Books! Books! Books!

What books do you love and why?

Catacamas

I walk through little rows of Provo houses,
Soft colors in the starry night,
And I ache
For Catacamas:
Adobe huts and dirt roads and
Fireflies flickering.
Inside, dying embers float down
And gas lamps burn.
Flashlights swing limp
In the moonlight that guides
Tired feet through wild grass
As peace falls thick as dew.

This is my favorite that I have written and true tonight, except I am no longer in Provo.

Catacamas at sunset--I lived at the foot of the hill this photo was likely taken from.

















Catacamas in the day:

Writing Log

Source: book, Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, pg. 19

Passage:
"Instead of teaching, I told stories.
Anything to keep them quiet and in their seats.
They thought I was teaching.
I thought I was teaching.
I was learning.
And you call yourself a teacher?
I didn't call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less. In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counselor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw."

What Works: Firstly, McCourt pulls the reader in with the dialog style beginning of short sentences, each occupying its own line. The line breaks simplify what he is saying so that we, the reader, take the nanoseconds needed to identify with each individualized statement. Although this rhetorical strategy is appealing, I most appreciate the way he balances it with his use of asyndeton (lack of conjunctions) in the paragraph following. By eliminating the final conjunction before the final phrase of the sentence, "the last straw," he places equal value on each of the roles of the teacher; no one is more or less than the others, emphasizing the reality that a teacher is all of those things in one tidy(??) little package. And yet, by breaking his parallel structure of beginning each phrase with "a" and suddenly ending with "the," he causes the reader to pause a moment longer of his last idea, even while keeping them equal.

Using it:
Instead of writing a paragraph, I could write short statements.
Anything to catch the attention of my reader.
They think it is a dialog.
I think it is a dialog.
It is, in my head.
And they thought I was writing an essay.
Writing in this style can be part of any essay. Or not. As an essay writer, I can use a comma, a semi-colon, a conjunction, a line break, a fragment, a run on, the lack thereof.

PS: My AP students write five of these "writing logs" each week on any five pages of any reading (although, they are only require to explain when they could use the identified writing techniques rather that imitating the writing in their "using it section") I was just having too much fun! I am LOVING Teacher Man and identifying beautifully with his first year teaching experiences of over 30 years ago, so I thought I would share some of it with you.

The Little Engine that Could

For some obnoxious reason I am really nervous to start school again tomorrow. Two weeks really is a long time... what if I don't know how to do it any more? Ha! That was funny--I didn't really know how to do it before! Anyhow, I have the butterflies in my stomach--it's like I was 12 years old: I have mentally prepared myself with what I will wear and completely cleaned my classroom (dusting, washing the tables, finally hanging the clock) and all that silly stuff. I know I made a lot of mistakes last term that I don't want to repeat, but I am still not quite sure what the perfect late work policy is... so I have the jitters that I have to somehow, magically, figure it out before 8am tomorrow morning! But my mind just keeps coming up a blank. I told myself before the break that I was going to come down on them pretty hard (tomorrow), but I don't know if I can do it. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

I love Tanner, he loves me...

We love Brayden, yes-sir-ee.

They love me and so you see,

I am a happy Aunt Carly!
(this is how Tanner and I communicate... he is so fun to talk to on the phone!)

Homemade Chicken Soup

One of my new winter resolutions is to make soup on a frequent (weekly) basis. I started today with my favorite chicken noodle. I loved using my new red pot (thanks to Paige). Doesn't it look good?





2 cup small pasta
1 cup carrots, chopped
1 cup onion, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
2 chicken breasts or 6 chicken tenders
5 cups chicken broth (3 cans)
3 cups water
1 1/2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon thyme

Place all ingredients except pasta in soup kettle (bright red is preferable). Bring to a boil. Simmer 45 minutes. Bone chicken and cut into bite-size pieces; set aside. Bring soup back to a boil. Add pasta and cook 8-10 minutes. Add chicken and serve. (Mother's recipe)

Meet Bella

The latest addition to the Carly Jane household is a beautiful blue and red betta fish. She survived the twelve hour trip to Blanding (whew!) and hopefully will survive a whole lot longer (seeing as there isn't a fish store within a hundred miles of me!).

Happy New Year!

I'll Be Home For Christmas!

I love coming home. This trip has been like therapy. I just needed to be home and surrounded by people I love... and the last three days have been nothing but that! Here are some pictures from Sunday: Family Christmas party at Aunt Betsy's, Monday: big Christmas Eve dinner (with all the trimmings) at home, and Tuesday: Christmas morning presents and then the afternoon at the Grandparents' houses...


Top: Sara, Brett, Bottom: Grandpa Snowball, Blake, Tasha and Brayden, and me (at Aunt Betsy's)


Mom and Sara at the Christmas Eve table as we were setting it. I LOVE our fancy dinner by candlelight.


Dad and I gearing up for the Christmas Eve program (favorite Christmas stories, classic Snowball songs and they Christmas hymns, Luke 2, Sees, and upstairs)


Surprise!! I had NO IDEA I was getting a sewing machine! I already have a slew of projects up my sleeve...


Paige and I after opening presents.


Everyone at Grandma and Grandpa Torgerson's. Aren't we a handsome bunch?


Grandma T, me, and Paige.


Sara is the little charmer and got Brayden (miraculously) to sleep. Paige and I (can you tell which is which?) came to give her some redhead lovin'


I just wanted to give a glimpse of the chaos at Grandma S's with all of us there. I think the count was 35 this year!

PS. I am sure this isn't the end of my Christmas-picture-postings... I have so many more good ones! Isn't Christmas the best??

"Seeing"

This term we have read a lot of transcendental nature writing, so my first question on my 11th grade final asked students to read the following passage from Annie Dillard's essay "Seeing," and explain the metaphor of the "tree with the lights in it." I have gotten such a WIDE range of responses I would like to see what you think.

“When her doctor took her bandages off and led her into the garden, the girl who was no longer blind saw ‘the tree with the lights in it.’ It was for this tree I searched through the peach orchard of summer, in the forest of fall and down winter and spring for years. Then one day I was walking along Tinker Creek thinking of nothing at all and I saw the tree with the lights in it. I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing than like being for the first time seen, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells unflamed and disappeared. I was still ringing. I had been my whole life a bell, and never knew it until that moment I was lifted and struck. I have since only very rarely seen the tree with the lights in it. The vision comes and goes, mostly goes, but I live for it, for the moment when the mountains open and a new light roars in spate through the crack, and the mountains slam.”

1. What on earth is she talking about?

Don't worry, I won't mark you down for a wrong answer :)

Grading papers

is very uphill work.