A is for Alacrity

Alacrity, a cheerful eagerness. Noun. As in, the dog ran with alacrity. As in, the man demonstrated great alacrity, even on his first day.

I gave my students--back when I had students--a list of vocabulary words each week. Students defined the word and used it in a sentence. (I started out calling them "SAT words" until an end-of-quarter evaluation pointed out that none of them were in high school anymore.) One student combined all sentences in one unified paragraph, beginning something like this: "My girlfriend opened the door with alacrity, but I quickly saw that the situation was anything but mundane..." I also received sentences that indicated the student had no idea what the word meant or how it should be used: "She felt ostensibly about hurting him"; "He will extricate in the morning." What??? But for the most part, sentences were correct and well-conceived; it wasn't a difficult exercise.

There are things I miss about teaching: those rare moments when all the students are engaged or when a student asks a difficult question that I know how to answer; the knowledge that I am constantly accountable to thirty, fifty, or seventy students; being able to discuss literary works that I love (Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," Hemingway's "Soldier's Home," Amy Bloom's "By and By") and hear new interpretations, new connections. And I miss many of the students. They could be hilarious, intelligent, and resourceful in ways that constantly surprised me.

Of course, there are many things I don't miss: for every eager student in the front, taking notes, raising hands, there were three in the back, their bags perched on the table blocking the view of a cell phone or a textbook from another, harder class. For every student who read the assigned story was another who didn't. And even though I knew better, I took much of that personally.

So it is with alacrity that I've tackled this new phase of my life. It is with alacrity that I approach this A to Z April Challenge. And it is with alacrity that I become a writer.

New Term, New Excitement

A week or so ago, I had a school dream. It was the first day of class at the nursing school where I used to teach, and I was running around frantically trying to get ready. I was inside an unfamiliar building, not sure where to go, and I didn't have lesson plans or a text book. After hunting down someone to show me how to get to my classroom, I discovered that the stairwell was blocked. I climbed over it and woke before I saw my students.

I had a bit of anxiety deciding what piece to bring for the first meeting of my writing class, and I wonder if that had anything to do with my school dream. I've completed about a tenth of my novel (6500 of 65,000 words, ha!) but didn't want to bring an excerpt from the middle. I also thought about adapting a recent blog entry. In the end, though, I decided to bring a short piece I'd written in college about two sisters and their Wheel-of-Fortune-obsessed mother.

But I'm not going to use this term to focus on fiction. I'm finally going to write my "Nana stories" (most likely I'll post them here). I'm going to interview her about things, like enrolling in the army, moving to the Midwest, etc., and turn them into short narratives. I won't be challenging to her: I won't ask about subjects that would make either of us uncomfortable. I want them to be something she enjoys reading, as well as the women in my class.

Colliding Worlds

There's an episode of Seinfeld where George's fiancée, Susan, has a short-lived friendship with Elaine. George doesn't like this. From his view, the two women are part of two different worlds, and he relates to them in two different ways. Around Susan, he is "Relationship George"; around Elaine, he is "Independent George." But if Susan and Elaine are friends, his worlds collide ("Relationship George," he says, "will kill Independent George!")

I was thinking of this today as a couple of my worlds collide. This morning I was featured on Writing Insight, a website dedicated to supporting new and aspiring authors. With my permission, my real name was used. When I was teaching, I was uncomfortable linking my real name to my blog or twitter stream for obvious reasons. In the same breath I might complain about conservative pundits and "it's"/"its" confusion.

I like this better, though: standing behind my own words and ideas; being the same person among my friends as I am among my family as I am among my colleagues. I've been faulted (complimented?) for being too honest, and I used to laugh at that idea. Maybe I thought that because I'm quiet, I withhold more than I share, and isn't that dishonest? But as my various circles collide--through wine tastings, through library functions, through the internet--I feel this great big world, the one we all share, finally coming into view.

The End is in Sight...

The end of the quarter always brings excitement and anxiety, both on my part and the parts of the students. Most classes are structured (my own included) such that the last couple weeks are weighted heavily. Final papers, final exams, these things will count for upwards of 40% of the final grade. I get stressed, anxious, keeping track of assignments and grades, making sure I fairly account for all of the students' work. And students get stressed, anxious, turning in so many assignments that are worth so much while keeping up with their demanding core nursing classes.

This morning I went with my dad to the downtown library to use their grant resource center. One of their computers has access to myriad foundations that award grants to organizations such as my father's, a database that we can't get to from the branches or from home. It was exciting to get just a snapshot of how many philanthropic groups there are supporting non-profits, and it made me all the more anxious to finish the quarter and move onto the next stage.

Edited to fix the link to my dad's site!

Chipper Zombie

Today was a little better, though I feel like a walking zombie. I need food and sleep. A couple of my students (they're total sweethearts) hung around after class this afternoon: "You seem down," they said. "Is everything ok? You don't seem like your usual chipper self!" Once I got over my shock at being called "chipper," I explained I was fine, but thanks for asking.

If I ever wanted to change my name from "Perfect Sand," maybe I could give "Chipper Zombie" a try.

My Happy Place

Today was just awful. I felt miserable and ineffective. I felt like I was a character in "Annie Hall," standing beside myself, watching myself be ineffective, unable to make things better.

I want to shout: You get out of a class what you put into it. I'm not going to stand there and shove information into your brains; I'm not going to sing and dance and entertain.

I see indifference and lack of effort from so many who of course will feel like they're wasting time. Awful, awful, and I get to do it again tomorrow.

(Deep breath - I'm fine. Just a little on edge... Below is a picture I drew a few years ago. It's me in my happy place. Setting my alarm for 5am because mornings are always better.)

Express Yourself (cont.)

The other day I wrote about Malcolm X's experience as he learned to express himself in more than one way. In class, I ask students to write about a time when they had trouble expressing themselves; how did they deal with it?

Me, I was immediately taken back to my first day of fourth grade. Even though I was in the same house as the year before, I had a new bus route. I wasn't supposed to ride the 113 anymore. Unsure of what bus I was supposed to ride--and too shy to ask--I stood, paralyzed, until I was approached by the vice principal.

"Do you know which bus to ride?"

"The 117, I think."

She turned to another teacher: "Does that sound right?" She turned back to me and asked which bus I rode last year.

"The 113."

She ushered me onto the bus, number 113. I saw some familiar faces, but only a couple, and none of the kids who got off at the same stop or in the same neighborhood as me. I had never ridden a bus with all white people before.

I knew I was on the wrong bus, but I didn't know how to say it. Instead, I took my seat. The bus took an unfamiliar path, and I got off at the first stop and began walking.

My shyness never went away. Every day, words choke in my throat. I am unable to say exactly what I want to. Whether standing in front of a room full of students or being introduced to a group of would-be friends, I feel a disconnect between my thoughts and speech.

But I am still able to express myself. The words that don't come out of my mouth come pouring through my arms and fingertips and to the keyboard and onto the screen. With a push of a button, those words are sent across the United States, to Scotland, and to Kenya. I am able to share my thoughts and feelings with a much larger audience.

Simultaneously, a strange thing has happened: the more I write, the less of a disconnect I feel between what I think and what comes out of my mouth. The fear will never go away--in some ways, it drives me!--but saying what I want when I want is a good thing, in whatever medium it takes.

Express Yourself

In his autobiography, Malcolm X describes how he received a "homemade education" while in prison. He had always considered himself an "articulate hustler," but the language he used on the street--"Look, daddy, let me pull your coat about a cat"--were insufficient within the prison walls. With only an eighth-grade education, he was unable to engage in meaningful conversations and correspondence. With access to little else, Malcolm X began to copy the dictionary. Starting with "aardvark," he wrote each word and its definition:

In my slow, painstaking, ragged handwriting, I copied into my tablet everything printed on that first page, down to the punctuation marks.

I believe it took me a day. Then, aloud, I read back, to myself, everything I’d written on the tablet. Over and over, aloud, to myself, I read my own handwriting.

I woke up the next morning, thinking about those words—immensely proud to realize that not only had I written so much at one time, but I’d written words that I never knew were in the world.... It went a lot faster after so much practice helped me to pick up handwriting speed. Between what I wrote in my tablet, and writing letters, during the rest of my time in prison I would guess I wrote a million words.

To listen to his speeches, to read his words, makes his "homemade education" all the more impressive. He felt unable to express himself, and he rectified it. He describes himself as never having felt "so truly free" in his life as when he was incarcerated, his eyes and mind and possibilities opened to the huge world contained in books. Language is power. Controversial as he was, Malcolm X was undeniably a man of ideas. His ability to communicate those ideas made him a leader.

I watched the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company perform his complete works (abridged). There were jokes scattered about crazy right-wingers, tea parties, and BP. At one point, one of the three actors--they performed hilarious versions of everything from Othello to Hamlet--said, "That's the craziest thing I've heard, at least since, 'Change you can believe in'... What, too soon?" There were audience members laughing and clapping. But I didn't get it. I still don't. I want to say, "Grow up! Obama is trying to govern!" I don't understand what more people want him to do. He needs support, he needs political capital to effect change, and by ridiculing him from the left, people are instead removing an important voice from the debate. Keep up the pressure, but let him lead.

We have so many opportunities today. Libraries, the internet, education: these should be equalizers! Good-natured people, myself included, worry about the widening gulf between the haves and the have-nots. But is anyone talking about the gulf between the "knows" and the "know-nots"? Am I just projecting here? The more television I watch, the more I read, the more I think about (what I perceive to be) rampant anti-intellectualism. Politicians, the media, appealing to our basest instincts, worrying about the 24/7 news cycle instead of truth and progress. Where are the intellectual leaders? Who has big ideas today, based on fact and reason, that has enough celebrity to garner attention? Will corporate media allow any other voices? And when will we be smart enough to demand better?

Impulsive but not Unplanned

I told the dean yesterday that I didn't plan to come back next quarter.

On the one hand, this was impulsive. I hadn't known I was going to do that when I got to campus. In my various discussions and ruminations, this had merely been an option (the smarter and financially practical choice would have been to leave the library, instead).

On the other hand, I had made this decision many times; I had told the dean the same thing before the start of the last quarter, and she convinced me to stay.

I am better for having had this experience, and I do hope the students are better for having had me as an instructor. But I know without doubt that my talents and passion lie elsewhere. I'll have the time, when the quarter concludes in July, to pursue those.

"In the World, the Carrying Capacity of Humans is Limited..."

"...History holds all things in balance, including large hopes and short lives." (Adah, Book 5)

I mentioned yesterday that I was rereading "Poisonwood Bible" for book club tonight. I'd previously led the discussion for another of my favorites, "Unaccustomed Earth," by Jhumpa Lahiri; there were about eight of us that time. Apparently, my branch has tried to cancel their "second Thursday" book club during the summer for lack of attendance, but the members resisted. So we had it, and so it was that I led a conversation about "Poisonwood Bible" tonight with a lovely woman named Barb.

Luckily, Barb was a like-minded reader. The book angered her in the same ways it angered me (America?!?! How could you?!?!) and engaged her in similar ways. She had grown up with an older sister who was visually-impaired and was fascinated by the relationship between twin sisters Leah (able-bodied and brilliant) and Adah ("crippled" and brilliant). We both agreed that the end was perhaps more drawn out than it should have been.

I told Barb about the Lumumba movie and my shock over America's involvement, and she told me about living through the assassination and being vaguely aware of the official version of what had transpired. She'd said something to her dad, and he said she sounded like a Communist: "I wasn't offended," she told me.

While it would have been nice to have more voices, I enjoyed this book-talk. We'd only met the last time I did the book club, months ago, and after we'd discussed Kingsolver's book for a good forty minutes, we talked another fifteen about her children, my education, and our hope for the future.

A thought: Pundits talk about code words. Dog whistles. Things politicians can say that only reach a certain audience. They may refer to states' rights. Welfare queens. Tough on crime. But it's not just racist politicians who use them. We all do in our own way. We say something that would register only to those who share our world view, negotiating until we know we are in safe territory.

I realize I'm unsafe at school. Today, in a lesson about understanding visual information, I showed a picture of a couple, posing for a wedding picture. He was in his tux, she in her white wedding gown, bouquet in hand. In the background was storm, palm trees heavily bent by wind, heavy rain. On closer look, we see that the bride's bouquet is coming loose and her hair blowing. And still they smile. The text on the bottom: "Ignoring global warming won't make it go away."

One student thought the poster was suggesting that global warming caused the hurricane, and no one wants hurricanes to ruin a wedding. But clearly, the couple, obviously affected by their environment, are choosing to ignore it, just as we continue to ignore global warming. This same student argued that global warming is a hoax, and the poster is propaganda. How do you argue with that? On one side you have scientists, and on the other side you have non-scientists. As Bill Maher said on his show last week, this is not a debate! I did the smart thing and didn't engage myself. The last thing I want to do is diminish a student; besides, we're going to spend four more weeks on evaluating sources. The best thing I can do is give him the tools to find better information.

And So it Goes, And So It Goes.

I borrowed a stack of books from the library about teaching composition. Many are dated, geared toward that traditional freshman in college who intends to finish in a degree in four years, who does not have a part-time or full-time job, and who just needs the right kind of guidance to produce a stellar piece of writing. Some are oddly defensive about teaching the "rules" and correcting "bad" grammar. But regardless of their faults, I can certainly take something away from each of these texts.

The most useful one, in fact, is geared toward high school students. "The Pen Is in My Hand... Now What?" encourages us to begin with creative writing before switching to expository. In "S.W.A.P." activities, students construct a creative paragraph in which they answer a series of questions. Last week, I showed students a picture of a soldier holding an assault rifle and peering around a corner. I asked,

1. What is his name?
2. What is he thinking?
3. Where is he going?
4. What is his favorite color?
5. Why does his left foot itch?
6. What was he doing before he enlisted?
7. What is his family like?

Students could respond to these questions in any order, however they liked. Afterwards, students read their creations to the whole class (each had the opportunity to pass). Students were proud of and applauded their classmates, and they encouraged each other. Cool!

I wish I felt as good about everything else I was/am doing. I don't know what it will take for me to feel confident. But I'll take my victories when I can. Friday, the Hemingway short story "Soldier's Home" was met with overwhelming approval; I had first played some audio of an Iraq war veteran talking about his experience with PTSD. The subsequent discussion of the story was complex and nuanced. When we talked about how Hemingway's style--short, simple sentences; lots of repetition; detached--reflected Krebs' state of mind after returning home from WWI, students got it.

My own school plans have not changed, and now isn't the time to be tentative. One of my books, "Rational Irrationality," talks a lot about the theory and pedagogy of composition. The author suggests that adults who struggled to learn to write well make the best teachers; they recognize the challenges and steps to become effective writers and can thus best explain it to students. On the other hand, adults for whom writing has always been easy and natural cannot credibly explain the importance of the writing process. The author suggests that these people approach writing in a very different way and will necessarily have trouble breaking it into steps. I'm not sure that I agree with him, but I think it's an interesting point.

When You Read Silently

The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently

is not silent, it is a speaking-
out-loud voice in your head; it is *spoken*,
a voice is *saying* it
as you read. It's the writer's words,
of course, in a literary sense
his or her "voice" but the sound
of that voice is the sound of *your* voice.
Not the sound your friends know
or the sound of a tape played back
but your voice
caught in the dark cathedral
of your skull, your voice heard
by an internal ear informed by internal abstracts
and what you know by feeling,
having felt. It is your voice
saying, for example, the word "barn"
that the writer wrote
but the "barn" you say
is a barn you know or knew. The voice
in your head, speaking as you read,
never says anything neutrally- some people
hated the barn they knew,
some people love the barn they know
so you hear the word loaded
and a sensory constellation
is lit: horse-gnawed stalls,
hayloft, black heat tape wrapping
a water pipe, a slippery
spilled *chirr* of oats from a split sack,
the bony, filthy haunches of cows...
And "barn" is only a noun- no verb
or subject has entered into the sentence yet!
The voice you hear when you read to yourself
is the clearest voice: you speak it
speaking to you.

~ Thomas Lux

This is my new favorite poem. On the first day of class this quarter, we read Lux's poem, and I asked students to reflect on the voice they hear when they read silently; how does it compare to their "out-loud" voice? Students described wishing their speaking voice matched the one in their head, so fluid and confident. The voices in their heads can be male or female, have British or French accents, and can otherwise be animated in ways that their speaking out-loud voice cannot replicate.

I Think, Therefore I Is.

I'm trying something new this quarter - I'm withholding explicit grammar instruction until I've collected a couple assignments, including a formal essay. First of all, I think the instruction might end up being unnecessary. If students already have a strong foundation, knowing the difference between the past tense and past perfect tense is not going to make them better writers. Second, I realize how abstract these lessons are when separate from students' own writing. Once I've assessed their writing, then I can determine a baseline and target more specific skills to build. I think this will make for a happier teacher and happier students.

Good Problems?

This quarter, I have no ESL students. Nor do I have any students who appear to need significant remedial skills. The students' eyes glossed over as I described the basics of composing an essay, planning, drafting, generating ideas. But they were engaged and interested as they shared their own writing and seemed to enjoy my combination of praise and criticism. Maybe I've underestimated previous classes - I didn't recognize it because the classes were so big. This quarter, with two smaller sections instead of one huge one, maybe I can better match the needs of individual students.

This is a good problem to have. However, my syllabus and lesson plans are written for students who need basic writing skills (not that I haven't had strong writers before - they got the short end of the stick as I focused on getting everyone to the same level). I have to look for new and better ways to challenge this new group.

Goals 2010 (cont.)

Stepping onto the campus of Warren Wilson College last Thursday reminded me a lot of my first time visiting Denison in Granville, Ohio. Not only was it strikingly beautiful, with brick buildings and a mountainous landscape, it also seemed like a vibrant student body.

My goal in visiting Warren Wilson was to get a nudge in one direction or the other: either I'd be steered toward a closer, more practical program (read: "cheaper"), or I'd be pushed toward this program that I first stumbled upon through a google search. The MFA program office assistant said students who complete it describe the program as "life changing." She also said only 10% of applicants are admitted. I want to be a part of that select group!

The next few days will be spent scrambling around, getting ready for next quarter. I'm mostly excited, though there are some unresolved issues from last quarter that trouble me. I bought one of those crates on wheels, since I'll be teaching three separate classes. What I couldn't give for my own cubicle. (Ha - that's a sentence I never thought I'd utter!)

Intercalary Chapters

In September 2008, as I drove the familiar interstate to school, the StoryCorps segment came on NPR. Through StoryCorps, two "regular people" record a conversation between themselves and submit it to be preserved at the Library of Congress. The conversation might be between siblings, between old friends, between spouses, or, as was the case of the conversation that aired September 11, 2008, between mother and son.

It's been over two years since I heard it, but I still remember Frankie's soft and quivering voice as he answered his mom's gentle questions about his grandfather (her father) and the special memories he had of him. His mom asked him what he recalled about September 11th - and even though he was a young boy at the time, Frankie could describe every detail from that day: learning about the Twin Towers being struck, being so worried about his grandfather who had been working there that day, and finding out that his grandfather had died along with so many others.

My own experience of hearing their story suddenly came back to me this afternoon I drove home from my grandmother's on that same, familiar interstate and listened to another NPR segment: "The Story." Journalist Dick Gordon interviews "regular people" and helps them tell their story. Today, a young woman from the Philippines described how she had come to the United States thinking that she had a $50/month job as a housekeeper. But Mimin's passport was taken by her employers; she was not paid; she was not permitted to leave the house. Because she spoke very poor English and had only an elementary-school education, she did not realize she had other rights. Her employers convinced her that if she left the house, she would be raped or worse - she didn't know any better. Mimin worked under these circumstances for seven years and finally escaped with the help of an anti-trafficking group. It's been five years since she left that situation, but she still lives in fear that her former employers will find her and take her back.

The CIA estimates that 50,000 people are brought to the United States each year and forced to work as prostitutes, domestics, or laborers. These people are invisible to us. Mimin escaped only through a chance meeting with a man who bicycled by her house each day, noticed her poor condition, and eventually slipped her a phone number. It serves as a reminder to listen extra hard for the voiceless and look even harder for the invisible.

September 2008, I arrived at class with red eyes. I described the story I had listened to on NPR, Frankie, his mom, and his grandfather -- "What's NPR?" a couple students interrupted! -- and then asked them to write their own 9/11 story: where had they been? what do they remember most? what, if anything, changed for them that day?

* * *

Sometimes that down cycle can be self-perpetuating. You feel bad, and then you feel bad about feeling bad. And then you feel guilty about that because things could always be worse. So perhaps it's best to actively avoid those natural inclinations toward inwardness. Just plow through and face outward. Involve yourself in other stories while your own narrative takes a short break. Maintain empathy and keep things in perspective.

A Woman of Inaction

I'm slow. I'm methodical. I think about something, and then I think about it some more. Then I reflect on what I've thought. My pace is frustratingly deliberate (or, maybe, deliberately frustrating), but I look back on choices I've made and have no regrets; I wouldn't change a thing.

I've always had this anxiety about teaching. How I communicate doesn't translate well to the podium. How others learn rarely reflects how I learn. A friend of mine who recently found herself leading a classroom full of adults said to me, "I think I like the idea of being a teacher more than actually being a teacher," and I can certainly understand that sentiment. In the mean time, I do the best I can; in my evaluations, I want my students to write either "She tried really hard!" or "She's funny." (It doesn't necessarily come across in my oh-so serious writing, but I can be hilarious. Or, at least, droll).

That July deadline I'd set for myself is suddenly flexible. I owe a lot of taxes; I have a huge phone bill this month (cell phones are so convenient that you forget you're talking to someone in East Africa!). It's one thing to try to follow my bliss, it's another to be responsible during a near-recession.

I should mention that because of downsizing at the airport, my brother Zach took a severance package last month. In April, he flies to California and will bike across the States. Read about it here. Jonah had chosen to stay on; but Delta announced it was closing one of its concourses: his last day will be here shortly.

Anyway, so I continue to deliberate. Reflect. Ponder. I should really start running again; things always clarify themselves when I run. Oh well, I'll think about it.

Linguistic Change Doesn't Equal Linguistic Decay (Necessarily)

I've started reading a fascinating book, The Lexicographer's Dilemma, with the catchy subtitle, The Evolution of 'Proper English,' from Shakespeare to South Park. Click here for an excerpt, though I encourage lovers of the English language to buy your own copy or, better yet, borrow one from the library.

The writer, Jack Lynch, poses the question: How is it "wrong" if everyone speaks that way? Going back centuries, every generation has bemoaned the degradation of the English language. Kids these days, they don't know how to talk or write. But language necessarily evolves; the rules, he suggests, are less important than usage. We can't capture and crystallize the English language and say that this is the only way to speak it correctly. Technology changes, and the way we communicate changes; thus, focusing on what is "correct" puts undue anxiety on speakers and writers alike. Bad grammar, he says, can result in good writing, just as good grammar can result in bad writing.

As an English teacher, I read this book with great interest. I recognize the arbitrariness of the rules, the way language is used to impose and enforce a power structure. But I also recognize the power of language as a means of communication. I see the need for clarity and unambiguity in certain contexts. I see the importance of learning how to writing and speak "Standard English" because of the way our society works. Again, it's a fascinating book.

***

Nana is doing much better. She's still in the hospital but much closer to her old self. I've spent most days this week with her, and I'm lucky that my jobs afford me the flexibility to do that. I'll share a quote from my brother's godfather that my dad quoted on his own blog:

Loss, and the grief that comes from it, is one of the greatest occasions of deep and sad feeling, and it’s one that is socially acceptable. When we lose a beloved friend, wife, husband, child, parent, or maybe a possession or a job, we feel it’s okay to feel deeply. But we must broaden that. We’ve got to find a passion that is also experienced when we have it, not just when we’re losing it. And we have it all the time. Don’t wait for loss to feel, suffer, or enjoy deeply.

A Man Is Lucky Indeed...

I forget about the power of language sometimes (inexcusable given my profession, I know) but a recent article by Chris Jones in Esquire Magazine reminded me. Fellow blogger George Rede summarizes and quotes the article that profiles film critic Roger Ebert. I won't do that again, here, except to point out my favorite part that describes how writing provides him the voice that he physically lacks:

Reading [Ebert's online journal] from its beginning is like watching an Aztec pyramid being built. At first, it's just a vessel for him to apologize to his fans for not being downstate. The original entries are short updates about his life and health and a few of his heart's wishes. Postcards and pebbles. They're followed by a smattering of Welcomes to Cyberspace. But slowly the journal picks up steam, as Ebert's strength and confidence and audience grow. You are the readers I have dreamed of, he writes. He is emboldened. He begins to write about more than movies; in fact, it sometimes seems as though he'd rather write about anything other than movies. The existence of an afterlife, the beauty of a full bookshelf, his liberalism and atheism and alcoholism, the health-care debate, Darwin, memories of departed friends and fights won and lost — more than five hundred thousand words of inner monologue have poured out of him, five hundred thousand words that probably wouldn't exist had he kept his other voice.

Ebert writes, "When I am writing my problems become invisible and I am the same person I always was. All is well. I am as I should be." The story strikes me because of the voice and world writing has opened up for Roger Ebert. But equally, I'm struck by the beautiful portrait Chris Jones has drawn. It is everything that the Vanity Fair piece wasn't; sensitive and nuanced, Jones allows his readers to think of Ebert and themselves in a new light.

At the beginning of each quarter, as I introduce some of the basics of writing, we talk about paragraphs. I contend that being able to write a strong, effective paragraph is more important, practically speaking, than being able to write a decent essay. Outside of school, few of us need to write these longer pieces of work--one-thousand words comparing this and that, twelve-hundred words persuading an imagined audience to alter its opinion on the death penalty--but most of us will have reason to craft shorter, to-the-point groups of sentences. Whether writing a cover letter, a memo, or an email to a child's teacher, students need to be able to effectively and concisely communicate information.

"A paragraph," I say, "is a sentence or group of sentences that forms an idea." We look at two examples of "strong paragraphs": the first, the opening paragraph to a Judith Ortiz Short story, demonstrates how a writer can use simple but powerful sentences to great effect; the second, from an E. B. White essay, shows how even a paragraph smack dab in the middle of a larger piece can stand on its own:

I guess I have watched my coon descend the tree a hundred times; even so, I never miss a performance if I can help it. It has a ritualistic quality, and I know every motion, as a ballet enthusiast knows every motion of his favorite dance. The secret of its enchantment is the way it employs the failing light, so that when the descent begins, the former is clearly visible and is a part of day, and when, ten or fifteen minutes later, the descent is complete and the coon removes the last paw from the tree and takes the first step away, groundborne, she is almost indecipherable and is a part of the shadows and the night. The going down of the sun and the going down of the coon are interrelated phenomena; a man is lucky in deed who lives where sunset and coonset are visible from the same window. (White, 1977, p. 44)

White turns the ordinary into the magical in just four sentences. And that's the power of words and language - it stirs something in us that's reachable no other way.

White, E. B. (1977). Coon Tree. In Essays of E. B. White (pp. 41-55). New York, NY: HarperCollins Books.

Primary, Secondary, Tertiary... Quaternary?

I think our country is experiencing a massive hangover from the Bush years. Where was the public outrage over being misled into war, over our country's image abroad plummeting, over the dialog shifting from "we did not torture" to "torture is an effective interrogation tool," and over the complete media failure to challenge and hold accountable the government? There wasn't any, at least not on a grand scale.

But we woke up, head pounding. We have this nagging suspicioun that, you know, mistakes were made. We see ourselves engaged in two wars, our biggest institutions failing and bailed out, the deficit growing and growing. We see our friends, our family, our selves losing work or losing insurance. We don't remember who handed us that 5th shot of tequila, but we see who's in control now. The current powers that be may not be responsible for our headache, but we're angry, and we want to hold someone or someones accountable. We won't get fooled again.

I read an interesting article this morning (which is what spurred me on this tangent) about how the media covers Washington. George Packer writes in the New Yorker that reporting focuses solely on appearance and perception and no longer on substance. This has been the case for decades, now, and no longer surprises us. But he asks us to "imagine [Hamad] Karzai's inaugural address as covered by a DC reporter:

Speaking at the presidential palace in Kabul, Mr. Karzai showed himself to be at the top of his game. He skillfully co-opted his Pashtun base while making a powerful appeal to the technocrats who have lately been disappointed in him, and at the same time he reassured the Afghan public that his patience with civilian casualties is wearing thin. A palace insider, who asked for anonymity in order to be able to speak candidly, said, ‘If Karzai can continue to signal the West that he is concerned about corruption without alienating his warlord allies, he will likely be able to defuse the perception of a weak leader and regain his image as a unifying figure who can play the role of both modernizer and nationalist.’

It's easy to imagine an Obama speech being written about this way - political base, perception, image, etc - but, Packer asks, try to picture reporters talking about war in this manner. About the economic crisis. About foreign governments. Today's DC reporters focus on the inside game when, clearly, we're not insiders. Senators aren't meeting with us in back rooms. They're not adding special, hidden clauses in bills that provide loopholes for us...

I remember waiting for the State of the Union address, or other big stages for the president. About eight or nine pundits sat around a table (maybe they were in the "Situation Room"!) and each of them wondered, "What will the storyline be?" Everything--every democratic and republican response--was discussed for show and narrative, not for substance.

In a couple weeks I begin talking about evaluating sources. How do we sift through websites, articles, and books and decide what sources to accept and what sources to reject? Among other things, we look at whether a source is biased, timely, and useful. Is it presenting opinions or facts? Is its argument based on sound or specious logic?

Also, we look for primary sources: original documents, original reporting - not some else's analysis of that source. While a primary source is not necessarily more reliable than a secondary source (it should be subject to the same evaluation), by examining that primary source we can better understand and evaluate the secondary and tertiary sources that use its information.

How much of the reporting holds up to close evaluation? How many times has Fox news decried a poll while holding up its results as indicative of some narrative it's pushing? How many times have we seen a senator (republican or democrat) lie to a reporter but not have it challenged because the reporter is uninformed? How many times have we seen pundits use false logic, conflating causation and correlation, in order to simplify a story?

The story is on the story that is on the story. What passes as news is so removed from the original source that, as viewers, readers, and receivers of that news, we have more and more trouble evaluating it.

Unfortunately, we're still in the bathroom, heads spinning, our bodies slumped over the toilet. "Never again," we say. But are we saying "no" to the right people?