Stargirl Stories

"She was something we were all afraid to be... ourselves."

Stargirl is perhaps one of the most beautiful, poetic, and inspiring YA Multi-Cultural Lit books I have ever read. I felt that way we I first met it in 2008, I felt the same way when we crossed pages again in 2011, and now in 2013 I feel the same if somehow more inspired by Jerry Spinelli's incredible novel. Every time I read trough it I learn something new, as if it changes and morphs to fit my needs.

My first read helped me to understand who I was and accept my identity as I muddled through those first few uneasy moments of college. The second allowed me to examine the environment of your typical highschool and to prepare myself for the struggle that I and my students will face. Finally this time Stargirl taught me to be patient, and to find joy in the little things life has to offer, like finding spare change or those rare moments in the day when everything is still. I am not professionally where I would like to be, I think any English teacher not in a school is unhappy, but that doesn't mean I need to despair.

The Google Talk myself, Doug, Jerrod, and Carissa, were involved in responding to the novel was perhaps the highlight of this semester. We laughed, enjoyed each others company, but most importantly has a completely unguided, unmoderated, but incredibly deep and fruitful conversation of the novel. I saw It in a light I hadn't seen before, and some else stared talking and it was made new yet again.

All in all an excellent week last week. Steady as she goes!

Life, Continuing

Life it seems has taken hold and will not let go. I shall spare you all the details of how oh so glamorous life and cut right to the chase. A simple demonstration will show however the ridiculous nature of my life at the moment, however; I finished Life, After during the middle of the first week we assigned it, and I am now getting around to digesting it.

It was a beautiful novel of hope and inspiration. Beyond the incredible connection I was able to create with it, I am a sucker for themes of young love and heart ache, I really found it resonating with me in a very deep and unexpected way. There was a line, perhaps one of the best closings to a book I have ever experienced, that made me sit back in my chair and really think.

"We all knew there was a Before, which we could never return to, and an After where we had to learn to find joy again."

While my life has had no personal cataclysmic events to speak of, thank goodness, I certainly have found myself stuck as of late, both professionally and personally. As I finished Life, After I sat back in my desk chair and realized, I have been keeping myself in between. My life before was full of joy and sadness. Rather then work through that sadness, I have held on and forbidden myself to move to the next stage, the After. I think it's time to do just that.

Reticulating Splines

It has taken me awhile to get back to this blog I will be honest. My last post ended up being much more cathartic then I expected and I honestly didn't want to look at it for awhile. That part of my life was a hard and arduous journey that I try to forget, but looking back I am not sure why anymore. That journey made me who I am today. I became a teacher to help that student, to inspire that lonely little soul in the harsh realm of high school. Without the torment and abuse I recieved I would never have the well of compassion I possess for my students. I am thankful for that.

I guess to synthesize this with Alexie Sherman, I have gained  valuble perspective. Never lose sight of your roots. They are what make you who are you. Cliche sure, but powerful as well. Arnold left for a strange new world just as terrifying as the one he left, but in the end after all the success he never lost sight of his home, his friends, his family. He was proud of the storys he told. My favorite moment of this comes a few pages before the end, when he lists off the tribes he belongs too. Allow me to bend the laws of copyright infringement slightly to bring that to you.



The honesty and depth of this page makes me realize our past, no matter how painful or regretful it may be makes us who we are today. I am still somewhere deep down the shy, quiet boy who cant say a word with too many S's or T's. And I am proud of him.

The Little Voice Speaks

This past week working through Sherman Alexie’s The absolutely true story of a part-time Indian has dredged up some strange feelings and issues for me. A lot of our discussions have been gearing towards student empathy and personal connections to the text. Alexie’s novel has a plethora of relatable themes and issues that have been and are still prevalent in schools today. All this week I have been talking about ways to get students to open up and connect to these tough issues. I have been offering mediums and strategies to bring these very personal topics into discussion and get meaningful and open responses from my student. I have said things like “By creating the right atmosphere” and “Using journals and quick writes as a gateway.” The entire time however there was a small voice in the back of my head. It began very faintly, and at first I almost didn’t think it was even real, but sure enough as each day of discussion went on that voice got louder, and louder, and louder. I could never make out what it said; the ringing would just dig deeper and deeper into my ear until I finally heard it speak a single word.

BULLSHIT!

Pardon the profanity, but that was what it said, and deep down I knew why. I was bullied in grade school. Massively. I had a debilitating studder, I was overweight, and I was quick to tear up. From 4th through 8th grade I would spend lunch eating in the corner, recess playing behind a tree, and free period being as close to teacher as I could to avoid further torment. The hallways were the worse. They were no mans land and I was a lone allied solider in a field of Nazi Troopers.

The middle of sixth grade I ended up moving to a different school within the district, much like Arnold. I thought this was my chance for a new start. I had thinned out a little, my studder was somewhat under control, and after years of holding in tears through bruised ribs and welted arms I thought I could handle it. And then during my first week I tried to speak up during class. After skipping over the same word nearly a dozen times I heard a few kids snicker and I knew my hell had just started again. We moved one final time the summer before my freshman year of highschool, and I spent the remainder of my education buried in books to avoid further torment.

I am telling all this, because to expect a kid is going to openly connect and share this kind of information in front of most likely the very classmates that are causing this pain is insane and unreal. I would never have done that, and yet were devising plans to make our students do it? Maybe those years have just made a cynic out of me, but I don’t see it happening.

And that happy note will close those week. For those whom miss my usually verbose and frantic writing that had all the cheerful lovingness of a six week old puppy at 3am in the morning never fear, I am sure he will return next week.

One Crazy Ride

Hello tiny isolated portion of the world that will see this post. Not going to lie or obfuscate this has been a rough week. Multiple hospital visits and two overnight stays to boot. For those concerned, I am fine and was not the center of these medical field trips. It is time however to bridge this superficial personal drama to the literature at hand. I found one thing that did help me this week were the frequent escapes I took into Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer.

I must confess my love for Young Adult literature only grows with each novel I read. Unfortunately so do I and the looks I am sure I will when I am 35 and reading Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl for the 12th time will not be fun, but in the meantime I will enjoy the shield this institution offers me. One Crazy Summer  was one crazy ride to be sure. I found myself getting inexplicably attached to the trials and tribulations of these three girls. Just a few pages in I was almost wringing the novel out of anger when they met Cecile, their mother, and experienced the opposite of what any little girl should experience during such a homecoming. I found myself looking in this proverbially "mirror" we have spoken so much about more than once and through their journey taking a little journey of my own.

Just as Delphine found herself in an unfamiliar place, taking care of her sisters, running out to get take out in strange town, and trying to understand a situation much larger then herself, I found myself in somewhat of a "Crazy Summer" story. Perhaps this is less the mirror and more my own narcissism, but I too was running to get take out in a part of town I didn't know. I too was trying to take care of my fiance, alone, throughout her medical trials this past week, and I too found myself sleeping on a chair in the corner of her room as doctors tried to explain to me what they were doing. (For the concern of the reader I will tell that everything ended up okay, but it was most certainly a rough ride). Whether or not my image in the mirror and Delphines were similar at all I do not know, but I'd like to think those three little girls helped me get through this past week.

Wow... have to say I didn't really see this post going in that direction. Guess that's what cathartic writing gets me ehh?

Keep calm and read a good book.

Steady as she goes..

For starters Happy MLK Day!! As we roll into week three I took a moment to step back and look at everything having watched the dust settle. It is interesting that our reading of Monster coincides with this particular holiday. Perhaps this is by design, but my thoughts are brought to ideas of equality and justice. We have spoke about the many effects and results of utilizing multicultural literature. Currently one has come more into my focus than the rest. Just like in every sphere of life, things like racism, injustice, and prejudice weigh in on the literature used in education. When you think of the cannon of high school literature, many of them are written by white men. Using authors that work against that stereotype helps to balance that injustice. We see things like literature as an equalizer but the amount of exposure multicultural authors gets is far behind their white counterparts. Perhaps in some small way I can help change that.

I feel the need to end this post with a completely unrelated quote, but respect must be given to one of the greatest advocates for equality in history.

"Free at last, free at last, thank god almighty we are free at last."
Martin Luther King Jr

The Begining of the End

Greetings fellow classmates, bloggers, and random creepers who happen upon this page by fortuitous opportunity. My name is Shane Conrad, and I aspire among many things to either be the first Cross-Desert Skier, it’s very tricky and involves a lot of falling, or a teacher with a shiny master’s degree on his wall. I have an undergraduate degree to teach secondary English from Indiana University of PA. I spent a year and a half doing several long term sub tenures ranging from three weeks to 6 months, but sadly I found myself back at the bottom of the barrel. Like that last apple on the tree that was not picked I decided not to simply fall from the lowly branch I had come to rest upon but to climb to the top of the tree for all to see!

If you are still reading I am really not as much of a drone as my over exaggerated writing may present. I am actually a pretty chill guy. I teach fitness at a gym, work in an office for a bank (substitute teaching unfortunately was not a reliable source of income nor a particularly large one) I have a cute albeit overpriced apartment in Shadyside (part of the reason I can’t afford to substitute teach), and I love my Cat Maximus the Brave (he named himself, I was gunning for Clive Owen Jr).

More to the subject matter of this particular course, I love reading anything although I am particularly drawn to Young Adult literature. I was extra excited to see the reading list for this class as a number of the titles are fantastic; Monster and Part Time Diary are two of my favorite grabs. They are easy to devour and yet have a poetic depth unlike any genre I have involved myself in. My goals are to further my knowledge of literature like this and find even more ways to bring them into the classroom. Often times I find students barely surviving through the hackneyed canon of literature we have been forcing upon them for years. I want to find ways to teach the same lessons those old books offer with new literature.

That’s all for now fellow earthlings and any otherworldly beings peeking in. Have a happy Tuesday.