Reading Roll: January-March 2016

Antipodes edited by Margaret Bradstock

I picked this up at the ETA Conference last year. It's a poetry collection that puts the emphasis on indigenous voices and perspectives, and I'd recommend it as a good Stage 5 level poetry text for anyone interested in doing some Australian and/or Aboriginal poetry with their English class.

Skim by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

The debut graphic novel from two Japanese-Canadian cousins; Skim explores teenage alienation, sexuality, marginalisation, and mental health with a wry, slightly askew sense of wit and a uniquely evocative style of illustration. I liked this enough to immediately go and buy another graphic novel by the same creative team.

Russian Olive to Red King by Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen

This was recommended on AV Club as one of the best graphic novels of 2015 but I found it a bit disappointing. It deals with a dysfunctional relationship and a very real sense of loss, and it's extremely understated in its approach to plot and characterisation. A little too understated, if you know what I mean. I guess I just also found it a bit too self-consciously artsy.

Blue is the Warmest Colour by Julie Maroh

A lesbian bildungsroman that has made a lot of 'best graphic novels' lists since its release in 2010. I liked how realistically drawn the characters were, and Maroh has a deft grasp of non-linear storytelling that suits the themes she explores. Recommended.

Maps of Time by David Christian

I already wrote a bit about David Christian's groundbreaking treatise on history here. All I'll add is that this ambitious recontextualisation of history rocked my world.

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

I read this as research for teaching the Spain and the Aztec Empire Case Study for Extension History. It's a very affecting and highly polemic history of the tragedy that was visited upon some 100 million Amerindian peoples by European invaders and settlers. Stannard makes an engaging and convincing case for the repositioning of the term 'holocaust' as something that should equally apply to genocides that rival or eclipse the one that took place during WWII.

Clay by Melissa Harrison

Clay is an interesting text that has been recently added to the HSC Advanced English Prescriptions list for Elective 2: Representing People and Places. I'm not really intending to teach it, I just picked up the novel because I liked the cover (yeah, I'm that superficial). It turned out to be a great book. It's very much a study of people and place so it fits the Elective well. It's also very beautifully written, such is Melissa Harrison's combination of her professional photographer's eye with her handling of the English language.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

Woah. Blood Meridian is an extremely intense historical novel that follows the mythic exploits of the Glanton Gang, an immoral collection of scalp-hunters who operated during the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. For the most part McCarthy's spare and relentlessly bleak story takes place through the eyes of 'The Kid', an uneducated young man who falls in with the gang. The Kid's polar opposite is an unforgettable villain called The Judge, a figure with biblical qualities who comes across as a cross between Charles Darwin, Colonel Kurtz and Satan himself. I don't know if enjoy is the right word for how I feel about this novel, but it's certainly incredibly engaging and memorable. 

Alex and Ada Volumes 1-3 by Sarah Vaughn and Jonathan Luna

This snappy three-volume mini-series from Image comics was recommended to me by my friend Kira. It explores themes of artificial intelligence and the human condition in a tightly-plotted and well-characterised fashion that would lend itself very well to a cinematic translation. 

Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling

Mindy Kaling is great, isn't she? She does her best here to avoid the pitfalls of being pigeonholed as the voice of a whole generation of marginalised young women. For the most part this memoir is fast-moving, engaging and funny.

The Bodysurfers by Robert Drewe

A collection of short stories from one of Australia's most celebrated writers, The Bodysurfers weaves in and out of the lives of a few barely connected characters who are characterised in relation to the beach. Drewe presents a darkly humourous but disaffected vision of post-war Australia and the role that beach culture plays in the ongoing development (or stagnation) of our national character.

The Motherless Oven by Rob Davis

I picked this one up on a whim. As far as high concept stuff goes, I don't think it really succeeds in what it sets out to do. Davis has a unique take on a Dystopian/coming-of-age genre mash-up (which is an achievement in itself) but he doesn't really follow through with any explanations, opting instead for an obscure kind of dramatic irony that left me feeling dissatisfied.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

I've read this a few times before and have just read it again because I'm teaching it to my Year 11 Advanced English class this term. It's still a perfect novella no matter how many times I read it.

More Fool Me by Stephen Fry

This is the third of Stephen Fry's memoirs. I haven't read his other memoirs but that didn't seem to matter because he spends the first third of the book recapping the events of his other books. The best bits are when he digresses and becomes un-self-conscious enough to just go with all the unrelated tangents that organically grow out of his narrative. The entire later half of the book is rubbish though; a verbatim reprint of his actual journals from the early '90s, which are much more dull and repetitive than one might imagine.

Headhunters by Jo Nesbo

This is probably my favourite thing that I've read so far this year. Scandinavian crime novelist Nesbo presents a new twist on the crime fiction genre by mixing cut-throat corporate shenanigans with the grimy underbelly of art theft, and then mixing it all together with a cat-and-mouse game of sexual insecurity and revenge. His writing style is minimalist but very effective and I was hooked from start to finish.

The True History of the Blackadder by J. E. Roberts

I love the TV series Blackadder and am tragic enough about it to actually enjoy finding out all the behind-the-scenes stuff, however, Roberts spends too many pages talking about stuff that has nothing to do with Blackadder. If I'd wanted an in-depth history of the Cambridge Footlights comedians then I'd read a book on that. 

A Chinese Life by Li Kunwu and P. Otie

I bought this as research material for a Year 10 History unit on China that I wrote last year, and this year I finally got around to reading the graphic novel in its entirety. Li Kunwu's autobiographical account of the Cultural Revolution simultaneously illuminated and confused my understanding of China's incredibly complex modern history. It made me want to know more about the subject, much more, and it succeeded in changing my understanding of the Chinese perspective of itself and the rest of the world. 

Dark Rain by Mat Johnson and Simone Gane

A short but satisfying action-thriller that plays out a thrilling heist-scenario against the backdrop of post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans. If there are any one-shot graphic novels out there that would make a great film, then this is it. Johnson does an expert job of balancing themes of American class inequality with effective characterisation, humour, and excitement.

Big History and Me

You'll have to bear with me if you're already familiar with all of this because, as six months ago (thanks to my introduction via Jonathon Dallimore), I have become quite tragically in love with the historiographical approach that has been endearingly dubbed 'Big History'. 

I read Maps of Time by David Christian and just as the Foreword promised (with some apparent degree of hyperbole), it blew my mind in sufficient manner. I'm not about to say, "Let's abandon all other historical approaches" but the whole idea of looking at history in the broadest possible context spoke to me. I guess it appealed to the part of me that resents the seemingly undefeatable presence of Eurocentrism that has sculpted the world's history 'canon'. Christian's view is one that combines scientific disciplines with philosophy and history to determine universal patterns that apply to both humanity and the growth of celestial objects.

At first, I found the idea of establishing similarities between the formation of stars and the formation of human civilisations a bit... tenuous and pointlessly esoteric. But I stuck with it! And after I read about these things in much more detail it all became more enlightening, and made me think of human history in a completely different way; which was the whole point.

As I read Maps of Time, which is Christian's bible for the 'Big History' approach to history, I made some notes.

These notes became hideously extensive.

Like, 47 A4 pages of notes.

When I was done, I knew that I couldn't just hand these notes over to my Extension History students. It was too long. I did, however, come to a much better understanding of the concepts by taking these notes, so I don't regret it. I'd do it again!

I thought I could still use these notes for this blog, so I'll be going to go through the concepts of the book in a few separate blogs in the future.

I'll leave you with this quote from one of the book's two appendices.

"Being complex creatures ourselves, we know from personal experience how hard it is climb the down escalator, to work against the universal slide into disorder, so we are inevitably fascinated by other entities that appear to do the same thing. Thus this theme - the achievement of order despite, and perhaps with the aid of, the second law of thermodynamics [entropy] - is woven through all parts of the story told here. The endless waltz of chaos and complexity provides one of this book's unifying ideas".

For more about Big History, go to the Big History Project online.

For more about 

Extending Stage 4 Students in English

Blueback, a novel that I highly recommend for Year 7 students - it's both easy to read and possesses depth of language/ideas.

In addition to my role as classroom teacher, I also work at my school as the Gifted and Talented Co-ordinator. This has predominantly meant the implementation of a class-sized pull-out program for identified gifted students (more on this at a future date), however, before I got to that point I piloted an experimental phase in which individual students with potential giftedness were targeted. At the time (2 years ago), I was teaching a mixed-ability Year 7 English class. There were two students in particular in this class who showed classic signs of advanced ability and I wanted to give them a meaningful opportunity to use and stretch this ability. 

It's worth noting that these were the sort of students who would not initially present as gifted upon first impression but, after extensive diagnostic testing, I felt that I had confirmed that their potential had gone unrecognised. Before I could create a larger program that would cater to students such as these and, indeed, develop a system of testing that would establish levels of giftedness amongst their entire cohort, it would be necessary to pilot a smaller program of increased support that would prove the validity of specifically catering for gifted students. 

So now we get to the real point of this blog entry, extending these two Year 7 students with activities based on the current topic that was running during class-time. In line with the requisite academic research, I decided that the work had to be:

• Relevant to what was being studied. 
• Not a simple case of 'extra' work.
• The kind of work that would challenge these students enough to allow them to devote the same amount of quality time that any other student would spend on core activities back in the mixed classroom. 

Anything less would risk student disengagement, the same sort of thing that led to these kids 'flying under the radar' in the first place.   

The topic in question back in 2014 was a novel study of Tim Winton's beautiful ecological story Blueback. The resource I've attached below was designed to be used by tutors who had been assigned to the targeted students, but, really, it can be used in any context.

In Stage 4, annotating texts is probably something that most students would not be completely comfortable with. I usually introduce it to Year 9 students, which put me in mind of using it with gifted Year 7s as it would be a step-up for them. The style of annotation featured in the resource makes use of a few higher order skills:

• The annotating of techniques is a form of attribute-listing that requires students to taxonomise information in their heads.
• The second part of the activity, in which students identify their own techniques, contains elements of backwards-engineering. 
• Explicitly teaching the skill of annotating equips gifted students with a method that they can use to design their own systems for note-taking.

I've resisted explaining the actual mechanics of the resource in any great detail because it's all on the sheet below. If you have any specific activities that you like to use to extend junior students, please feel free to drop me a comment below - I'm always on the look-out for more ideas!

Resource: Extending Stage 4 Students in English