Monster by Walter Dean Myers
What is a "monster"? Is is an internal quality, an external characteristic?
How fair is our justice system? Is it really free from prejudice? Can one really over-look stereotypes placed by society when trying to judge the guilt or innocence of someone sitting before them accused of a crime?
How do you find yourself in a world who is trying to define you as they see you? Can you fight against what other people say you are to show who you think you are?
There are so many questions that arise in Walter Dean Myers' Monster. The list of questions here only begins to get at what is addressed in this novel.
I read this novel for my Young Adult Literature class, and I'm glad that it was one of the chosen texts for the class. I learned a lot about how I see the world and how it can be different for different people. I think that growing up in a rural Iowa town I certainly was naive about how things worked in "the real world". It's not that our small farming community wasn't "real", but it certainly wasn't near as diverse as much of the U.S. population and didn't come anywhere near addressing the diversity found globaly.
I think that one of the most interesting things about this book was the authors choice in style and formatting. This book contains journal entries as well as movie scenes which include the dialogue as well as the setting. There is certainly something different about reading a novel only from the outward perspective. Might the reader feel differently about the characters if they knew what they were thinking and feeling on the inside? We get a few small glimpses of this from Steve's point of view (he's the main character) through his journal entries, but most of the book is comprised of the scene scripts. We see the trial through the eyes of the jury. We see and hear what they see and hear and we get very little else. What we do get outside of what the jury perceives is not even always helpful as it often presents contradictions and mixed feelings. In the end, the reader is left to decide along with the jury whether or not they believe Steve to be guilty. And for me at least, "the jury" is still out.
This book is an excellent book to use in a classroom and with the multitude of resources available it can be used to discuss any number of themes and elements. There is some material that has been questioned in schools, but I would like to address that as well. Writers are often trying to conserve their words. Words are chosen wisely (if the text is written well) so that they do not become excessive but still get the authors point across and convey a message to the reader. Reading things in a book (such as the scene in the book where the main character is trying to ignore the sexual harassment happening on the other side of the cell from him) are placed there to better help the reader. I didn't read that scene and find myself disgusted with the author for including it, but rather, I found myself more empathetic toward Steve and his situation. I certainly think that parents have a right to know what their children are reading, but why ban them from reading it and keep them blind to the situation until the time when they may have to confront it in some way without the guidance and controlled setting offered in a classroom? Why not read the scene (or even the whole book) with your child and discuss the issue? Why not talk to your student and let them know what you think they need to about the situation? Answer their questions. Talk to them. But don't tried to hide it from them. Don't let them ignore it and don't rob them of the experience and understanding that they will gain from the book.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Sisterhood Everlasting
Best friends. Sleepovers. Getting through the tough stuff together. Promising to always be there for each other. These are some of the strongest memories I have from my childhood. I was the girl whose life revolved around her best friends, and that was the way it was always going to be.
When I was in junior high I began reading the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. There were five books in the series, the last of which came out while I was in high school. (I think it was my senior year actually.) These four girls in these books reminded me so much of myself and my own best friends that I felt like I could see our own lives played out through their sorrows and celebrations and we hoped that we would always have a friendship like theirs.
A couple of months ago I was at the bookstore with my granny and I came across a book by the same author, Ann Brashares. I knew that she was still writing. I'd read another book by her, My Name is Memory during the past school year. It was completely disconnected from the Sisterhood books, but it was still very well written and I had loved it. I picked up the book and quickly realized that this book was in-fact a continuation of the Sisterhood series. The book, Sisterhood Everlasting, is what happens "ten years later". A follow-up and unraveling of the lives the girls had been leading since the last novel in which they had finally finished college and were heading out into the world as adults.
I was gripped by this novel right away, excited to delve back into the lives of some of my favorite childhood fiction characters. But the girls were so disconnected from one another as the novel began and I was a bit sad because I recognized the signs of this slow separation in my own life as we all head in our own directions in life. Not far into the novel, tragedy struck. While it was my hope that it would somehow bring them together, it ended up pushing them farther and farther apart. As I followed each of the remaining three girls (I can't say which three) on their own torn journey's to find themselves and the pieces that suddenly seemed to be missing I found my heart hurting for each and every one of them.
It took me a while to get through the first half of the novel since classes were going and I was overwhelmed with a heavy reading load for my classes, but as I lay down before bed the first night of fall break I had planned to read only for half an hour so that I could get some sleep... Three and a half hours later, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I found my self crying into my pillow reading the last pages of the book. So it turns out, it had a better ending than I had expected, and Ms. Brashares wrapped up the girls' stories nicely. I wish with all of my heart that I could continue to follow these girls' lives as they continue to grow and as their family's grow as well. But I'm glad that it has ended this way. I think (though I guess I can't say for sure) that this will be the final installment. With all of the loose ends tied and a pretty (if someone tattered and sad) bow placed on top (figuratively of course) I think that I can happily set aside this book and realize the lessons that I learn not only from this novel in particular, but from all six novels. I can see their lessons played out in my life and I hope that I can carry them with me in the years to come as I continue on my own journey through life with my own best friends who have always been there for...no matter what.
When I was in junior high I began reading the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series. There were five books in the series, the last of which came out while I was in high school. (I think it was my senior year actually.) These four girls in these books reminded me so much of myself and my own best friends that I felt like I could see our own lives played out through their sorrows and celebrations and we hoped that we would always have a friendship like theirs.
A couple of months ago I was at the bookstore with my granny and I came across a book by the same author, Ann Brashares. I knew that she was still writing. I'd read another book by her, My Name is Memory during the past school year. It was completely disconnected from the Sisterhood books, but it was still very well written and I had loved it. I picked up the book and quickly realized that this book was in-fact a continuation of the Sisterhood series. The book, Sisterhood Everlasting, is what happens "ten years later". A follow-up and unraveling of the lives the girls had been leading since the last novel in which they had finally finished college and were heading out into the world as adults.
I was gripped by this novel right away, excited to delve back into the lives of some of my favorite childhood fiction characters. But the girls were so disconnected from one another as the novel began and I was a bit sad because I recognized the signs of this slow separation in my own life as we all head in our own directions in life. Not far into the novel, tragedy struck. While it was my hope that it would somehow bring them together, it ended up pushing them farther and farther apart. As I followed each of the remaining three girls (I can't say which three) on their own torn journey's to find themselves and the pieces that suddenly seemed to be missing I found my heart hurting for each and every one of them.
It took me a while to get through the first half of the novel since classes were going and I was overwhelmed with a heavy reading load for my classes, but as I lay down before bed the first night of fall break I had planned to read only for half an hour so that I could get some sleep... Three and a half hours later, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I found my self crying into my pillow reading the last pages of the book. So it turns out, it had a better ending than I had expected, and Ms. Brashares wrapped up the girls' stories nicely. I wish with all of my heart that I could continue to follow these girls' lives as they continue to grow and as their family's grow as well. But I'm glad that it has ended this way. I think (though I guess I can't say for sure) that this will be the final installment. With all of the loose ends tied and a pretty (if someone tattered and sad) bow placed on top (figuratively of course) I think that I can happily set aside this book and realize the lessons that I learn not only from this novel in particular, but from all six novels. I can see their lessons played out in my life and I hope that I can carry them with me in the years to come as I continue on my own journey through life with my own best friends who have always been there for...no matter what.
The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald written in (year). It is very much a novel of it's time, based out of the decade in which it was written. The book is filled with scandals and affairs. I had been meaning to read it for a while, being that it's a book most people read in high school and as an English major I felt a little embarrassed that I had never read it. So, I read it for my senior project, intending to create a set of lesson plans around it which will incorporate the philosophy of New Historicism in the classroom.
The book had a bit of a slow start, but once it picked up I was caught. I can't really say why I thought it was slow at first. Maybe it's because it's more of the main character's background. While Nick isn't a particularly disagreeable character, I was impatient to meet Mr. Gatsby. I liked the novel, and I could certainly envision it in the time period it was set in. You could see the big parties and the trips to the city, but you could also see the interactions that were happening between Gatsby and the other characters. The novel did make me mad, however, as I had trouble not reading it through a feminist perspective. Feminist readings and New Historicism are certainly connected, but it was important for me to try to step outside of seeing the story only through that lens and putting other perspectives into it.
Since I read it through a feminist perspective (and since this blog is not part of the project but simply my own Reader Response reaction) I would like to share my concerns with you about this novel. I can't say what the author's intent with the novel was, and while certain schools of thought are interested in that, it's not usually my concern. I was particularly interested in what it said about society and our interactions in society, and that's when the feminist in me came out. As I said, there are multiple affairs and scandals that come about. Multiple people are sleeping with someone-or-others husband or wife. The problem is that the women are given the blame. A man finds out his wife is cheating on him and while he chastises her and tries to suppress her he is having an affair of his own as well. And while he sees issues with her having an affair, he never worries about his own, nor does he see the woman he is having an affair with as having morally implicated herself. Why is it that the women get all the blame? Does the man not have some involvement and therefore responsibility in the whole matter? We're talking about this issue in my human relations class right now. America (even today) is under the impression that men cannot control themselves when it comes to sexual urges and so women are left with the full responsibility of making sure things don't go too far. A woman is expected to look beautiful, sexy even, and meet the standards of beauty presented by society, but she is also expected to draw a thin line between "being sexy" and "being a whore." Why is it that a woman sleeping with a man becomes a "whore" but a man sleeping with a woman (or even multiple women) gains respect and a certain "higher status" among other men? How does this double standard help anyone? A man must sleep with a woman to gain this, but a woman must resist him in order to keep her own social status. There is no happy medium. There is no way for everyone to gain a sense of pleasure (and a certain sense of self) from the situation.
So, I guess my final thought on Gatsby is that while there are clear sexist implications throughout it, and while it shows the signs of it's time, there is still a real-world application of this text today and we can still use it today in connection with other texts and resources to teach out students about society as well as gender lines.
The book had a bit of a slow start, but once it picked up I was caught. I can't really say why I thought it was slow at first. Maybe it's because it's more of the main character's background. While Nick isn't a particularly disagreeable character, I was impatient to meet Mr. Gatsby. I liked the novel, and I could certainly envision it in the time period it was set in. You could see the big parties and the trips to the city, but you could also see the interactions that were happening between Gatsby and the other characters. The novel did make me mad, however, as I had trouble not reading it through a feminist perspective. Feminist readings and New Historicism are certainly connected, but it was important for me to try to step outside of seeing the story only through that lens and putting other perspectives into it.
Since I read it through a feminist perspective (and since this blog is not part of the project but simply my own Reader Response reaction) I would like to share my concerns with you about this novel. I can't say what the author's intent with the novel was, and while certain schools of thought are interested in that, it's not usually my concern. I was particularly interested in what it said about society and our interactions in society, and that's when the feminist in me came out. As I said, there are multiple affairs and scandals that come about. Multiple people are sleeping with someone-or-others husband or wife. The problem is that the women are given the blame. A man finds out his wife is cheating on him and while he chastises her and tries to suppress her he is having an affair of his own as well. And while he sees issues with her having an affair, he never worries about his own, nor does he see the woman he is having an affair with as having morally implicated herself. Why is it that the women get all the blame? Does the man not have some involvement and therefore responsibility in the whole matter? We're talking about this issue in my human relations class right now. America (even today) is under the impression that men cannot control themselves when it comes to sexual urges and so women are left with the full responsibility of making sure things don't go too far. A woman is expected to look beautiful, sexy even, and meet the standards of beauty presented by society, but she is also expected to draw a thin line between "being sexy" and "being a whore." Why is it that a woman sleeping with a man becomes a "whore" but a man sleeping with a woman (or even multiple women) gains respect and a certain "higher status" among other men? How does this double standard help anyone? A man must sleep with a woman to gain this, but a woman must resist him in order to keep her own social status. There is no happy medium. There is no way for everyone to gain a sense of pleasure (and a certain sense of self) from the situation.
So, I guess my final thought on Gatsby is that while there are clear sexist implications throughout it, and while it shows the signs of it's time, there is still a real-world application of this text today and we can still use it today in connection with other texts and resources to teach out students about society as well as gender lines.
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