Sonny’s Challenge

Following the lead of my friend, Sonny, I looked at the list of books on 1001 books to read before you die and typed out the titles of the books I have read. I’ve read 101 of them. Ten percent seems pretty low – to finish the list before I die (assuming that I might live to be 85 (a random number between the ages my grandmothers passed), I would have to read 2-ish books a month to complete the list. Frankly, there are only a few “holes” in my reading – the Russians, Borges, and Marquez come readily to mind. Also, I am very low in the 2000s category…I guess I need to catch up.

One small rant about the site: It’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (not lonely!) And, I thought the list was fiction, but In Cold Blood is on the list, so that open’s up creative non-fiction. By excluding poetry, drama, and non-fiction, even if a person had read all 1001 books, his or her literacy education is still  greatly lacking. Think: Shakespeare, Milton, T. S. Eliot, Spenser, Wilde, Arthur Miller, N. Scott Momaday, Terry Tempest Williams, etc. Too many to list!

There are lots of great books on the list (and some novellas and short stories), and I can tell that I was lucky as a teen to have teachers that required difficult reading. On the other hand, I was a voracious reader, and consumed books like candy. I vividly remember reading The Godfather when I was 13-years-old, and younger still when I read The Three Musketeers. I was lucky that my parents never censored what I read.

Several great books and/or authors were left off the list: Carson McCullers, Willa Cather, Joyce Carol Oates (other than Blonde), Louise Erdrich (or any Native American writers that I remember seeing.) Cold, Sassy Tree; Fall on Your Knees; Cold Mountain; The Good Earth; The Flame Trees of Flika; Season of Migration to the North; Idylls of the King; The Natural; Lancelot; As I Lay Dying; The Shining; The Red Tent; The Education of Little Tree; The Red Badge of Courage; The House on Mango Street; Interpreter of Maladies; The Joy Luck Club.

The books and short stories I have read from the list:

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Sky – Mark Haddon

Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer

Atonement – Ian McEwan

The Corrections – Jonathan Franzen

Life of Pi – Yann Martel

The Human Stain – Philip Roth

Blonde – Joyce Carol Oates

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

The Reader – Bernhard Schlink

The Shipping News – Annie Proulx

Jazz – Toni Morrison

The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje

The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien

Like Water for Chocolate – Laura Esquivel

A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving

The Bonfire of the Vanities – Tom Wolfe

Beloved – Toni Morrison

The Cider House Rules – John Irving

The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

The Color Purple – Alice Walker

The Name of the Rose – Umberto Eco

Interview with the Vampire – Anne Rice

The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

Slaughterhouse-five – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Godfather – Mario Puzo

In Cold Blood – Truman Capote

Everything That Rises Must Converge – Flannery O’Connor (short story collection)

The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey

The Violent Bear it Away – Flannery O’Connor (short story collection)

To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote

Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe

The Once and Future King – T. H. White

On the Road – Jack Kerouac

Lord of the Flies – William Golding

Go Tell it on the Mountain – James Baldwin

Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

Wise Blood – Flannery O’Connor

The Catcher in the Rye – J. D. Salinger

Animal Farm – George Orwell

Cannery Row – John Steinbeck

For Whom the Bell Tolls – Ernest Hemingway

Native Son – Richard Wright

The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler

Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston

Out of Africa – Isak Dineson

Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell

Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

The Thin Man – Dashiell Hammett

A Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Passage to India – E. M. Forster

Cane – Jean Toomer (excerpt)

The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton

Ethan Frome – Edith Wharton

The Jungle – Upton Sinclair

The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton

The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Kim – Rudyard Kipling

The Awakening – Kate Chopin

The Turn of the Screw – Henry James

The War of the Worlds – H. G. Wells

The Invisible Man – H. G. Wells

Dracula – Bram Stoker

The Island of Dr. Moreau – H. G. Wells

“The Yellow Wallpaper” – Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain

Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

Walden – Henry David Thoreau

Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly – Harriet Beecher Stowe

The House of the Seven Gables – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Scarlet Letter – Nathanial Hawthorne

David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

The Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

The Pit and the Pendulum – Edgar Allan Poe

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

“The Fall of the House of Usher” – Poe

Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper

Frankenstein – Mary W. Shelley

Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift

Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Dafoe

The Pilgrim’s Progress – John Bunyon

Don Quixote – Cervantes

The Thousand and One Nights – Anonymous

Metamorphoses – Ovid

Aesop’s Fables – Aesopus

 What am I reading right now? The Dollmaker by Harriette Arnow (very depressing, very beautiful). I began a YA novel by Joshua Lester called Othello.

Job Hunting

Finding a teaching position is hard work, and I’ve been working diligently at it for almost a month. I guess I thought it would be easier to find one since I’m in a graduate program for a “critical need” field. The truth is, you have to know someone to even get an interview, and networking is the best way to do that.  But it’s so hard. I want to be recognized for my hard work, great grades, academic accomplishments, and references from those who have seen me teach. Shouldn’t those count for more than who I know or don’t know?

It will be fine – I know a great position is out there for me…I am just ready for it. It’s time. I believe.

World’s Best Supervising Mentor

Robert Johnson

How did I not know about him before now? Was he our own southern Faust?

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If Firefighters Ran the World

My husband is my hero. Enough said.

 

 

A Lesson Before Dying

 I had the good fortune to see the Diane Sawyer interview of Dr. Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University recently diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. He delivered his “Last Lecture” in September speaking on how to achieve your childhood dreams. His zest for a fun life, regardless of his cancer, is inspirational.                                                              

My Apologies

Today I received a comment from Dr. Tim Tyson regarding my blog entry about parental involvement in digital projects. Dr. Tyson, a pioneer in integrating technology into school, defends his former students and the work they accomplished.

My response to Dr. Tyson:

1)      Thank you, Dr. Tyson, for responding to my blog entry. It is humbling (and thrilling) to correspond with someone I admire so much. It’s unfortunate that our first encounter was under these circumstances since I was taking the “devil’s advocate” position within my cohort. If you look at their blogs, each student was extremely complimentary of both your vision/leadership and the students’ work. I share many of their feelings, but as students in a Masters program, we must employ a critical eye to every educational theory and practice we encounter. I find that my own teaching is greatly improved by anticipating what might go wrong and having a solution before introducing new practice, materials, or assignments.

2)      I share your preference of parental involvement over parents “not engaging in or supporting their [student’s] educational experiences at all” (Tyson). I agree that the latter is definitely more pervasive at most schools. It was that way when I was in school. My parents, farm children who graduated with only high school diplomas, could not help me with homework because by the time I was in the eighth grade, the school work I was doing had surpassed what they had learned in high school.

3)   As I read back over my blog, I understand why you take exception to some of my comments. While I was speaking of only one project where the parent did the work while the students played outside, I did suggest that other projects might have been aided by parents who have the training and/or the means in which to help students create exemplary movies. This is not to say that I think it’s wrong for parents to help, but before a first-year teacher takes on a project like the one implemented at Mabry under your leadership, those teachers should understand the magnitude of the project, and that they should elicit help from parents who can offer technical assistance and training to enhance the learning of all students. But, I do think that the parents’ efforts and assistance should be acknowledged so that other educators, who are thinking of attempting this type program, will know that projects of this caliber need some assistance (at least in the beginning) from technologically capable adults.

4)  Since I clearly offended you (though unintentionally), please accept my sincere apology. I was not suggesting that only parents worked on all the projects while their children were playing outside, nor was I dismissing the extraordinary capacity of your students. I certainly intended no disrespect towards you, your students, or the fantastic film project you implemented. Again, my apologies.

5) As a parent of four successful students, I know that children are capable of extraordinary things, both inside and outside the classroom. As a student, I have achieved great things, including being inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, the honor society that reserves membership to the top seven percent of university students. As a student teacher, I have had great success in motivating students other teachers have given up on. Please don’t assume that I set low expectations for myself, my children, or my students, or that I don’t push myself or them to achieve their personal best. I prove to myself every day that I will settle for nothing less than excellence.

Thank you, again, Dr. Tyson, for taking the time to comment on my blog entry. I appreciate the trail you have blazed for those of us lucky enough to follow in your footsteps to implement technology in school. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to correspond with you, and I wish you all the best. As I begin my career in teaching, I look forward to challenging my students to achieve more than they have ever dreamed possible.

Blog Props

I guess I’m not the only one who finds clander’s blog (Stuff White People Like) humorous – turns out that Random House gave him a book deal. I know funny when I read it!

Blast “Malaguena”