of books and beatings

First, the books:

I have in my posession not one but FOUR copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - two mine and two McD's - and, as of about 11:40, I have finished reading one of them. Fear not, for I will not spoil, but I will say that I feel the book's emotional peak came about two-thirds through, and that you should skip the epilogue, and that I was half-amused, half-irritated by brazen lifts from Lord of the Rings, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and - wait for it - Return of the Jedi. All in all I enjoyed the experience - there's nothing quite as nice as an uniterrupted read-through - and I think I enjoyed the book, though it's hard to say since I was clearly going to read it either way, lest I be consumed by the desire to know, before anyone else, How It Ends.

In other YA news I have recently read A Great And Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and Tyrell, which were extremely enjoyable, and Rooftop, which wasn't. Then I got sucked into Shame of the Nation, which is going to be one of my students' choices for lit circles when we come back on track in November. It is going to kick their butts, but I'm on this whole Challenging Kick, which is to say that I don't think I've been pushing anyone nearly hard enough except my ESL classes with Romeo and Juliet last year, and it's about time I hold everyone to the same standard. I expect great things this year.

Which leads us to the business:

From an academic standpoint, the new year is going really well. To my great surprise and relief I love teaching American Lit, mostly because I am completely ignoring the suggested curriculum and instead doing a unit on immigration policy, reading op-eds and articles and interviews and working on discerning the authors' underlying philosophical beliefs and assumptions. This is harder than it sounds. I spend a lot of time talking about "Habits of Mind," and stressing the importance of reading not just for information but for those little tidbits of word choice and rhetoric that give away the author's position. It's difficult for many of the kids because of just how much they go through in pursuit of the literal meaning of something like an Economist article, let alone delving beneath its surface. We're leading up to a complex position paper integrating multiple sources and a variety of modes of writing, so I think next week I have to take a step back and make sure we're really clear on what's gone on so far. Last week was a little crazy, so some of what we've done has started to feel a little unravelled from the whole.

Per craziness: the vibe on campus is changing. We had a series of fights and a resulting lockdown a week ago Friday, and another fight and a lot of (well-deserved) administrative crackdown on Wednesday. The kids are doing this meerkat thing at lunch, standing up on the benches and craning their necks to see where the action is going to be. Rumors are swirling about some Latino kids, probably Florencia, beating an African-American kid pretty badly - maybe a Blood, maybe not - and revenge being forthcoming.

Meanwhile, in addition to this campus-wide tension, my SLC has its own saga unfolding, with one of my former students. While I never had a personal problem with this kid - he was always polite to me and everyone in my class, despite attempting a grand total of one (1) assignment all semester - I know that he's up to his ears in Florencia, on parole (the story behind this is like Russian dolls, one offense nestled inside the next), the owner of some very nasty and unexplained scars, and high more or less all the time.

Our story begins on Wednesday during break, when I happen to glance out the window and see an unfamiliar kid on my balcony whip off his shirt and disappear around the corner to a rapt audience of about 20 kids. I am running towards the door with one hand already dialing the phone when I hear a heavy thud against my wall.

(I was talking to a colleague the other day, and we agreed that while we generally feel dumber than we did before taking this job, it has done miracles for our reaction time.)

So I get outside just in time to see my former student along with three of his friends, clad in Brown Pride finery, take off down the hallway, leaving a kid curled against the wall next to my room and a Hansel-and-Gretel-esque trail of little blood drips behind them. I follow, I find security, I write my statement. I figure, he's on parole. He must be out of here.

But oh! Not so. No indeed; he is back in class the next day. This story continues, but it's getting long already. The quick-and-dirty version is that he brags to me that he had in fact jumped this kid, making a charming stomping motion on the ground and laughing, "This is what we did to him, Miss. Send me back to the deans. I'll still be here." He has discovered, as we teachers already know and dread, that students designated as Special Ed for any reason, not just behavioral problems, more or less cannot be expelled or OT'd. They have to be put on a "behavior plan," which translates pretty well to total immunity. I would like to think that "Do not beat the shit out of people" is a pretty basic behavior plan and that he has clearly violated said, but that's not how it works. Come to think of it, I'd like to assume that beating the shit out of people is a violation of his parole, but that doesn't seem to be a problem either.

Anyway, outside of my English classes and Leadership activities and taking care of my community's two new English teachers, finding a loophhole on this kid is priority one. He knows I'm actively watching him and reporting back to the deans, so while I have personally never felt threatened by him (he seems to feel that being on his case is my job, just as maiming is his), it is probably a good thing that I have no car to key or anything.

teen books = fun

Because I'm sure you are all really interested in what I've been reading during SSR, and in the state of YA fiction in general, I here provide an update. You're welcome!

Exit Here - I have to recommend this one just because of how hysterically bad it is. Think American Psycho-style brand consiousness meets Valley of the Dolls, only with rich scenesters from Michigan. AWESOME. The death toll is amazing, a mix of murders, suicides, car crashes, etc, plus two in jail and one HIV-pos diagnoisis, all while really, really high.
Elsewhere- I read this one last night and really liked it. It's Lovely Bones for the YA set, which works out a lot better since that book was crazily overrated fluff anyhow. This one has super-charming characters and less pretension. Pay no attention to the Amazon.com editorial review which says it's written in the second person - it's third.
Dairy Queen - Charming, charming, charming. This author has a really strong voice and reads like a teenager, which rarely happens in YA writing. I am pushing this one on my kids like crazy.
Born to Rock - Gordon Korman is one of those rare BOY writers who doesn't write sports or violence, just straight-up fiction. This one is about a young republican who learns that his biological father is a Jello Biafra type, and ends up a roadie on his reunion tour. It's fun but slight.
Skin - An anorexia book where the anorexic actually dies. Unheard-of! The eating disorder plotline is really good, narrated by the little brother who feels betrayed and lost in the world, but about 20% of the novel is given over to the shrill screaming of the parents, which I could have done without.
Sold - A verse novel about a Nepali girl sold into prostituion in India. I'm pushing this one hard, too - my kids have very little idea what happens in the world outside the Americas, good and bad.
Scrambled Eggs at Midnight - Good but not great despite the Jesus/Fat Camp v. RenFaire backdrop. The current printing has a couple of typos in it which always yanks me right out of the narrative. I like this trend of male and female authors alternating boy/girl chapters, though Nick and Norah does it better.
How I Live Now - Dystopic near-future romance - think pastoral 1984 plus, I don't know, The Royal Tenenbaums. I dug it.
Endgame - This one's a school shooting novel that takes you up to the event with the shooter himself. It's pretty brutal. The problem is the audience, as the protagonist is this sensitive dorky picked-on kid, and the ones who want shooter books aren't down with that, and vice-versa. I dunno. Hopefully it will find its niche.
Grafitti Girl - Completely unremarkable except that it takes place in a thinly-disguised version of my hometown. The author must be a hometown girl, and her resentment of the very real class divide comes through in occasionally hilarious ways, like when the protagonist attends a graf party at a three-story home in the rich part of town. Three stories! No joke.
Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - This books is all, FUCK FUCK FUCK! ORAL SEX! PUNK ROCK! so of course I loved it. Our rocker girls are really into it - every single copy of mine has gone mysteriously missing. Insant classic!
Rash - Pete Hautman is always great, but this one is a social satire, and I'm worried about my *very literal* students not getting it at all.
King Dork - This one is currently making the rounds with my friends. The last book I handed around this way was High Fidelity - what is it about music/misanthrope novels? Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. Although, I think there's a reason I'm pushing it on my contemporaries rather than my kids - it's one of those "looking back at being a teen"-style books, more than it is a book for teens.
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - You've probably seen this one at Starbucks. I read it thinking I'd have my 10th graders do a unit on contemporary world memoir, and it turned out to be just about a perfect fit. The first half is harrowing enough as the boys try to flee the war; when they become a part of it, it's a whole other thing altogether.
They Poured Fire On Us From The Sky - Holy God, what a book this is. I'm including it in the same unit, and I'm really hoping the kids give it a chance at it's not a small book, but it packs a punch.
Slave - Also a part of this memoir unit. I had to put this one aside - I can't quite get myself to believe it. Not that people are still sold into slavery, but just this particular family, this particular situation - it's like A Child Called It: African Edition. I don't know what this says about me, but I'm pretty sure it's not good. There's just something off about the author's voice, though, and it pushes me away.

A partial list of things I'm in the middle of: The Book Thief, We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, and Mayflower. All of these have been put aside because they're too good and/or too involved to be read with one eye trained on those boys in the back who keep trying to play checkers during SSR. I mean...checkers? Really?