A favorites list by One Story Blog:
Top Ten List:
“For Esmé – with Love and Squalor” by JD Salinger
“Silver Water” by Amy Bloom
“The Dead” by James Joyce
“Brownies” by ZZ Packer
“A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
“White Angel” by Michael Cunningham
“A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor
“Emergency” by Denis Johnson
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
“Dance in America” by Lorrie Moore
Long List:
“What You Pawn, I Will Redeem” by Sherman Alexie
“The School” by Donald Barthelme
“The Dolt” by Donald Barthelme
“I Bought a Little City” by Donald Barthelme
“The Man Who Knew Belle Starr” by Richard Bausch
“Love is Not a Pie” by Amy Bloom
“Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot” by Robert Olen Butler
“Why Don’t You Dance?” by Raymond Carver
“Goodbye, My Brother” by John Cheever
“The Swimmer” by John Cheever
“Mother’s Reaction to my Travel Plans” by Lydia Davis
“Aguantando” by Junot Diaz
“When We Were Nearly Young” by Mavis Gallant
“Do Not Disturb” by AM Homes
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
“Work” by Denis Johnson
“The Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka
“Sexy” by Jhumpa Lahiri
“Dungeon Master” by Sam Lipsyte
“Travis B” by Maile Meloy
“People Like That Are the Only People Here” by Lorrie Moore
“Friend of my Youth” by Alice Munro
“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates
“A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by JD Salinger
“Sea Oak” by George Saunders
“Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Prairie daydreams
Am currently reading Middlemarch; being transported back into 19th century Provencal England requires just the right imaginative milieu. Here's what I'm daydreaming about: 
Thursday, June 23, 2011
pita pizza pizzazz
base of pita bread. fresh thyme. olive oil. marinara sauce. mexican 4-cheese. potato. spinach. muenster cheese. smoked gouda cheese. more thyme. more marinara. bake 10 minutes. voila!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Columbia Teacher's College Statement of Purpose
Student-teaching my last semester under the Barnard Education Program has thrown into crisis my ideas of what a high school education is or should be. Teaching 9th grade Writing and 12th grade Government at the Bronx school of Law & Finance, I experienced a radically different school community and culture from what I was used to growing up under a suburban Texas school system. Given full-reign for my own curriculum planning, I was faced with a set of ideological, political, social, and cultural challenges that centered around deep reflection of what the purpose of education should be, what type of knowledge is needed for my students, how curriculum can be tailored to students’ academic as well as cultural backgrounds, and ultimately, what my responsibilities as an educator entail. These questions remain difficult and open-ended to me, questions I’d like to, need to, explore further for myself professionally as a teacher, and personally, as a human being.
Growing up in an upper middle-class suburb of a predominately White and Asian community, I attended one of the top public schools in the district. My high school English curriculum centered around reading canonical texts, all British and American classics that can be humorously categorized as Dead White Male literature. The pre-AP and AP English classes I was in prepared me well to critically analyze, think, and write. Middle school gave me quality and quantity of reading and vocabulary that prepared me for high school; high school gave me a working cultural knowledge of English literature, sophistication of syntax, and expository writing that further pushed my critical thinking abilities. Both have prepared me well for college reading and writing. Both were crucial to my academic success.
Fast-forward to this semester: as I’m choosing texts for my 9th grade writing class, I find that the canon of texts I’ve been schooled in draws blank stares from the students. Not only is the reading level difficult (and often, style antiquated), but also, to them, the literature is personally irrelevant and distant from their lives. I began to question what the purpose of a high school English education is. On a practical level, it’s for literacy and college preparation; but on a personal, cultural level, it’s a whole different story. Practical literacy can be achieved with many types of readings; the curricular texts chosen are for a more subtle purpose: cultural literacy and cultural capital.
Whose culture is it anyway? Having my predominantly Spanish-speaking, working class students be so disconnected with mainstream American culture, and even more from academia, has challenged me to find texts and lessons that can motivate and move them, and what works are stories closer to their own lives. I began to teach poetry and essays written by award-winning student writers who come from rough neighborhoods like theirs. I myself, for the first time, began to explore extensively Latino and African-American literature, texts I’ve rarely come across in high school and college. Students responded enthusiastically to Junot Diaz and Sapphire; we listened to and read the lyrics of Nina Simone and Tupac. I found points and themes of interest (hip-hop, violence, racial issues, gender, machismo) that can be used as doorways into teaching literary expression, writing styles, and narrative structure. I prioritized relevancy first, because these are students who are suspicious and cautious of the power of the white culture industry. I wanted them to realize that their own culture is important and valued, but at the same time, I want them to be able to see the problems of their own culture. Likewise, I wanted them to see the accomplishments of ‘white’ America, but also know its limitations.
My philosophy on an English, History, and Liberal Arts education is a fusion of my own schooling background and my recent experiences as a student-teacher. I found that each socio-economic and racial community, in general, sticks to itself in terms of culture, texts, histories, and stories emphasized. To a certain extent, this fosters cultural pride, confidence, and in-group cohesion. However, this type of narrowing of curriculum also holds the consequences of myopia, and to a certain degree, Essentializing and Otherizing. The upper-middle class community I grew up with lived in a cultural bubble not unlike the working class minority community my current students are a part of. The texts chosen and the themes explored go more into depth about the culture the students live in, but leave out the lives and cultures of others outside of the community bubble. Books like The Catcher In The Rye resonate well with my own high school, but prove hard to relate to (and have been made fun of by) students I teach. I currently struggle with the goal of having different communities learn about each other for a greater understanding and tolerance, but how to reach that understanding when students come from such different worlds?
These are the types of questions I’d like to explore through the Philosophy and Education program. Education should ideally lead to a greater, deeper understanding of the world and its people, the self and others, and finally be the catalyst for social change. I’ve begun my theoretical exploration of Education through the Barnard Education Program, one geared towards social justice, mutli-culturalism and constructivist teaching. Social justice to me means teaching how to critically and reflectively think about power dynamics, inequities, and more importantly, how to change such systemic failings. A multi-cultural education not only means introducing minority texts into the classroom, but also teaching the Canon through a critical and historical lens. Finally, educating through a constructivist lens is to create a democratic classroom in which teachers can learn from students as well; it’s a classroom in which students actively take steps in pursuing their own knowledge to generate deeper, more thoughtful ways of learning rather than regurgitation.
I am deeply interested in the interdisciplinary because fields in the Liberal Arts all connect to each other in fundamental ways of insight. Majoring in English and History and minoring in Psychology and Education, I’ve come to draw connections between themes I otherwise wouldn’t have seen in just one field (For example, all cultures Otherize in order to create in-group cohesion but to the detriment of others. Can Otherizing ever be stopped or is this natural process needed for progress?) The father of all liberal arts branches is Philosophy, a discipline that holds the origins of all the subsequent branches that have stemmed out under its wings. Although I do not have extensive experience in the academic discipline itself, studying under the Columbia Core program (under the course Contemporary Civilizations) has exposed me to the important texts of philosophical thought. My interest in this program stems from both a strong interest in furthering my own philosophical education as well as exploring historical and contemporary views on Education from a Liberal Arts trajectory. I want to learn and reflect on the theoretical grounds for Education so I can begin to ground my own career as an educator with a more coherent personal and political philosophy. This program will provide me with the theoretical backbone to further my career as a reflective and responsible educator.
Growing up in an upper middle-class suburb of a predominately White and Asian community, I attended one of the top public schools in the district. My high school English curriculum centered around reading canonical texts, all British and American classics that can be humorously categorized as Dead White Male literature. The pre-AP and AP English classes I was in prepared me well to critically analyze, think, and write. Middle school gave me quality and quantity of reading and vocabulary that prepared me for high school; high school gave me a working cultural knowledge of English literature, sophistication of syntax, and expository writing that further pushed my critical thinking abilities. Both have prepared me well for college reading and writing. Both were crucial to my academic success.
Fast-forward to this semester: as I’m choosing texts for my 9th grade writing class, I find that the canon of texts I’ve been schooled in draws blank stares from the students. Not only is the reading level difficult (and often, style antiquated), but also, to them, the literature is personally irrelevant and distant from their lives. I began to question what the purpose of a high school English education is. On a practical level, it’s for literacy and college preparation; but on a personal, cultural level, it’s a whole different story. Practical literacy can be achieved with many types of readings; the curricular texts chosen are for a more subtle purpose: cultural literacy and cultural capital.
Whose culture is it anyway? Having my predominantly Spanish-speaking, working class students be so disconnected with mainstream American culture, and even more from academia, has challenged me to find texts and lessons that can motivate and move them, and what works are stories closer to their own lives. I began to teach poetry and essays written by award-winning student writers who come from rough neighborhoods like theirs. I myself, for the first time, began to explore extensively Latino and African-American literature, texts I’ve rarely come across in high school and college. Students responded enthusiastically to Junot Diaz and Sapphire; we listened to and read the lyrics of Nina Simone and Tupac. I found points and themes of interest (hip-hop, violence, racial issues, gender, machismo) that can be used as doorways into teaching literary expression, writing styles, and narrative structure. I prioritized relevancy first, because these are students who are suspicious and cautious of the power of the white culture industry. I wanted them to realize that their own culture is important and valued, but at the same time, I want them to be able to see the problems of their own culture. Likewise, I wanted them to see the accomplishments of ‘white’ America, but also know its limitations.
My philosophy on an English, History, and Liberal Arts education is a fusion of my own schooling background and my recent experiences as a student-teacher. I found that each socio-economic and racial community, in general, sticks to itself in terms of culture, texts, histories, and stories emphasized. To a certain extent, this fosters cultural pride, confidence, and in-group cohesion. However, this type of narrowing of curriculum also holds the consequences of myopia, and to a certain degree, Essentializing and Otherizing. The upper-middle class community I grew up with lived in a cultural bubble not unlike the working class minority community my current students are a part of. The texts chosen and the themes explored go more into depth about the culture the students live in, but leave out the lives and cultures of others outside of the community bubble. Books like The Catcher In The Rye resonate well with my own high school, but prove hard to relate to (and have been made fun of by) students I teach. I currently struggle with the goal of having different communities learn about each other for a greater understanding and tolerance, but how to reach that understanding when students come from such different worlds?
These are the types of questions I’d like to explore through the Philosophy and Education program. Education should ideally lead to a greater, deeper understanding of the world and its people, the self and others, and finally be the catalyst for social change. I’ve begun my theoretical exploration of Education through the Barnard Education Program, one geared towards social justice, mutli-culturalism and constructivist teaching. Social justice to me means teaching how to critically and reflectively think about power dynamics, inequities, and more importantly, how to change such systemic failings. A multi-cultural education not only means introducing minority texts into the classroom, but also teaching the Canon through a critical and historical lens. Finally, educating through a constructivist lens is to create a democratic classroom in which teachers can learn from students as well; it’s a classroom in which students actively take steps in pursuing their own knowledge to generate deeper, more thoughtful ways of learning rather than regurgitation.
I am deeply interested in the interdisciplinary because fields in the Liberal Arts all connect to each other in fundamental ways of insight. Majoring in English and History and minoring in Psychology and Education, I’ve come to draw connections between themes I otherwise wouldn’t have seen in just one field (For example, all cultures Otherize in order to create in-group cohesion but to the detriment of others. Can Otherizing ever be stopped or is this natural process needed for progress?) The father of all liberal arts branches is Philosophy, a discipline that holds the origins of all the subsequent branches that have stemmed out under its wings. Although I do not have extensive experience in the academic discipline itself, studying under the Columbia Core program (under the course Contemporary Civilizations) has exposed me to the important texts of philosophical thought. My interest in this program stems from both a strong interest in furthering my own philosophical education as well as exploring historical and contemporary views on Education from a Liberal Arts trajectory. I want to learn and reflect on the theoretical grounds for Education so I can begin to ground my own career as an educator with a more coherent personal and political philosophy. This program will provide me with the theoretical backbone to further my career as a reflective and responsible educator.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
new apartment ideas
Am now thinking of how to decorate the apartment....what's the best way to create a space for daydreams?
Sunday, April 24, 2011
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