Susan Fine's Blog

Would you rather read this:

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Or this:

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Kind of reminds me of this:

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My drawing skills are limited, but I do like that coffee cup. Maybe the illustrated edition of the Common Core will come with a pound of coffee and a coffee mug that says: Innovate every day. Teach.

Or what if we changed the name? How about Much Ado about the Common Core? Or Romeo and the Common Core? Zen in the Art of the Common Core?

We need some levity… and some innovation. Teaching is the most creative, innovative work available. The Common Core doesn’t change that. Maybe it actually provides some parameters within which we can innovate and design inspired and inspiring curriculum? Imagine having no guidance. Where would you begin with planning a program?

Coming soon: an illustrated ELA standard with innovative teaching ideas.

Teachers say they received minimal instruction on how to teach the Common Core. Let’s change that… one illustrated blog post at a time.

Hmmm… Common Core: The Graphic Novel…

I woke up this morning thinking about language. More specifically I was thinking about the influence of social media on language. Valentine’s Day inspired this because I watched my sixth grade son craft (literally) and write a special valentine and noticed a big difference in the quality of his writing (and spelling!) than what I’ve seen recently in text messages he’s shown me (“super” appearing as “supper” and “which” as “witch”). Always an English teacher, I did ask him about those words (not immediately, mind you, but later on when he wasn’t checking the emotional content of his text with his mom). He did seem to know the difference. He also believes, like many others, that text messaging isn’t subject to the same rules as language in other contexts. I would argue that it’s all about audience, but there’s also the question of meaning and clarity — and the impression we make. I have a physical sensation of humiliation when I discover an error in an email I’ve sent (although level of sensation varies according to audience). Yet I am an adult and an English teacher. My lens is one that always sees the errors, sometimes at the expense of allowing them to overshadow the content. Would a sixth grade friend mind (or even notice) errors in a text message? Maybe. Probably not.

This isn’t going to be another piece about language going to hell because of social media and the like. In fact, it may well be the case that people are writing more than they ever have before, and that might, in fact, lead to better writing. There is certainly value placed on writing as the medium for connecting and communicating. Many text far more than they talk on the phone. I would say that it’s critical now that people have excellent writing skills. So much of what we write has an audience, whether it’s a boss at work or a friend on the phone, receiving text messages.

Several years back I did a workshop with a group of high school kids titled “Facebook: Friend or Foe.” Here’s what we focused on:

In this workshop we will explore how social media has everyone writing more than ever before and how all of this writing may be affecting language usage.R all these opportunities to write and put oneself out there improving r use of language? Pushing it in new and interesting ways? Destroying the integrity of the English language? Is experimentation with language anything new? And, what’s the difference between consciously breaking the rules and doing so unknowingly? We’ll look at language use in such social media as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and more in order to take up these questions and draw some conclusions about the condition of language in this new era of digital life.

I began the workshop by showing the students William Steig’s book CDB, which was published in 1968. When Steig played with language in CDB some 45 years ago, it was considered brilliant (as, I would argue, are the accompanying illustrations). Now such word play is damaging the language. Maybe. What I discovered in talking with my son about his language use (and mistakes) is that he is a code switcher. But it’s more than that. It’s an attitude switcher. A text message is tossed off quickly and anything goes (or so he might argue). A homemade, handwritten valentine is more permanent, more visible, and concrete and tangible — and will have a life beyond its flash on a screen. It may also be that his eleven years of life and language use (and even fewer years of literacy life) haven’t yet made the rules, conventions, mechanics solid in his brain. What comes out quickly is highly revealing about this. I don’t think he is going to slow down and run spell check on his text messages; however, the antidote to this may be excellent reading and writing instruction, lots of it, and extensive practice in which he does have to slow down and wrestle with the hard work that is writing well (which goes far beyond correctness).

Would love thoughts on these ideas (and corrections!).

I got an email the other day from a friend asking for good comic book suggestions for holiday presents for her kids (ages 6, 9, and 11). Caveat: she already has enough Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin, and Foxtrot. So do we.

I am also in need of new titles (comic books, graphic novels, picture books, and chapter books) for my sons (ages 6 and 11). My best source for children’s lit of all genres has long been the Bank Street Bookstore in NYC. Now that I live some 3000 miles from that glorious bookstore, I cannot head there before the holidays. When we lived in NYC, and Alex and I would go there, we often heard the following from Matt when we were leaving our apartment: “Please do not spend more than $100.” Sigh. It is easy to spend hundreds there and to feel great when doing so. They are the best at knowing everything new and wonderful in kids’ books. If you describe what your kids have loved in the past, they snap fast come up with a  bunch of new books. Real book people.

But now I will take advantage of their online resources — not the same as having someone in the store personalize selections but a good source for information. I have also often relied on the marvelous librarians at the Lab Schools, who facilitate the Sutherland Awards for picture books. By this time of the year, they often have a list of some 15-17 picture books that they believe are the best ones out for the calendar year. (Down the line with the impressive literary efforts of a committee of sixth graders, they will whittle the list down to about five titles, which will then be studied by kids in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade prior to the voting and awards.) With the Sutherland list in hand, I compare it with books identified as excellent by the New York Times. When we lived in Chicago, I frequently shopped at 57th Street Books, where Angela and Hannah (both no longer at the bookstore) were super resources. I also search good blogs for kid lit, including Fuse #8, written by the unstoppable NYC public librarian Betsy Bird and Educating Alice, written by Monica Edinger, a wonderful fourth grade teacher at the Dalton School in NYC. Oh, and there’s  the terrific Book Whisperer, who gave me the suggestion of OUT OF MY MIND for 6th grade summer reading at the Tech International Charter School. There are, of course, many more sources.

Before I head to new things we don’t own or haven’t gotten from our new beloved public library, I want to highlight some of the books my kids have loved over the past year (although these books were not necessarily published in the last year).

(Note: Matteo is my six-year-old and Alex my 11-year-old.)

Graphic novels and comic books: Smurf comic books, any and all (Matteo); The Best of Archie Comics, Books One and Two (Alex); ongoing adoration of Little Lulu comics (both boys); Stickman Odyssey, Books One and Two (Matteo); The Story of Roberto Clemente (Alex); two books in the Olympian series — Athena, Grey-Eyed Goddess and Zeus, King of the Gods (Matteo) — and there are two others on Hades and Hera and perhaps more forthcoming; Robot Dreams and Bake Sale (Matteo); The Unsinkable Walker Bean (Alex); Earthling (Alex); Smile and Drama (Alex); The Flying Beaver Brothers (Matteo); Stuck in the Middle (Alex); Gunnerkrigg Court (all three volumes) (Alex); Ghostopolis (Alex).

Other: My Milk Toof, The Adventures of Ickle and Lardee (have no idea how to classify this one, but it’s great); The Hobbit (being read to Matteo by his dad).

Middle Grade Chapter Books (Alex): The three-part Origami Yoda series; all the John Feinstein sports books; The Giver (read in school); the Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series; Liar and Spy.

YA (Alex): Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie; The Year I Learned to Fly; The Princesses of Iowa; Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret; Then Again Maybe I Won’t.

On audio CDs: all of the Penderwick books (Matteo), The Story of the World for the classical child, Volumes 1 and 2 (both boys), and The Higher Power of Lucky (Matteo).

Great books from Matteo’s lit circle program at the wonderful UCDS: Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors (picture book comprised of poems and scientific information on “nature’s survivors — beautifully illustrated); The Story of the Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly (chapter book)

Books I’ve loved/liked in the past few months: (some listened to on audio CD): Where’d You Go, Bernadette; Don’t Tell the Wolves I’m Home; Drop Dead Healthy; How Children Succeed; Life on the Line; Just Kids; Some Assembly Required; A Homemade Life (and then was able to go to the restaurant that the author and her husband have in Seattle, Delancy, and also check out her great blog Orangette); The Fault in Our Stars; The Princesses of Iowa.

Possible new titles… (not well organized — sorry about that)

The Graphic Canon — Volume 1, From “The Epic of Gilgamesh” to Shakespeare to “Dangerous Liaisons” and Volume 2, From “Kubla Khan to the Bronte Sisters to “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”

Keri Smith books — am thinking of giving one or some of them to my niece, who is just about nine.

Son (and perhaps the other titles in the series, Gathering Blue and Messenger) (YA or middle grade depending on you…)

Curveball, the Year I Lost My Grip (new YA novel by Jordan Sonnenblick, author of Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie)

The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom (middle grade novel)

Wonder (middle grade novel) — We already own but now need to read.

Pearl Freaks the #*%# Out: A (Freaky) Pearls Before Swine Treasury (comics)

Cardboard (graphic novel)

Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (and Doesn’t Work) in Words and Pictures (graphic novel)

Little White Duck, a Childhood in China (graphic novel)

The Secret of the Stone Frog (graphic novel)

The Year of the Beasts (graphic novel)

The Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln (graphic novel)

Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics (comics)

A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse (graphic novel — younger kids)

Building Stories (graphic novel – ?)

The Best American Comics 2012 (have given Alex earlier books in this series)

Philip Pullman’s new Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm

Just bought for a friend what looks like an amazing new version of Alice in Wonderland with drawings by Yayoi Kasuma (found through the great Brain Pickings website, author of which, Maria Popova, was featured in today’s NYT).

I also found this list online — Top Ten Graphic Novels 2012 from the Graphic Novel Reporter:

Zahra’s Paradise by Amir and Khalil (First Second, 2011)

Scarlet by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (Marvel/Icon Comics, 2011)

Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgal (First Second, 2011)

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone, Josh Neufeld, and others (W. W. Norton and Company, 2011)

Thor: The Mighty Avenger, Vol. 1 and 2 by Roger Langridge, Chris Samnee, and others (Marvel, 2010 and 2011)

Infinite Kung Fu by Kagan McLeod (Top Shelf, 2011)

A Bride’s Story, Vol. 1 by Kaoru Mori (Yen Press, 2011)

Axe Cop, Vol. 1 by Malachai Nicolle and Ethan Nicolle (Dark Horse, 2011)

Daybreak by Brian Ralph (Drawn and Quarterly, 2011)

Wandering Son, Vol. 1 by Shimuro Takako (Fantagraphics Books, 2011)

Of course, there are so many more titles! I am going to do more research online and in indie bookstores here (great ones in Seattle) and will then make the list of titles manageable. I am also very much hoping that people might add comments, calling out their favorite titles and great possibilities for holiday gifts — and as soon as possible… I will post again with my finalized book shopping list.

In fewer than three weeks, we are leaving Chicago and heading to the Pacific Northwest. When we moved to Chicago, Matt was happy that he was about a thousand miles closer to the West Coast, because we had come from New York City. While we had imagined that one day we might move to the Bay Area, we are ending up a little north of there. I think this might be a nice first step in terms of moving closer to home. There are many emotional goodbyes taking place, and we leave an incredible community, which we will miss. We are optimistic, though, about the future and have many things to look forward to. I hope to return to this blog in the near future and write more often.

It should not surprise me that again a year has evaporated. In The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin says something along the lines of “the years are fast, and the days are slow” in regards to life with small children. That does resonate with me. Where did these people go…

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Oh, here they are…

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The photo above is from last spring, but the first photo was taken almost six years ago. Given that the end of the year is rapidly approaching, I am thinking about hopes for 2012. About a month ago, I started reading the blog of a fellow Smith College alumna Jamie Eslinger, who almost one year ago made a promise to herself: she would, for one year, be “aware of what goes in and on the one body I’ve got… and I will write about it every day, for 365 days.”

Here are the rules of The Promise 365:

The Promise 365:

1) No frivolous shopping for 365 days, starting January 1, 2011.

2) Purchases may occur in the following categories: Heart, Head, Body, Soul. Because these are really investments, in me.

3) When tempted by a potential frivolous purchase, it must be analyzed. What is really going on? What do I really want or need?

4) After analyzing and determining what is emotionally or physically at play, find another way to meet the want or need through a healthy alternative (heart, head, body, soul).

Having just done most of my holiday shopping today, I feel freshly aware of how much we consume! I do think I have scaled back a little this year, and yet my home seems overflowing with stuff (and soon there will be more).

In her post on December 13, Jamie asks “What will you give up?” encouraging her readers to think about something to let go of in 2012.

So… what will I give up?

From inside our apartment, the day looked gray and gloomy. I was sure it was still Chicago-no-spring cold outside. Without checking anywhere for the temperature, I headed outside with my short (have put the long, sleeping bag coat away until next winter) down coat on. Surprise! It was 68 degrees outside and almost muggy. No need for jackets and coats, not even sweatshirts. Will there be a spring here this year? Hard to say. It wouldn’t surprise me if it snowed next week. But here’s hoping we are actually on the other side of winter.

Now, where have I been for the past several weeks? Did I, once again, relapse into old bad habits? Getting myself into pretty good shape only to let it all atrophy in a slow and painful process? No! I am happy to report. I have been searching around, trying different exercise options, and still, actually, in the process of figuring out what comes next. I have mostly been doing P90X, DVDs that allow me to exercise at home and at 5 in the morning — which I can’t believe I am saying that I love! It leaves me more time to work during the weekdays, and by 6:15 am, I am cheerful because I am done with exercise. I love that! There is also a compare/contrast essay to be written on Tony Horton (“leader of the band,” P90X band, that is) and Jack LaLanne. How do you like the claim on the P90x website: “Get absolutely ripped in 90 days, or your money back, guaranteed.” Apparently Tony was influenced by Jack. Not sure Tony’s as charming. The workouts are much harder and that same compare/contrast essay could explore lots about the evolution of fitness, especially for women.

I also have the challenge in front of me of getting prepared for the Chicago Triathlon, which I’ve signed up for and am hoping to complete on August 28. Olympic Distance: .93 mile swim; 24.8 mile bike; 6.2 mile run. For now I’m in the thick of p90x and will launch the triathlon training plan in late May. I’d love any advice anyone can offer about p90x, triathlons, or anything else!

My annual mammogram did not get off to an auspicious beginning. The day I learned that Elizabeth Edwards had died, I, in a heightened emotional state, made an appointment for my annual mammogram. (This had been on my To Do List for months.) After arriving at the appointment, checking in, getting the smock on, and meeting the technician, I realized, when the technician looked at my form, that it hadn’t been a year since my last mammogram. To avoid trouble with the insurance company (or a huge bill that I had to cover myself), I dressed and rescheduled the appointment for two weeks later.

This time all seemed to go swimmingly. I adored the technician, who lovingly explained everything she was doing. Respectful and careful, she was the best technician I’ve ever had. Despite all the squeezing and flattening of my breasts between plastic plates, all the awkward positions and the holding of my breath for the photos, the appointment seemed like a great success. I even stopped at the front desk to let them know how magnificent the technician, Cristall, was. I left the appointment practically skipping, so glad to have this annual task taken care of, feeling so good about myself, certain I was in top health, and also pleased because Cristall had referred to me as “petite,” a word nobody has ever used to describe me. I went straight  to the gym after the appointment and pursued my strength training routine with energy and enthusiasm, again feeling like and admiring myself as the pinnacle of health and well-being.

Three days later my internist called to say that there was a “density” on one of my images and that I needed to return, but this time to the second floor, where they send you when routine checks become other than routine. I needed additional images taken and perhaps also an ultra sound. My internist was reassuring that often this amounted to nothing, but that it was important to be certain about what the “density” was. I’ve been told I have “nodey” breasts and so have to be particularly careful when checking for abnormalities. I’ve also been through something similar to this before, being called back for more checking. I made an appointment for as soon as I could get in. In the meantime a letter came saying, “Your mammogram showed an abnormality that needs further investigation.” It went on to say, “Most of these abnormalities prove to be insignificant or benign (non-cancerous). We cannot determine whether your particular abnormality is benign or malignant (cancerous) until further evaluation is completed.”

For the days prior to the second appointment, I went about my business, trying not to dwell on what might be going on inside my body. I found it hard to believe that something could be malfunctioning given how good I felt physically, probably the best I’ve felt in years. Matt asked me whether I wanted him to come to the appointment, but I didn’t. I did, however, finally get nervous: I was lying on the table in the room, waiting for the doctor to do the ultra sound (the new images weren’t sufficient), and I thought to myself that it was possible they were going to give me bad news. After all, many women go to these appointments and get bad news. Why should I be exempt?

My dad died of cancer at age 52, more than twenty years ago now, having been diagnosed some three years earlier with bone marrow cancer. I kept thinking about what it must have been like when he went in search of help for what he thought was a routine lower back problem, the sign of aging, and instead found out that he had a vicious form of cancer.

When the radiologist explained about the ultra sound lotion he needed to squirt all over my left breast, I told him, “I’ve had two kids.” Then I tried being funny, when he scanned the images on his screen, saying, “Where’s the baby?” How different to have the same procedure now for something that could be deadly when previously this technology allowed me to see alien-like images of my two precious sons. Initially I made a lot of small talk with the doctor, until I decided to shut my mouth so that he could focus fully on determining whether anything was awry in the ocean-like pictures he was studying intently.

It didn’t seem as though he had found anything, but that was confirmed when a more senior doctor burst into the room saying, “You can be relieved! Everything looks fine.” Of course, I was relieved, but I also couldn’t stop thinking about the women who go to those appointments and are told something entirely different. I can’t take for granted my good health and the opportunity every day brings to take care of myself.

Yesterday I was talking to someone about exercise, encouraging her just to get out and do some brisk walking, perhaps four times/week for 45 minutes at a time. The conversation led me to think about motivation and what is it that motivates people to exercise. Fortunately, Frank Bruni has provided some thoughts on this very topic in an article in today’s New York Times in which he explores Jack LaLanne’s legacy.

Here’s Bruni’s answer to my question: GUILT (although that guilt doesn’t always lead one to exercise…) Bruni chronicles how LaLanne provided the catalyst (and the first American gym in 1936) that led to the ubiquity of gyms today along with a widespread fitness and health culture, which was virtually nonexistent when LaLanne originally started promoting fitness and nutrition. Beyond inspiring the equipment, the spandex, and everything from Equinox to LA Fitness, Bally, and Crunch, LaLanne, Bruni claims, created the notion that “fitness equals character, and that self-actualization begins with the self-discipline to get and stay in shape. In the post-LaLanne landscape, it’s not the eyes but the abdominals that are the windows to the soul.”

Bruni also says, however, that the “conflation of the physical and the moral virtually spans all of human history. It’s present in the writings of the ancient Greeks, for whom athleticism was much more than mere sport. Christians long ago designated sloth one of the seven deadly sins, though they meant a dearth of industry more than a deficit of treadmill time.” Further, he highlights the religious tone in LaLanne’s “proselytizing about diet and exercise” and quotes LaLanne as saying, “‘To me, this one thing — physical culture and nutrition — is the salvation of America.’” (The American Heritage Dictionary defines salvation as “preservation or deliverance from destruction, difficulty, or evil,” a definition that seems to conflate the religious and the secular.)

Interestingly, I have described myself as “evangelical” when it comes to strength training, and I claim my proselytizing stems from how good I feel and my hearthfelt desire to spread the good word. There was another article in Thursday’s Styles section exploring the challenges faced by full-service gyms. It seems that the thing most agree this type of setting best provides and that many seek in a gym is community. Hmmm… also akin to what religious organizations have historically provided.

Bruni ends his piece with an interesting question: “When exercise comes wrapped in value judgments, does it wind up entangled in an anxiety that threatens the very resolve to get fit?” He goes on to say, “As Mr. LaLanne was siring new methods for shaping up, he was fathering something else, too: a potent, and in some cases immobilizing, strain of contemporary guilt.” If we agree with Bruni, what do we do to counteract this? to get motivated (especially if guilt doesn’t do it)? to get out and walk briskly for 45 minutes? and ultimately to feel good because we did so!

I just learned that Jack LaLanne died this afternoon.

One of his LaLanneisms was that he couldn’t die: “it would wreck my image.”

The obituary in the LA Times says the following: “Jack LaLanne, the seemingly eternal master of health and fitness who first popularized the idea that Americans should work out and eat right to retain youthfulness and vigor, died Sunday. He was 96. LaLanne died of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at his home in Morro Bay, Calif., his agent Rick Hersh said. He had undergone heart valve surgery in December 2009.”

His wife Elaine said the following: “I have not only lost my husband and a great American icon, but the best friend and most loving partner anyone could ever hope for.”

Thank you, Jack, for doing all you did to promote health and well-being. Some 70+ years ago, Jack was advocating things that are now well-known and widely-practiced, yet at the time he was seen as a “crackpot” (his word).

I’m stunned he’s gone. I thought he would live to at least 100. But he did have many, many years of good health and undoubtedly was responsible for getting others (including me) to take better care of themselves and appreciate deeply what our bodies can do for us when we embrace the kingdom: “Exercise is king; nutrition is queen; together you have a kingdom.”

Here’s how we’ll remember Jack…

Today while I was huffing and puffing away on the elliptical at the gym, my gym neighbor thought she would offer some parenting advice. You see she had watched me talking with my nine-year-old son, who had come with me to the gym to play basketball while I worked out. He’d grown weary of basketball and was hoping to watch ESPN on the flatscreen in the main atrium of the gym. (Have you noticed that there is hardly a place left in the world that doesn’t have a flatscreen blaring? Even Whole Foods! The Whole Foods in Evanston has a big TV, mostly tuned to the Food Network, but sheesh.)

Anyway, my neighbor thought she’d let me know how important it is that young boys get plenty of running around and that while her kids are now grown, her husband had always been willing to take her son out to play and play and play (and undoubtedly all of this was in the dead of a frigid Chicago winter). She and I did chat merrily away, with me huffing it up and agreeing with her good thoughts about boys and running around and all of that while I was also trying to wrap up the conversation so that I could get back to VH1′s Basketball Wives.

You know, everyone is an expert when it comes to parenting! And this little tete-a-tete was timely, given how much time I’ve given to thinking and reading about BATTLE HYMN OF THE TIGER MOTHER this past week. I haven’t read the whole book yet, just a couple of chapters in the bookstore, and I’ve read a lot ABOUT the book. I know I’ll read the book. I’ll get it soon and read it in a couple of days or one day or a few hours. I imagine I’m especially drawn to the book because of its attention to children and having them play instruments. Maybe I’m hoping that I’ll feel better about all the times when my son has cried when practicing the cello because I’m really a kitten in comparison to Amy Chua.

I need to actually read the whole book before I offer much more, but just my little quick look around in the book has got me thinking about a lot of things. Today I found myself wondering whether in all of Chua’s relentless insistence on achievement whether she ever asked her girls to do things for others? to serve their communities? to think about the contributions they might make to people with fewer resources than they have? Relentless achievement that focuses primarily on one’s own accomplishments seems rather selfish, doesn’t it? Maybe Chua would say that the music her older daughter will give to the world is her contribution?

I have also found myself thinking: how in the world did Chua have time to do all the relentless parenting she did? (and while working full time) More on all of this when I read the book! Perhaps, though, I need to keep in mind while reading it how I felt today when given advice from my new friend at the gym. And what was amazing today was how quickly I felt compelled to assure this woman that my son did play outside! and loved sports! and had just been playing basketball! and has limited television at home! and no video games! and plays the cello! I even told this woman that. Oy vey.