I Can Now Officially Say I Am A Crustacean Eater. A Connecticut Crustacean Eater Am I. #LobsterLove

In a sudden change of plans, I swayed away from the beach after fixing a sink and heading to the University to set up for the Literacy Labs, to find myself at the Saad Lobster Fest in northern Stratford. When I arrived, I thought the eating had commenced, but after a game of corn hole or two, I learned that Sebastian (wait, he's a crab), was awaiting the boiling water for me. Patty was in the house cursing Phil and saying she'd never be able to use her kitchen counter again and I played ignorant as he demonstrated how the sea creatures were prepared.

Okay, I've eaten shark, eel, alligator, crawfish, mussels, oysters, scallops and sea bass, but I've never had the opportunity to eat lobster.

That changed two days after the 4th of July, 2014, when I chose to be more creative than usual with my eating and to use the clamps to break open the shell of these clamping monsters. I did alright, too, preferring not to eat them with lemon and butter, until Pam and I both managed to cut into the stomach region and sea scum oozed out of the guts. Not a pretty sight at all and I sort of lost my appetite.

Still, I ate. I wanted to be a good skipper and to have something new to add to my bucket list of life. Will I order lobster in the future? Probably not. Did I enjoy it? Sure. Do I prefer steak? Of course. Would I be okay returning to my vegetarian ways of my early 20s? No problem. But yesterday I played sea lion and digested a shelled creature for the first time.

And lucky for me, I don't have allergies, otherwise the next 24 hours would be miserable.

5th of July - The Day After When It Doesn't Rain. This is Crandall's I Ate Too Much Face #Hurting

This is me watching the World Cup, I think. On Friday, I grilled vegetables and stuck indoors for the most part. Yesterday, however, after mowing, running, cleaning, organizing, writing, planning, and thinking, I chose to go to a graduation party with pulled pork, chicken, beer, potatoes, spring rolls, and dessert. I was done after the first plate but somehow Thanksgiving got into me sprinkled with a little Easter and Christmas. I ate until I wanted to puke.

I hate when I do this, but in my head I said, "Well, it's a holiday."

And this coming from a guy who wanted to try fasting with Abu and Lossine for Ramadan. I couldn't do it. In fact, I ate 7 hours ago and I'm still burping up cold slaw and pesto pasta.

Of course, this is all while watching Netherlands win in penalty kicks against Costa Rica. They're running and sweating their guts out and I am stuffing mine with everything the party had to offer.

Perhaps this is what the 4th of July is really about - well, the 5th, anyway. Food comas before the fireworks.

Speaking of - they were beautiful last night and I could see them out my front window. Then again, I may have been hallucinating them from all I ate.

Harvesting p.229, BALL DON'T LIE by @mattdelapena. One page at a time, one thought at a time #importantbook

While teaching at the first ever Young Adult Literature Conference at LSU, I was introduced to the writing of Matt de la
Peña and had the short privilege of hearing him speak and to listen
to his wisdom during Dr. Alan Brown's course. I returned to 
Connecticut to purchase his books. When glimpses of time find
their way into my schedule, I've been working my way through 
his craft. Obviously, a book about basketball, adolescents, and 
overcoming obstacles is high priority on my reading list. 
What captures my attention about Peña's work, though, is that 
he finds a voice for young men who aren't always highlighted 
in the texts we share in school. For several weeks now, I've 
re-read p. 229 from Ball Don't Lie.

I received a donation from a friend and coach who wishes to
invest in the literacy of athletes in the city of Bridgeport.
I think I have the perfect audience forth is with  Matt de la
Peña's writing. I've conducted professional development thenlast two years at Bassick High School 

and I know the teachers and students this story will resonate with most. 

From the official website:

Matt de la Peña is the author of five critically-acclaimed young adult novels: Ball Don’t Lie, Mexican WhiteBoy, We Were Here, I Will Save You and The Living. He’s also the author of the award-winning picture book A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis (illustrated by Kadir Nelson). Matt received his MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University and his BA from the University of the Pacific where he attended school on a full basketball scholarship. de la Peña currently lives in Brooklyn NY. He teaches creative writing and visits high schools and colleges throughout the country.

Yet, I'm writing today about p. 229 which has been on my mind for several weeks. I will quote the words 
from a conversation that occurs toward the end of Ball Don't Lie when Dante offers words to Sticky 
(the main character) about making it in a complicated world. I've been thinking about Dante's words 
since I read the book (and am just getting to writing them here today. In fact, I revisited the passage 
after talking with a young man last night about his future as a post-high school graduate who is looking 

to find his way into the world).

Dante reaches down and grabs a couple stones off the ground. See that wall in front of you? ... In America, life's like a race to that wall. That's the way I see it ...If you are born white and got money then you start the race up here. Ahead of everybody. These cats got nice clothes and eat at nice restaurants. Their parents send em to private high schools and expensive colleges so they can one day be in a position to get the best jobs. And when they make it they'll do far more for their kids just like their parents did of them. It's a cycle. 

The passage resonated with me and the equity walk my colleague, Alice, and I often did with juniors when I was teaching in Louisville, Kentucky. Now, post-doctorate at Syracuse and with work in Bridgeport, I see Dante's advice as parallel to what she and I used to discuss with our students (and I shared with the young man I worked with yesterday). Dante continues,

Say you poor and black. Or you Mexican. Puerto Rican. Well, guess what? You don't get to go to that nice private high school, that expensive college. In fact, you may not even have enough food to eat a balanced meal every night. You suffer from a lack of nutrition and that ain't no good for a young mind. In this case you startin the race of life way back here. He points to the second stone. Only a fool would think someone who starts here has the same opportunities as cats startin' at the same stone. (p. 229)

Sticky, a white boy who grows up in foster homes, finds meaning through life on the court and with a hodgepodge crew of homeless friends.  Dante recognizes,"If you some scrubby white boy who's been moved in and out of different foster homes since you was little, then you off the charts, boy" (p. 230).

This, to me, is the perennial conversation I've had during  two decades of working with young people in urban schools. The goal is to build equity in a complicated world of injustice and sadness. Giving in to the way the system rolls is disastrous, but fighting against the tide offers opportunities and hope. In Dante's words, however, a connection is made not just to race, but to class and how achieving for some is far from easy as it is for others (some are born on third base thinking they hit a triple).

In my opinion, Matt de la Peña's text allows teachers to have such conversations with young people, like Sticky, who grow up in environments that counter the cultural norms of economic security, safety, love, and shelter. For a man of literacy, like me, his words offer a location to have conversations with readers who often do NOT see themselves in the books shared at school.

So, p.229 for me. This is what is on my mind.

PS: I want to link to a piece written in New Haven about first generation students at Fairfield University: They Made It. There are multiple stories for those who arrive to education from non-traditional backgrounds and, to be honest, I tend to always be on their side.

What's Your Relationship With Your Hair? A Writing Prompt That Has Me Thinking. @writingproject #CLMOOC

On Tuesday, my co-director asked our teachers to write about their relationship with hair. I didn't expect the prompt, but I began to write a little. Then, yesterday, a guest teacher asked us to think about the multi-genre possibility of any one topic. We already exploded a topic via Kelly Gallagher, so I chose to stick with my theme of hair (after all, I wrote about a student of mine who recently cut off his dreads and began to consider, intellectually, why one chooses to make a major shift in their doo).

In the prompt, I began to think, "Man, there are multiple ways to make something out of the subject of hair." Yes, I know it is a topic usually given to women (pardon me if that is sexist), but as I wrote and contemplated it, I began to think, "Dudes, we're just as vain about our locks as they are." In my brainstorm, I listed:

• Memoir: the history of my bowl to feathered to boxed to hippie to conservative to Buddhist to Kramer hairstyle since my teens,
• Commercial: simply one that advertises hair products,
• Ten Minute Play: dialogue between me, Abu, Lossine, and Chitunga about hair and why they cut it (with flashbacks of my Anthony Keadis days),
• Blog Post: Well this,
• Poem: something about a peacock,
• Music: The entire musical Hair,
• Research: The Courtier, self-fashioning, men's styles,
• OpEd: Challenging the gendering of hair egos, etc.

I quickly realized that hair is super important (funny - just this morning I was cursing The Great Whatever for the recent ear hairs sprouting from my lobes....JOY...just like nose hairs, I was thinking). The epitome came that I have a lot more to write about in regards to self-identity, hubris, social positioning, and hair. Damn - hair is central. It is a universal curse *until it thins out and/or fades away and/or grays.

And so, while we were were doing the multi-genre conversation via a very awesome presentation, I began to collect images for a brief digital story on hair (above) in the short time we were allowed. I'm not sure if I will further my making on this project, but it is totally a worthwhile subject that I can explore creatively more.

Finally, I realized something while working yesterday. I'm a complete procrastinator. Why? Because I realized I'm a workaholic who never stops pushing forward because I'm always running from the craziest truth ever. I have 2.8 Masters degrees, a doctorate, credits from Tokyo, Breadloaf, LWP, Cambridge, etc. all because I'm hiding from the true-est essence of nature. I simply want to be a bohemian writer who makes shit up and publishes crap that people find amazing. All my achievements have been rather 'academic' - the 'safe' choice to avoid life as a true writer who works on novels, poetry, stories, and screenplays. Shoot, I became a teacher out of this procrastination, too.

 I do write, I can write, and I have written. Yet, the whacky, crazy, compulsive ideas that are constantly zooming in my head are avoided because I'm totally afraid to throw myself into a writing project that will allow me to emancipate my creativity in an exploration of discovery. Yes, I have volumes of poetry. Yes, I have plenty of fiction, even a couple of novels sitting in folders from yesterday never completing the writing cycle to publishing). Yet,  I flee from them by procrastinating and, as a lifelong nerd, doing way too much other stuff. The real story is that I did a dissertation because I was avoiding the heart of my soul - the fact that I'm an eccentric, whacky, fat lover of life who wants to go into la la land through my imagination and give myself entirely to fiction.

Like hair, I need to explore this more.

Or, is it that I'm already a writer, just defining that title in new realms and spaces that aren't traditional to the New York Time's idea of a novelist and achieved composer?

Yep.

Reflecting On What I Do and Loving the Serendipitous Moments Where Everything Makes Perfect Sense @fairfieldu

Yesterday, the goal for the teacher institute was to explore personal writing: narratives, memoirs, essays, and stories. The day began in small groups when I learned that a young man from Benin was looking for me. He got on a bus in Bridgeport and ended up on campus. He wanted to attend Ubuntu Academy (which doesn't begin for a couple more weeks). Hearing he was nearby, I arranged a campus tour for him and, later, he joined the teachers in the summer invitational. At the end of the day, he asked if he could come back again to learn with the teachers. It just so happened that we read Lopez Lomong's Chapter 8: Writing For My Life in the afternoon when he joined us. He also borrowed six books to take home to read. After I dropped him off, I had 30 new Facebook requests by similar young people in southern Connecticut (and Benin). I'm seeing a new fundraising initiative to cater to the forgotten voices of our world - especially those arriving to cities like Bridgeport.

They are thirsty to learn. They are craving to be taught. They are 100% appreciative.

Then, when I got home, I went through the 100s of emails I've neglected the last two days, including a shout out from +danieltrust with a series of photographs from his scholarship dinner. Always a ham, it's rare for me to ever get a serious photograph (as evident here). I DO LOVE THIS PHOTOGRAPH and I continue to  celebrate Anmol's success at Bassick High School. She arrived to the U.S. a few years ago and, driven, she enrolled in my English classes as a dual enrollment student this year. She's coming to Fairfield University in the fall, too, with much scholarship and support. She is a mover and a shaker and it's been a pleasure to ride alongside her wonderful wings.

The rhetoric about urban youth is they don't, can't, and won't. This is far from what I've witnessed with 18+ years of teaching. In fact, I see kids wanting a good education but suffering through state-mandated, policed curriculums that are totally detached from what they need and the literacies they desire. The photos here restore my passion for working with kids. They represent  the stories needing to be reported. This is their truth as it has been shared with me.

@CWPFairfield invests in the amazing potential of all teachers and students in Connecticut. It is the work I came to do. Without  community outreach, I would dry up and die. Staying connected to K-12 schools is the most important thing I do in higher education - it feeds my soul.

It's More Than Having a Purpose. A Writer Needs a Genre, But First They Need to Write Through Their Thinking.

Yesterday, day one of the summer institute, teachers and I benefited from the brainstorming exercises of @SonyaHuber and allowed ourselves to listen to what our blank minds had to tell us. For two minutes, she asked us to sit in silence and to record the images that flashed before us amongst the serenity. Like many of my colleagues, I grew panicked that all I had was darkness and a paranoia that nothing would cross my mind. I pictured Sonya's orange dress and beautifully sculpted Hindu tattoo. I thought about my new Kermit-mobile and then about Chitunga taking a Greyhound back from Maine where he was visiting his college's campus. I thought about relocation, departure, academic advancement and hope for intellect inquiry. Dispersed in this thinking were images of the beach, including the thin legs of the sand piper and lapping waves.

My mind wanted the serenity of summer and its clouds, but I kept thinking about the days of as a location to redirect where one hopes to go.

As a result, when we did Kelly Gallagher's One Topic = 18 Topics prompt from the first chapters of Write Like This, I chose Chitunga as a subject and realized that there are at least 18 topics to write about. Later, after I did the egg activity for teaching perspective, I realized there are even more topics, depending on whose point of view I wanted to wrestle with.

The critique of Gallagher is that one topic might freeze a writer to be overwhelmed with all the possibilities and that a more direct, succinct writing prompt would be better for reluctant writers. My work with ESL students, too, make me apprehensive of giving too much freedom. I began to think more critically of genres and how important it is that students have plenty of opportunities to compose in a wide variety of genres so they know what to do to hold their thoughts in place. Sometimes there is a poem. Maybe there's a short story, or an Op-Ed piece.

My argument refutes the whole language, open writer's workshop approach because it benefits students to spend several weeks exploring a particular writing genre. I wonder how often our schools offer instruction in the vast ways individuals write throughout the academic years. What do we do to kids when the only expected writing is a perennial research report and/or a piece of literary analysis? How much do we encourage youth to see the vast outlets for written expression and the patterns of genres - social glue - to participate in communities BEYOND school? To me, the best schools offer opportunities to explore the power of writing in multiple ways.

This blog is an example. It's a place to capture my free-for-all meandering, and it is read by some people. Still, it is a location to write through my thoughts, to write about the 'why' that matters (in reference to Huber's prompt), and to organize first ideas I have in my head.

What happens when we don't teach kids to write their ways to knowing? I think it is simple - they don't know what they think or how to think because they've been provided too few opportunities to learn how to do it.

For this reason, I continue to be an advocate for teaching students to read like writers - to find out what they know by asking them to compose. If we don't do this, we fail to teach them how to think.

I also noted that brainstorming is key and beneficial, but students, like me, also need lengths of time to actually write - this is the one thing none of us ever seem to have and what we need to find time for every day. It's a discipline that I feel is totally underserved in the ways we're expected to reach a new generation. This has to change.

It's Tuesday, World, and This Means @CWPFairfield Teachers Begin A Summer of Making Today #CLMOOC @writingproject

The good news! Our Invitational Summer Institute begins today with 15 teachers from all across southern Connecticut. They are extraordinary educators who will spend five weeks penning personal, creative, and real-world writing as they put together a workshop for literacy conferences and PD at their school. In short, the making begins today!

The bad news? I slept on my neck wrong, drove 4.5 hours from Syracuse to Connecticut, and now can't move my head because everything is pinched. I will look like Max Headroom when welcoming teachers to campus this morning. I can move my mouth and legs, but am having a terrible time turning left to right.

But this isn't bad news, really, because a year of planning, applying for the Teacher Leadership SEED Grant, recruiting and interviewing has paid off. For the next five weeks I get to help the National Writing Project celebrate its 40th Anniversary (it's our 29th) by being a coach/mentor/cheerleaders/consultant/friend /instructor and student all summer long as we make and create together.

It's the most wonderful time of the yearrrrrrrrrrr!

And the writer pails are filled with candy, pens, highlighters, paperclips, sticky notes, stickers, markers and colored pencils. The room is arranged and a giant WELCOME sign has been hung. The Krups coffee maker is ready to crank out the caffeine and the CWP-Fairfield book cart is fully stocked. The first day is always the hardest because it's nearly impossible to contain all the excitement of new professional friends and the possibilities of collaborating together.

Yes, this is the POWER OF MAKING and the MAKING begins today. It's JULY!