House Quizzes

I took the quiz at
http://www.quizilla.com/users/incendio-avis/quizzes/Your%20Hogwarts%20House%20(Harry%20Potter)/

to see what Hogwarts house I belonged in and it was the Raven-puff house-- that I'm a mix between the two.

Then I took the quiz at
http://www.personalitylab.org/tests/ccq_hogwarts.htm

and there I was Hufflepuff with a close placement to Gryfindor.

I think it's interesting how many quizzes a person can take to find out where they belong. When I did my google search there were actually quite a few options available to me.

I know that it doesn't actually matter-- and that it is all fiction-- but it's important to me that I didn't get placed into Syltherin.

for sale

Yesterday we put our house up for sale. I can't believe how much work that is. I feel like it has taken the majority of my effort for the last week--especially the last 5 days. I'm really enjoying the clean house, but I'm looking forward to getting back to academic work.

video game theory

Kids play video games. There are then 2 schools of thought about these kids-- they are doing a good thing for themselves or they are doing a bad thing for themselves. The kids don't care--they just keep playing video games.

The initial good--it improves hand eye coordination.
The initial bad--it makes kids lazy--ie stop playing outside.

A later good--it helps kids learn to gather collective intelligence.
A later bad--it desensitizes kids to violence.

Geoff Sirc asked me what's the big deal about video game theory? What does it have to do with literature?

This is a good question--one that I realize I have to answer. I know it has nothing to do with the first-- I don't care about kids hand eye coordination, and although no one will come out and say it--if all kids do is read, they can become "lazy" just as effectively as they can with video games.

I think the real question is why is collective intelligence something we want? Why is it good? Why is it important? Why is it better than individual intelligence?

lunch with Sirc

Time flies way too fast-- it's already Thursday and I'm just now really trying to think about the questions Geoff Sirc asked me at lunch last Friday.

I was spouting that I think collective intelligence is so great--and that when kids participate in it that they learn so much. And his question was along the lines of-- but what are they really learning?

Cheat codes for video games-- well this keeps them from having to problem solve to get there themselves-- is that actually good? I remember being a kid, before the Internet, following the higher level codes my sister would achieve in video games and then not knowing how to survive in those levels because I hadn't earned the right to be there. Is this what we want kids to learn.

They learn how to work together--they learn that together they can gain more knowledge than they can apart. But does it really work like that-- or do the hard workers do all of the work and the lazy kids just mooch off of them?

The thing that I think is most beneficial in collective intelligence with children is that they learn how to articulate their ideas to multiple audiences. They learn how to share what they are discovering, and they learn how to synthesize their knowledge with other bits of knowledge that are out there. They aren't just stringing facts together so they can tell someone they know all of this stuff--instead they are seeing that their knowledge is a piece of a much bigger puzzle. Collective intelligence makes its participants global learners--participants have to understand that there is always more knowledge to be gleaned.

moving

we've decided it's time to move. i knew this day was coming, my husband has wanted to move since he bought this house, but it's a good little house in a good little neighborhood.

there's a part of me that wants to move, and of course, a part of me that just wants to stay put. the part of me that wants to stay put is the academic. the realtor came by yesterday and gave us tips on making the place more sellable-- one thing that's got to go-- my basement workstation. i am sitting here, working on my laptop for potentially one of the last mornings-- my ugly table has to go.

the good side to moving is that it is forcing me to go through the stacks and stacks of papers that i've accumulated over the last couple of years through my aversion to filing. This is motivating me to throw a lot of dead trees away. Don't worry-- I'm recycling what I can.

IRB

So, I decided that I wanted to add some real student perspectives to my dissertation-- I thought it would be good to say what real children think instead of just assuming what they think-- that sounds reasonable to me. So, I mention this to someone and they tell me to be sure I get my human subject research paperwork submitted. I don't want to do human subject research-- I want to send out an anonymous survey to find out if kids read books and talk about them with their friends-- but apparently that's what human subject research is. To me, human subject research somehow violates the human- that is why you need permission to do it-- but I guess I'm wrong--

Don't misunderstand me-- I know that the kids I want to survey are human. I just thought that since I would never meet them and since they're not telling me their names that it would be anonymous in and of itself. But, I guess it's not. Since I know what school they attend, the IRB people think I could figure out which survey matches up with which kid.

So, today I get to fill out pages and pages of paperwork. When I found out about all of the paperwork, my initial response was to leave out the survey, but I think that would do my project a disservice-- so, I'll let you know how the paper pushing goes.

Fridge Farm

I made one of my C & W outcomes that I was going to try to post to my blog everyday-- which for me means every weekday-- so now, here I am today-- with all sorts of stuff to work on and do-- and I should have academic thoughts to process on my blog, but I'm going to talk about my daughter's fridge farm.

My daughter got 3, count them 1, 2, 3 Leapfrog Fridge Farms for her first birthday last week. Now, this is a gift that I was hoping that she would get-- she's played with it at other people's house, and she really seems to like it, so I thought she would enjoy it. And she does. She loves to pull the pieces off of the fridge. And she likes to put the pieces in her mouth and crawl around the kitchen. She likes to push the pieces as high as she can reach on her tippy toes so that she can't get them back down. And she LOVES to push the Farmer Tag banjo playing button so that I get to listen to more banjo music than I've ever heard in my life. Even as I type this my brain is serenading me with "You made a match" and Old Suzanna on an alternating player despite the fact that my daughter is sleeping and the fridge is silent.

I don't say this to discourage someone from acquiring the Fridge Farm-- it's a fun toy-- and my daughter loves it. I guess I write this to explain to myself why I feel like I'm two different people sometimes. I can sit at a conference and glean knowledge and resolve to be a better teacher, student, director-- and then I come home, and I have this wonderful little girl who doesn't care about how many books I read, or articles I publish, or blog posts I complete. She cares if her picture pops up on the laptop screen. She cares if I tickle her when I read the sounds in Mr. Brown can Moo, can you?

This past year has been a lesson in convergence for me-- how do I converge mommy with scholar? I wish there were a how to here.

Computers and Writing 2007

This week I've been attending the Computers and Writing Conference at Wayne State University. I learned some important things there this weekend.
1. I've got to be better at writing my blog-- if I want to really do this-- use this space, I've got to write more often.
2. I've got to be better about reading other people's blogs-- if I think part of what is good about blogging is the blogging community, then I need to join that community.
3. It's important to talk about your projects with people because they ask questions that you realize you have to be careful to answer. On Thursday I sat with Geoffrey Sirc at lunch and he made me think-- more on that later.
4. I've got to get writing-- If I'm ever going to accomplish any of my goals that involves putting ideas onto paper.

I knew I would get stuff out of the conference, but I got more out of it than I thought I would, so that's cool-- now the challenge will be to live up to what I think I learned.

Safety

Today my thoughts and prayers are with the English Department staff at Virginia Tech. They are also with the families of the many victims.

Safety is such an ironic thing. Silly things like ritual and familiarity make us feel safe, and a massacure thousands of miles away can make us feel unsafe. I work at an urban college--people always ask me if it's safe here, and I say yes. There are usually plenty of people around. There is a good police presence on campus. I feel safe when walking on campus, when working in my office, when teaching in the classroom. My guess is that the people at VaTech felt safe. My prayer is for the students who are scared and wondering what to do next. I pray that God would comfort and direct them and allow them to feel secure again.

Diversity

Yesterday I went to yet another conference on diversity. This one was geared mainly at people who work in support services on our college campus. I am so sick of talking about diversity. Don't get me wrong-- I think that diversity is important, and I think it adds a dimension to our campus that enhances experiences and broadens perspectives. But, I am sick of talking about it. I was sitting in a room where the population was at least 75% black females. That's not very diverse. And I'm listening to everyone say how they want to make sure that the minority students on campus know about and feel welcome in their offices. Good, but shouldn't the goal as a support service to make sure all students know about and feel welcome in an office? It seems like if a campus has a diverse student body-- which our campus does-- this semester I have students who consider three different countries home-- then if the support service seeks to support all aspects of the student body, by default, that support service will have a diverse customer base.

I think diversity is an asset. But, I am tired of people making it political. At the conference, the afternoon speaker implied that good, liberal people care about diversity. So, does that mean that conservative people don't care. Or that conservative people are bad? Or is it just the bad liberals who don't care? Or is it that like me, people are tired of having everything labeled and defined to the point of nausea.

A diverse student body helps students realize that stereotypes don't work. It makes students realize that certain situations always create a common ground regardless of the student's personal background. And, hopefully it makes students realize that diversity is more than an issue of color-- we can be diverse from one another in so many aspects of life-- and that is why diversity is important. To teach and to remember that no matter the similarities, we all have differences, and more importantly that despite our differences, we usually have similarities.

Too Busy

I didn't realize it had been so long since I'd written on my blog. I'm going to try to write more and use this again as a processing space. Somehow, it seems like I have to write a message like this first.

New Semester, New Plans

I can't believe it's already 2007. It's crazy how fast time flies. This semester I'm looking forward to working with my students on tutoring at the writing center. I'm also looking forward to making some progress on my dissertation. We'll see how it all goes.

Children's Literature is not Baby Formula

Children's Literature is not Baby Formula is currently the title of my dissertation-- we'll see if I want to keep this title and if I'm allowed to keep this title, but as I'm reading about people's views of popular culture, I'm realizing that not only is pop culture considered less than high culture, it's considered to be culture in its simplest form--already broken down so it's easy to digest. Sort of like baby formula.

The argument that some (I realize I need to figure out who all the somes are) make is that popular culture is what is left over after high culture has decided what it wants to claim. But it can't be that simple. I keep thinking of the old proverb-- what is popular is not always right and what is right is not always popular-- but, sometimes it is. Sometimes something that is well done can be appreciated as well.

Stuart Hall argues that people need to be more discriminating in their views of culture. That not all high culture is good, while not all popular culture is bad. I think this is really important when it comes to thinking about Children's Literature. There seem to be 2 schools of thought when it comes to children's literature-- those who think all children's literature is a pre-digested form of literature-- that none of it is as good as high culture literature, and those who think that there are high culture children's books and popular culture children's books. In reality, I think I fall in the second category--but I want to challenge myself, and others, to think beyond the 2 divisions of high culture and popular culture. Because, I see well-done popular books getting bypassed in the high culture division, and that drives me crazy. The most obvious example of this is Harry Potter. Because the Harry Potter books are so popular, they don't seem to get nominated for some book awards that they might deserve. On behalf of the librarians who make those decisions, I understand why-- the librarians hope to bring to attention well done books that might not get the attention they deserve, and Harry Potter already gets his fair share of attention. But, Rowling also deserves some credit for her style of writing. Although, it's not the book awards that jump out at me the most with the Potter series, it's the films. The fourth Potter film was nominated for several Oscars-- of which it won none, and not because it didn't deserve to win, but because Oscars seem to go only to films that are not popular. The Potter books sometimes seem like an overdone example, but because of their popularity, they are one that people understand.

There are some children's and young adult books that are better than others. But, it doesn't take a Newberry award to determine that, just as it doesn't take a Pulitzer or Nobel prize in literature to determine if an adult fiction book is of the highest quality.

I don't want to turn my dissertation into an argument that says Children's Literature is a true form of literature. But I also don't want to give in to the idea that what is good isn't' popular and what is popular isn't good.

Culture and Children's Literature

I'm trying to think about how culture is in children's literature. I am thinking about all the new young adult texts that reference television and technology. YA authors are aware that their readers live in a world outside of books, and they want to reference that world.

BUT...

YA authors are also trying to reshape culture. Now culture is a complex word-- it doesn't have one simple definition-- for starters there is high culture, mass culture, and popular culture. But, what I think YA fiction is attempting to do is to alter popular culture. It is circular though-- there are ways culture is influencing the YA text.

But in regards to literature influencing culture--For kids-- peer pressure has always been an issue spoken about-- one child behaves as another leads him/her to do. So, now, books want to change that. Books like When Zachary Beaver Comes to Town tell you to be nice to the fat kid. Freak The Mighty teaches to be nice to the disabled. Hoot teaches kids to honor the environment. Monster tells you to not give in to peer pressure. Somehow it's not the same didactic lesson that showed up in the nineteenth century. In the books, it's not the adults telling the kids how to live-- it's kids telling other kids how to live. It's almost like there is a high culture among children. Children's high culture is living up to a higher standard than popular children's culture. Children's high culture calls YA readers to care about the environment, to realize that brain is more powerful than brawn. It's a subculture of children who are aware of things their parents weren't aware of in their youth.

Popular Culture

"A second way of defining popular culture is to suggest that it is the culture which is left over after we have decided what is high culture." This quote is from John Storey's Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, pg 5.

As I seek to figure out why popular culture is such an integral part of Children's literature, this quote strikes me as a missing piece to the puzzle.

Children are a valuable part of society. Without them, society, in essence, would end. On one hand children are privledged--If we pay attention to all the advertising dollars spent on telling parents what their children need and telling children what they must have, then we know that children are privledged. On the other hand, children are neglected. When we look at how many hours children spend a day in day care, we can realize that children often are missing a consistent foundational example.

Grey's Anatomy this week, a father says, "I went soft. I quit being a father when he needed a father the most." Talking about after divorce.

Storey uses Raymond Williams to define culture as one of 3 things.
A means to refer to "a general process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development"
A means to suggest "A particular way of life, whether of a people, a period or a group"
A means to describe "The works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity"

Storey feels that popular culture must be one of the last 2. I disagree when it comes to children. Although they are the second definition, I think they are because they are attempting to be the first. Children spend some time with adults. They spend time with their parents, but they spend more time with one another. Therefore, while they are told which things to value intellectually, spiritually, and aesthetically, they must as young adults decide for themselves which things they will value. So, they often make these decisions as a group, a population. Young adults often decide that they don't need what others have deemed high culture. They do not need to privledge the same things other's privledge. Young adults will choose to show intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development through their own media, and right now those media are often related to the internet. Young adult authors realize this. They understand that instead of using high culture intertextual examples in their texts, they should use the lessons learned from media as a means to convey meaning.

boycott kroger

I know that I usually write about academic things, but today I am mad at Kroger. I like Mexican food, it might even be my favorite. So, last night I decided that I wanted to make tacos. So after I prepared my dinner I opened up a new jar of Kroger brand salsa. I didn't look at the jar. I didn't check the date-- I just opened the jar and put salsa on my taco-- well, the salsa was rancid. Yep== the nastiest stuff on earth. so, now I check the date-- Dec 2007. I think Sept 2006 falls within that time frame. So, I go up to Kroger to take back my nasty salsa, and the customer service rep acts like I'm the biggest inconvience in her day. I mean it's not an inconvience to have my dinner ruined. It's not an inconvience to have to drive up to Kroger in the rain. I've always been a fan of Kroger-- but not anymore. At least not my Kroger. I'm not giving them another dime of my business.

Click Here

Denise Vega wrote a young adult novel called Click Here. It brings new light to the ideas of intertextuality. These are the ideas of intertextuality that I hope to explore. I want to look at how culture is a text and how children's literature references that text.

Click Here is about a girl who loves computers. She wants to design a webpage, so she does. It's almost like a glorified blog-- she keeps her diary on this webpage. She practices using code and she creates tabs to go from one page to another. But, her webpage is private. She doesn't intend for it to be published. SPOILER ALERT... When she accidentally publishes her webpage, it wreaks havoc on her life. Then the intertextuality strengthens because she compares herself to Harriet the Spy.

The aspect of the book that I find interesting is Erin's, the protagonist, interest in technology. She joins the computer club and helps other kids create a school webpage. Vega sprinkles technological jargon throughout the text, creating an intertextuality that expects the reader to understand my space culture.

I'm looking forward to exploring these ideas further.

Too Long

Wow-- it's been too long since I've written on here. I had a baby. That somehow distracts from things like blogs. I'm happy to say that i'm starting to think about children's books again though.

TTYL

This week I realized that although I keep this blog and I do other online work, I'm not quite as online savvy as I thought. I was at the library and saw ttyl by Lauren Myracle and decided to check it out. The first thing I had to figure out was what IM phrase does ttyl stand for-- I believe it's talk to ya later. I could be wrong. This entire book is written in IM format-- the different fonts, the shortcut words, the fragmented thought...

When I think about children's literature, I realize that it cannot help but to be linked to popular culture. While the genre of realistic fiction shows this the most obviously, all of the genre's of children's literature have some connection to what is happening in modern times. There is always a degree of intertextuality that cannot be avoided between what is being written for the child reader and what is going on in pop culture.

ttyl on one had dates itself because the characters watch television shows like Kim Possible and That 70's Show. They make fun of younger siblings who watch 7th Heaven and Lizzie McGuire. But, the book also shows classic school curriculum-- one character is reading The Great Gatsby for her English class.

The thing that strikes me the most about the novel is that it is written entirely as IM posts. Novels that were unique used to be written as letters or journal entries, but now media has become a tie in. The novel talks about the girls hanging out at school, sending email, talking on the phone, spending the night at one another's homes, but the text only occurs in IM, and the girls decide "some things r easier to talk about over the computer" (208). Now, media isn't just a supplement to a person's life. It is an element of that person's life. This book does not show media as a means to an end-- it is the end in and of itself.

Although I didn't think this was the most interesting book I've ever read, the plot was a little too predictable, the formatting fascinates me.

but, g2g, l8r

Winn Dixie

I read Because of Winn Dixie yesterday. I wasn't really planning on reading it, but I had a lot of time in waiting rooms, so I got it finished.

It's interesting when I think about it in terms of criticism. The book has a nice enough story to it-- kids seem to like it, but I guess I'm fascinated by some of the critical elements.

One is gaps-- Gloria Dump is called a witch, but she isn't-- the characters say there is no such thing as witches. But why do they think she's a witch in the first place. What has she done to scare the children before Opal arrives on the scene and shows that she's so nice?

One is stereotypes-- Boys and girls don't get along, but then at the end they become friends-- but nothing happens to make the friendship at all seem natural. Opal's mom has left and she misses her. That's a crucial theme to the book, but she leaves because she doesn't like being a preacher's wife and she drinks. It just all seems a bit contrived.

Then there is the dog--If this dog is so great, why has he been neglected? Why isn't anyone looking for a well behaved dog that smiles?