Crying over Gran Torino

I watched the first Clint Eastwood movie that made me cry today. He was gruff, tough, and rough. He was typically Clint, albeit elderly. And I cried like a baby. For those of you who have already seen Gran Torino, then you know why I cried. For those who have not, well, your loss. Go rent it at your local video store.

Clint plays a widower, Walt, with children and grandchildren too busy to spend time with him. Their father/grandfather is not the most lovable man, but Walt's family prefers to live self-centered lives only popping in or calling when he can do something for them. Walt argues with his priest (not always a bad thing) and talks like a bigot. He has his own ideas about manhood, parenting, race, and religion. He is old enough that he says what he thinks without saving one's feelings.

You can tell from the get-go that Walt does not like change. Why stay in the same neighborhood for forty years when everyone else just like him, a retired Ford autoworker, has moved away? He is surrounded by Asian neighbors. The family next door has a big-mouth daughter and wimpy son who is doing his best to avoid gang life. When the young man is forced to participate (half-heartedly) in a gang initiation by attempting to steal Walt's 1972 Gran Torino, Walt catches him. The friendship begins.

Walt, who was a soldier in the Korean War, has to confront his prejudices, and his neighbors have to confront their fears. The film is just tough enough and just real enough to interest you in the everyday lives of the characters, wondering how the decisions they do or do not make will affect their lives the next day. Wait on the ending; the last five minutes are the most important.

When I turned off my DVD, I wondered if I could ever make the decision Walt made to loyally stand by his friend and stand up for those who are unable to defend themselves. I was reminded of John 15:13: "Greater love hath no man than this..."

This film is not intended for young children, and I do not know many teens mature enough to understand the tensions in the film. It is rated R for a reason. One final caveat--if you cannot contextualize offensive language, then do not watch this film.

Technology Miscellany

For my friends who are educators (and those who love to read--see #4 & #5), some Web 2.0 tools and online sites that you might enjoy:

1. http://www.polleverywhere.com/
You can create an online poll where respondents use either their cell phones or twitter.com to respond.

2. http://historicaltweets.com/
Fun, fun, fun! You can read interesting tweets from historical figures or get creative and come up with your own. There is a Photoshop template you can use or just send in your ideas to the historicaltweet crew. It would be really easy to come up with an interesting student activity that crosses content areas.

3. http://www.bookglutton.com/
Book Glutton is an interesting way to read online with others. Many books are free and can be inserted into blogs as a widget. You can see Alice in Wonderland on my blog on the left hand side at the top. I haven't read much lately but hope to finish it soon and put another on my blog before the end of July.

4. http://www.librarything.com/
I've been on Library Thing for a while and have posted some of my books. You can hook up with other book lovers who share similar tastes in reading. A lot of media specialists are on this site. They also have book reviews and give away hundreds of books each month. You can sign up to be an Early Reviewer and hope to receive one of the books. I try every month but haven't been lucky enough to snag one yet. But someone has to!

5. http://www.goodreads.com/
Good Reads is similar to Library Thing in that you can catalogue your own books online, but this website is more for avid readers than librarians, though usually they are one and the same. I just find this site much more user friendly than Library Thing, and it has a slicker look. It is a social networking site, and you can find friends on this site who also post info on what books they have read, are reading, and want to read. There are groups you can join, and some of these groups also have podcasts where they talk about authors.

6. http://www.diigo.com/
Ever wondered what to do with all of those really cool websites, online articles, videos, blogs, images you find online while you're away from your personal computer? Or maybe you want to access your personal bookmarks when you're away from home? Diigo is an option that I've just begun using. I am more familiar with #7.

7. http://delicious.com/smartmedia8
This should take you to my homepage on delicious. It is a social bookmarking site. My main problem with bookmarking is that I forget to do it and then regret not remembering the site I wanted to remember. Bottom line, use a bookmarking tool and you'll never forget where you saw something online again.

Seven seems like a good place to stop. After spending three and a half weeks writing and posting to a blog, I plan to stay in the habit. I'll post more about Web 2.0 online tools for learning, so check back.

Please share your own experiences with these tools that you use to improve your performance as a teacher, help your students, or to have fun.

If you'd like to look at some other Web 2.0 tools, here are some educational bloggers with some suggestions for you:

Larry Ferlazzo's Best Web 2.0 Applications for Education 2008

Jane Hart's E-Learning Pick of the Day--once you go to her blog, you will want to click on the Learning Tools link on the left of her page. She keeps a running list of online tools to use in the classroom.

Science Poem: Ode to Precipitation

Learning Science through Poetry at BWP
(Poem draft is a collaborative effort between Stephanie, Nikki, and Julie)

Water, you can change
from solid, liquid, to gas.

You're controlled by the air currents,
traveling where they blow you.

You create natural wonders:
glaciers, ice burgs, and canyons.

It takes time for you to boil over
and even more time for you to freeze.

You can have quite a temper,
causing hurricanes, monsoons, and tsunamis.

You provide for us
supplying electricity and nourishment.

It's Hip to Be a Square

Today's demo at BWP was on using poetry in content areas. We used Margaret Wise Brown's book The Important Book and followed her structure to write a poem about a shape. (For those of you familiar with Max Thompson's Learning Focused Schools, you will notice this is used as a summarizing strategy in his framework.)

An important thing about a square is that it has four equal sides, and each angle is a right angle.

It is like an air vent, a PowerPoint slide, a piece of bread, the cover of a children's book, and a mouse pad.

It is a CD case or an LP album cover.

It's the Hint cell phone my daughter wants, a priority mail box, one side of a cube, a piece of a quilt, tiles on the floor, and a thumbnail profile picture on Twitter.com.

But the most important thing about a square is that it has four equal sides ad four 90 degree, right angles.

Young Adult Books in my Reading Stacks

Freewriting for BWP 07-01-09

Today's topic is "looking ahead." I'm having difficulty getting started because I want this to be a positive freewriting; therefore, weight, my job, and how dirty my house is are all off limits. So I want to talk about my favorite items in the whole wide world and in the universe: books! I've never met a book I didn't like. I'm sure someone famous, like Mark Twain, has already voiced this thought, but today, it is all mine.

I am looking forward to the stacks of books I have waiting on me at home. I have purchased a few too many in the month of June according to my budget, and I have been reading through some I found in the library. I also have two tote bags full of books borrowed from my school library before leaving for the summer. (Yes, I really did check them out--our librarian is wonderful.) Probably the Coastal Plain Regional Library librarian will come looking for me soon as I am sure a few are overdue. My personal "stacks" are not to be confused with stacks at the library. All of my stacks are on the floor in my office, by my bed, by the sofa, etc.

(Update on overdue books: Success! You really can renew your books if they are a day late.)

Books in Julie's Stacks:

1. The Mysterious Benedict Society. This one is currently sitting on my nightstand. I'm about 1/4 of the way through it and am loving it. It's a young adult novel that centers around a young gifted boy who finds himself recruited for a mission to infiltrate a school for gifted children and stop the world takeover planned by the school's founder. I would guess this book is for ages 9 and up.

2. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. At the beginning of the summer I purchased and read Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. I was familiar with Gaiman's reputation as the creator of the Sandman graphic novels but had never read any of his work. The Graveyard Book was superb; it followed the life of a young boy whose family was murdered. I don't want to give away too many details, but ghosts in a graveyard raised him. Gaiman was inspired by Kipling's The Jungle Book. Go check it out. CPRL on Chesnutt Ave. currently has a copy if you want to check it out. I also have a copy but have passed it on to my almost-12-year-old, Hannah. If you have issues with ghosts and spirits, though, you may not want to read this book. Gaiman does create a netherworld below the earth inhabited by some scary creatures. The book is appropriate for ages 10 and up.

(I'm beginning to see a theme here--all young adult novels so far.)

3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Okay, this is not in my "to read" stack. I devoured it last month. But I'm putting it on this list in case any of my blog or Facebook readers actually do read this post looking for a good read. Collins is more famous for her Gregor the Overlander series of books. Hannah has read all of the Gregor books, and when I read several recommendations about this book online, I bought it. Collins is a clever writer. If you haven't read much Shakespeare, I'll go ahead and tell you that many of the minor characters are named after minor characters in Shakespeare's play, Julius Caesar. This is appropriate as the female protagonist, Katniss, is in a fight for her life as well. Interestingly, this is a post-apocalyptic novel that is written for a young adult audience. I have been drawn to well-written post-apocalyptic novels since reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy last year (another book I highly recommend you reading before you see the movie). This book is appropriate for ages 10 and up.

4. The Bloody Jack series of books by L. A. Meyer. The media assistant at my school has been trying to get me to read these for two years now. She sent all of them home with me over the summer. (I think there are five.) They center around another female protagonist, Jacky Faber, who as an orphan disguises herself as a boy and sets sail on a pirate ship in search of adventure.

5. The Lightening Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan's Curse, The Battle of the Labyrinth, and The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan. My daughter Hannah came home this past school year talking about this really cool book that had Greek gods for characters. Of course, Mom the English major was excited to hear her talking with knowledge about these gods. (The act of reading is so much richer when you pick up on the allusions to Greek mythology.) Her reading teacher introduced her to the first book in the series that centers around a boy protagonist named Percy who is a demigod. Riordan just published the fifth and final book in this series this summer, so I'm going to tackle this one as well.

Can I just say that as a mother (and English teacher) who loves books, I am so excited that my daughter and I are sharing young adult literature with each other. I don't know which book made reading click for Hannah, but she is picking up my good habits of carrying a book with her almost everywhere and creating her own book stacks in her room. When I see my children pick up a book and read just because they want to, my heart is overjoyed. Worrier that I am, I had a difficult time waiting on Hannah to show any kind of interest in reading for enjoyment. Rebecca is getting there, but she is more interested in drawing and watching the Discovery Health channel. (Actually, everyone at my home is a little confused as to her fascination with Discovery Health, but that's another blog. I'm not going to discourage that interest, though. There must be something going on in that head of hers that is interested in medicine.)