This just in.

I am a one-woman public education revolution.

My mischievous miscreants are so interested in the course material that they don't even want to be defiant or distracting. I seem to have found the golden key to behavior management... it involves a strange mixture of joking, making strange warning "tcch-ch!" sounds with theatrical faces, thanking kids for their contributions, and cranking out awesome activities that involve technology and interaction.
I was absolutely sure I'd shrivel up and die while working with this age group, but apparently the kids quite like my quirkiness and the wild lessons that I'm coming up with. I could do this. I would still rather teach higher levels or even college, but this is livable. Exhausting though.

The media specialist at the middle school, who is a) the only informed individual on the entire staff, and b) looks uncannily like my brother, has become a valuable ally amongst the sea of crochety post-menopausal frumpmasters (also known as teachers). Today we shot the shit about the rise of the graphic novel, the censorship of reading materials in public school libraries, Swingline staplers, the Stone Roses, Sigur Ros, and Bellingham's underground music scene.

I've slept so little in the last few days that everything feels fragmented. Probably not worth attempting to write.



But before I forget, here are some units I'm thinking of teaching eventually:
- A unit about the evolution of indie music culture throughout the nineties and into the present, using Rob Sheffield's Love is a Mix Tape and Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, alongside lyrical analysis and student songwriting.
- An elective unit focusing on the career and artistic stylings of Michel Gondry (director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep, and several music videos by Bjork, among other things). Maybe extending to talk about conventions of postmodern French film.
- A class about epic journeys, using the works of Joseph Campbell, alongside texts and films such as Harry Potter, The Dark is Rising, Pan's Labyrinth, Lord of the Rings, Sabriel, Star Wars, and others (hopefully more multicultural). Perhaps extending this to consider conventions of modern epic journeys. Incorporating complex literary theory.
- A unit about magical realism. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Cristina Garcia, and others; films such as Like Water for Chocolate.
- A unit about ghosts in literature. I briefly considered focusing on this as a graduate English student, but decided to go into teaching instead. Ghosts have unusual functions throughout literature that living characters cannot seem to fulfill, and this has always interested me. (I think I am fascinated by ghosts in literature because they always appear in my dreams as well.)
- A unit about ethnic identity and immigration in poetry and prose, featuring the works of Jhumpa Lahiri, Maxine Hong Kingston, Gish Jen, Khaled Housseini, Derek Walcott, and others.
- A unit about Shakespeare that includes his literary influences, his contemporaries, excellent artwork and films that capture the spirit of the era (Shakespeare in Love is one), and unconventional renditions of Shakespearean plays (including films like The Abridged Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare Behind Bars, and modern renditions of plays). I would teach this alongside the sonnets, because Shakespeare's plays shine the most brightly when you have a solid understanding of the poetic tradition upon which they're built. (Shakespeare considered himself first a poet, and then a playwrite.)
- A free after school unit in self defense, free-hand and perhaps with weaponry (I am learning short-sword fighting in my Eugene class right now).