna by J. Lekuton
Forgotten Fire by Adam Bagdasarian (Turkey)
A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (Sierra Leona)

Maybe some of you in the group are already familiar with these titles and can offer some commentary on ones you have used in your own classrooms.

Kim

One more book I meant to mention on the girl protagonist list is: Nervous Conditions by Tsiti Dangarembga (Zimbabwe)
--
Elaine

Give me the tile list when you get it together and I will order through Expresso News.

What kinds of conversations are you all having, if any, about the revisioning process in the English department?

Deepening the Dialogue

This is who we have so far. We have some ASU faculty who have volunteered who don't have classes on Friday. I am waiting to hear about other volunteers who have classes that might volunteer. Will let you know after that.



SS
Natasha Hass
Traci Stallings
Dr. James Barnes-Political Science
Dr. Phillip Ardoin-Political Science
 
Science
Brian Wood
Rachel Crosby
Dr. Susan Edwards
Dr. Mike Madritch

Claudette Reep
Dianne Phillips
Dr. Katrina Palmer

English
Kim Houck
Lucas Paisley

Linda, Kim Houck is unable to attend the Deepening the Dialogue sessions. The people from the English PLC are Lucas Pasley and Kathi McRary.
Thanks!

We have been notified that until further notice, all expenditures involving state monies are frozen. All remaining PLC and PDS meetings will have to be done on a volunteer basis. I will let you know if this changes. Thank you.

Linda, does this mean that our mini-grant to purchase world lit titles is still active since it was approved before the freeze?
Thanks,
Dawn

Sorry, it is frozen for the time being. No purchases.

I am assuming this will include the Deepening the Dialogue series on April 23-24, am I correct? I will need to know as soon as possible in order to cancel plans. We all must make sacrifices during this difficult time. Thanks, Kmc

________________________________

From: QT - Linda McCalister [1] Sent: Sat 4/11/2009 3:20 PM
To: QT topic subscribers
Subject: English Professional Learning Community



< replied-to message removed by QT >