3 truths and a lie

Identify the lie out of the following 4 statements about Mr. Cheng:

a. Won $1500 on a cable television game show
b. Worked as an intern at Jodie Foster's production company
c. Was an extra in Batman Begins.
d. Performed weekly at a Los Angeles improv comedy club.

What I expect to learn

Over the next couple of weeks, I will be handing back papers, and students will be working on independent reading of their choice books. I expect to have a better sense of the range of ability the students have for literary analysis and writing - which, to be clear - are two different things. I also anticipate learning how motivated, directed and independent the students are. More on that next month.

What I've learned

Believe it or not, we teachers learn as much or more from our students as they learn from us. This past September, I learned a lot about the curiosity and intelligence of 10th graders. As I've described, this is my first time teaching the enriched class, and I've been so pleased by how enthusiastic many of my students are about learning. To wit: when I mentioned that I'd be chaperoning a field trip to see Hamlet, several students audibly groaned in envy. Previous classes might have groaned in agony for my anticipated 3 hours of boredom. That's just one thing I've learned. My students have provided new insights into Things Fall Apart, offered all kinds of creative approaches to class material, and generally made my sophomore English teaching experience even richer than I'd anticipated.

Proposed Guys in Lit jerseys

Front:

Back:





Please email Mr. Cheng at frecheng@edina.k12.mn.us with feedback on whether you would like to purchase T-shirts for students in the Guys in Lit class of 2012.

Mr. Cheng has hockey fever!

First thing's first. Here is how you properly cite a TV show in MLA format:

"Name of episode." Name of program. Network. Station, city. Date of broadcast.

Now, since this clip came from a locally-produced news program, there is no need to cite the network (which would have been NBC); nor is there a name for the episode, since news shows don't name their episodes. Sometimes news programs do title their segments, so if that information had been available, I would have listed it first. Since it wasn't, I am beginning with the name of the program; thus, the proper citation for this news clip would be as follows:

KARE 11 News at 10. KARE, Minneapolis. 26 Feb. 2009.

Now, contrary to popular belief, I do not have all of this information stored away in my brain as if I am some kind of MLA-formatting Rain Man ("Yeah... definitely alphabetize by author's last name... ten minutes to Wapner" - that's a really OLD reference). I looked it up on the Purdue Online Writing Lab that I am frequently recommending to you. When I don't know how to do one of these things, I look it up, just as I expect you guys to. It's really not as hard as it might seem. There are plenty of clear instructions and examples, and if you're not sure, you can always take a stab at it and then ask me to check it over for you.

On to the hockey fever part. Man, some of you EHS kids can skate! From Feb. 20 to Feb. 27, I attended three high school hockey games and listened to another online. I have plans to attend another later today (Feb. 28). I generally like sports, enjoy watching the occasional NHL game, and really got into some of the playoff runs of the Wild and late-great North Stars teams, but I never understood the high school hockey tournament hype in Minnesota. Until this week.

It really helps to know some of the players on the team. From EHS's section champion / state tournament girls hockey team, I have two students. I'd love to name them, but in the interest of privacy, I'll just leave it at that. Suffice it to say that they both were involved in scoring plays in the quarter- and semi-final games. It's been a thrill to watch them shine in areas outside the classroom. I'm so proud of these kids; I can only imagine how their parents feel.

Anyway, if you haven't watched it yet, the clip is from the channel 11 news of some of the team's highlights from their Thursday afternoon victory. Go Hornets. Guess I'm a cake-eater now : )

I am not a teenaged girl!

Can the Twins get a Cullen to bat cleanup next year? (photo by Peter Sorel)

Yep, I saw "Twilight" (and Mitch C. and Cullen N. from 1st hour) last night at the Southdale AMC Theater. I actually enjoyed it, though my expectations were fairly low. I have spent the last month or so teasing my wife for being a "Twi-mom," and more or less bagging on the swooning of Bella Swann. There were also a few occasions when I laughed out loud at the over-the-top melodrama, as when Bella's eyes went crossed when Edward was sucking her blood at the end to keep her from turning into a vampire. I know it was supposed to be dramatic, but she just looked kind of silly to me. The baseball game scene also felt like a Moutain Dew commercial on steroids. Give the storytellers credit for this, though, they followed the hero's journey quite closely. If you consider the world of the vampires to be a new threshhold that Bella crosses, then the whole story of "Twilight" offers many of the ingredients of the monomyth. For instance, her Belly of the Whale moment is when Edward makes her say "vampire" aloud. Once she acknowledges that she knows who and what he is, there is no turning back. The elixir is when Edward sucks her blood at the end. It is a magical moment that saves her life. Edward himself is a supernatural guide. When Bella survives her near-death experience, she has returned from the land of the dead and become a master of two worlds. There is also reconciliation with the father and a whole bunch of helpers in the whole Cullen family. See? It's not just a bunch of random note-taking. Hollywood really believes in this stuff.

Mr. Cheng says, "Are you not entertained?"

(photo courtesy EW.com; body courtesy Russell Crowe and "Gladiator")

I've heard the grumblings and I understand that The Odyssey is a challenging text. Hey, I didn't have to read the epic poem until my first year of college. But trust me when I say that this translation is much more readable than the one I had to read, and if you give it time, the story will yield many rewards. It's a terrific adventure with many wonderful archetypal elements (we will get into the definition of archetype more in class). We'll spend most of the coming week (Oct. 27-31) practicing strategies to make the poem more comprehensible. Foremost among these strategies is understanding that the poem was intended to be performed for its listeners. Try reading it aloud, and really make a point of understanding how it is to be read. Don't worry so much about the names as you do the pauses and the ebbs and flows of the lines. Imagine being at a campfire and having the story told to you. It can be very rewarding. Just give it a chance, and you might find yourself enjoying it. People have been for nearly 3000 years. (Besides, you don't have a choice : )