Then, we’ll use the student-created flow charts with the following prompt:

Next, in small groups, we’ll answer the following questions about “Notes on a Native Speaker.”

1. What is the purpose of the list that opens the essay?  How is it meant to engage the reader?
2. How would you describe Liu’s attitude towards being “white, by acclamation” (par. 2)?
3. How does he define “assimilation?”
4. In pars. 7-10, he describes himself at a crisis point. How did he get there? What’s the problem?
5. Explain the paradox in paragraph 42. How could it be resolved?
6. What’s the deal with the hair? Why is it such a concern for him?
7. What is the overall organizational structure of the essay?
8. Note the authorities Liu cites.  How do they establish his appeal to ethos or logos?
9. What is the main claim Liu is making in this piece?

Finally, I want to look at a short excerpt from Tom Wolfe’s Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.  How does Wolfe use unconventional style choices to elicit and invoke the place he is describing?

HW: Become a Wolfe-ian.  Describe a place or event as you imagine Tom Wolfe would.  Go overboard on the onomatopoeia. 200-300 words

If you’re interested in what I’m doing, feel free to read my summer blog: Lazyteacher.

Richard Dawkin’s The Selfish Gene has been around for awhile but I–being a poet-y English teacher type–have just gotten to read it (Summertime!). As I read it I was amazed by the feeling I got which is rare even in great fiction, the feeling of learrning something new and undergoing a real shift in how in how I see the world. The book outlines what exactly the theory of evolution is and isn’t and how our genes, acting as selfish replicators of themselves, affect outcomes in totally surprising ways. Of course, the repeated concept of ourselves as genetic replicating machines whose only purpose is to repeat those genes is humbling. Moreso is the idea that while our own impact on the world is minescule and gone within a 3 generations, these genes are–for all practical purposes–immortal. They can’t however enjoy a good milkshake or Simpsons episode, so we have that on the little microscopic gods. Finally, the chapter on memes–which is a common web topic–was fascinating unto itself and I need to think more about it as I think abut the concept could be used in classes.

See it online.

As I put together my Learnerblog for next year, I wish there was an easy way to hook up with other schools and classes. Something like a meetup.com for teachers. Anyone?