Mean Girls

In my second year of teaching film, a student was trying to make a short film in which a Girl A is talking on the phone to Girl B while Girl C is secretly listening. Girl A extracted a comment from Girl B about Girl C. After Girl B says the mean comment, Girl C pipes up, letting her know she heard that. I didn't understand what was happening and the kids all said, "oh it's obvious, it's just like that scene in Mean Girls." That was the first of many references to Mean Girls. I started to feel that I knew the plot without ever having seen the film (not a difficult thing to do if you've seen Heathers, Clueless, and a dozen others). About a month ago a student was listing films that she has on DVD, I confessed that I hadn't seen Mean Girls or The Devil Wears Prada. Both were delivered into my hands promptly at the start of class the next day.

There are certain films that my film kids don't preface with "have you seen…?" and Mean Girls is one of them – it is common cultural currency for them, and as a teacher – especially a film teacher – it was assumed to be a part of our common language. A salient point for me is the need to be conversant in the culture that my students share with each other. Since watching that film, I have been able to use it several times to clarify a topic using parts of the film, as an example that I know students will understand, and that is relevant. It's certainly better than trying to use "Billy Jack" as an example of bullying.

One point of interest is the film itself. It's a humorous and slightly dark look at A-list girl cliques and the politics of being in or out. Like Heathers, only slightly less explosive, the mean girls get their comeuppance. It's always satisfying to see the bully get a mud pie. From my point of view, I don't see any clique at the school where I teach that resembles "The Plastics" (the A-list clique). That is because Mean Girls' caricature of popularity is far less subtle than the reality of girl cruelty. This is not to diminish the brutality girls are capable of – I still see plenty of it. It's just that the girls aren't as pretty, well-dressed, rich, and slow motion when they sway their long blonde hair. You have to really pay attention to what is being said to catch the insults. And the girls who are being constantly picked on might be able to keep a smile of their face, while they develop a compulsive eating problem, or skillfully hide other manifestations of their low self-esteem and depression.

I told one of my students that I had to write a short reaction paper to a media experience that was geared towards teenagers. I said that I was going to use Mean Girls. She said she didn't think I should – that it wasn't stupid enough. That I should look at something more like, Norbit – the bad film that Eddie Murphy just released where he plays an obese woman and "mild-mannered guy." I'm not convinced that Mean Girls isn't stupid in its own way. There is plenty of slapstick quality humor, the head Plastic ends up in traction, and fat jokes abound (fat people are still fair game in a story that is meant to show how hierarchy undoes everyone). I'm not sure where the line is between stupid-aimed-at-teenagers and Mean Girls, but my student seemed to think that the message was not dumbed down enough. On the other hand, this particular student, as a viewer of media, is as sharp as a tack and keenly aware of the strategies used to garner her attention as an audience and a consumer. It does make me wonder if that awareness makes viewing any less manipulative or simply renders her a cynical but willing participant. I'll have to ask her, I'm sure she's thought that out already.

lessons on lessons

Do your lessons before you teach them.

It's not that I don't know that. And when I've done it - my lessons are definitely better. There are different levels of lessons and sometimes, rehearsing adds nothing. Why rehearse a lesson plan where you are going to show a film? Actually, previewing the film is recommended even if you think you remember it well. Maybe one day I'll tell the story of accidentally showing porn to my freshman.

In another kind of lesson, I can ask the kids to draw a character on paper. Then using special animation acetate, I can ask them to "ink" them onto their cels. When they are given paint brushes and cel paint, I can then watch them have trouble staying in the lines – making a mess on their expensive cels. This is the kind of lesson I had this afternoon.

But an interesting thing happened.

As they worked, I started to have body memories of when I used to do this for a living. I remembered how you ink a cel by putting a glob of paint on the brush, setting it gently onto the cel, and using the brush to deliberately push it up to the edges of the ink line. Here's a rule that I just made up this afternoon, but I think is a good one for inking a cel: Never let the brush touch the cel.

Another thing I learned today: I remember things in my body, not in my mind. This is a good thing for me to know. I would say that the thing that I berate and punish myself for more than anything else – even the fact that I still get zits at nearly 40 years of age – is my inability to remember. Ranging from all the stuff I read for my Masters in Literature to the good times had with friends, stuff that once went in is gone.

While I'm a terrible athlete (well, except for horseback riding - then I'm stellar), I do learn kinesthetically. So as I leaned over to help kids, and felt the brush in my hand and the paint on the brush, I instantly recalled the how of this lesson. If I'd done the lesson first I would have remembered all of this before I taught the lesson. I would have saved them smudges and childlike coloring-outside-the-lines errors.

However, here's the kicker: I don't think it's a bad thing for the students to dive in, with minimal instruction. I have a tendency to over-describe the assignment (this goes hand in hand with my other tendency - which is DEFINITELY mutually exclusive - where I under-describe an assignment). When they are chomping at the bit to get the brushes and the paint and start coloring in their characters, listening to me talk will more likely be met with tuning out than with studied attention. And if I'd just done it the night before I would have wanted to tell them all about the fine details of inking a cel. And what was the objective of my lesson? Using hands-on experimenting, to get the hang of the properties of cel paint on a cel. Not, doing it perfectly the first time.

So maybe you don't have to do your lessons before you teach them.

creative writing

My teaching class has been helpful in a few ways that are immediately useful:
1) have an objective in mind for every lesson that you plan
2) don't assume prior knowledge, instead use assessment to determine where students are at
By the way, the answer to the latter point is always, "less than you think."

I can't tell you how many times I've been standing in front of my class giving instruction on an activity only to realize I've taken way too much for granted, Whoa. Halt. Backup. What exactly do you mean by tone? (When we discussed tone in Poe's The Raven). How were we supposed to know that a frat meant Oliver needed to feel like he fit in when we don't even know what a frat is? (They didn't know what a frat is.)

I had to take a step back when I was doing a unit on flash fiction. I had introduced it with two examples and a list of necessary components (start in the middle of the action, bury the preamble in the beginning, use a twist, use allusive references, etc). Then I said, okay now you write one. And they did. Several times they wrote short pieces. But they weren't working. At least not as pieces of flash fiction.

So I bought a good book of flash fiction, Flash Fiction Forward. I picked out a very simply structured story. It was about a first date with a Neanderthal woman. So I had them use it as a model text. First we analyzed it a bit - we discovered that we learn a little bit about the narrator and the Neanderthal in each paragraph, and the way we learn it is through an action on one or the other's part. The students could choose whomever they wanted to for a first date - most chose Barbie. Then all they had to do was replace the details with their character. They still had to be on a first date, they still had to go to a restaurant, there had to be a small misunderstanding (conflict) and a meeting of the minds (resolution), in the end, they had to mull over why they liked their date and decide they'd like a second date one day. In the end, they needed to have the same number of paragraphs as the original story, and roughly the same number of words.

The stories were all quite good - everyone had fun writing them. They read them to the class, too, an unusual bonus.

For the next lesson we used Oliver's Evolution by John Updike. Each student played psychiatrist, analylzing his actions, they had to offer an analysis of his personality and the effect his childhood had on him. Before they read the story they were asked to write a short (one to two pages) rough draft chronicling a character's life from birth to their coming of age. After they've analyzed the story (to death, they might add), the job is to revise their initial drafts and follow the pacing of Oliver's Evolution (again, there should be roughly the same number of paragraphs and each paragraph should correspond roughly to Oliver's stage of life). They will also create actions for their character that reveal something about the type of person that s/he is.

Everyone is eager to edit their NaNoWriMo novels, but I haven't known where to start. This unit of flash fiction, though justifiably helpful to our novel editing (I'm sure I can justify it somehow), has been in part to delay a unit on editing a novel while I figure out how to approach it. Thanks to John and Oliver, I now how we're going to do it. The one thing I've been sure I don't want to do is to go through our novels and simply change grammar, word choice, and spelling. But how can they approach editing a 10,000 plus word story (up to 50,000 words in the case of some students) without understanding character development and story structure? Without knowing it, the work we've been doing is precisely right. Students will bring in the first chapter or two of their novels, they'll work with a buddy to find ways through actions (showing not telling, right?) of developing characters that a reader cares about.

animation class - the 2nd time through

Last semester I led students through exercises that taught in-betweening (drawing the frames that go in between the main character actions). We covered basic character design using the lessons created by Larry's Toon Institute. I had each student design a project by creating a character and a story board outlining 30 seconds of action - they drew one key frame for each second of the animation. Then they used in-betweening techniques to fill in all the details of the action. I thought we'd all finish around November and I'd arranged an animation stand at SFAI so they could shoot onto film. In the end, so few students finished we decided to shoot on DV using Frame Theif - a shareware program I highly recommend.

Only two students completed their animation in time for media night - Drea inked and colored her film, and Jonathan just inked it. One student is nearly finished and needs me to "remind" her to complete it... she's only about an hour away from being done. One finished drawing and shooting it - he just needs to edit and add music. That's four of seven. That leaves 3 students with incomplete projects. It became evident that a 30 second animation is a lot more than they bargained for.

It's my second time through my curriculum. It's really satisfying to revise the lessons and try them again. I'm correcting mistakes and rearranging the order of things. I've got 7 students again - they're all from the first year class. 6 boys and Manya.

This time around they've learned in-betweening and some basic character design in the first two sessions. A third class was spent designing a character and elaborating one frame - putting a character in a simple setting. They were each given an inking pen to ink the character onto a cel. Next week they'll paint the characters on their cels. We'll then lay them over a variety of backgrounds to understand the use of layers. Instead of each student doing their own 30 second animation, I think we're going to do a collaborative piece so that students who draw well can draw, some can in-between, and others who prefer to ink and paint will have a job to do. The flaw in that plan is coming up with one film idea they will all get behind.

It's a great class - I love teaching it and I think the students learn a lot by doing a long term, labor intensive project - the payoff is really big in animation. Everyone loved seeing their drawing come to life and I think they have a sense of accomplishment that rivals the narrative filmmakers much longer projects. With multiple times through the course, I hope to design it in just a way that it fits the students temperaments, gives big rewards for sustained effort, and is set up so that all of the students feel that they've succeeded.

when you are a student yourself

a reprint from super8mama about why I haven't done my homework:

Your Deafening Applause

I had decided I was ready to start my public life again. To resume painstakingly writing daily posts only moderately interesting and falling ever-short of clever. And then it happened. I went to my first class of the semester - a continuation of last semester's English Instruction and Curriculum - when my professor announced that one of the requirements would be to keep a blog.

He then had to ask questions like, "do people know what a weblog is, commonly known as a blog?" He gave a power point presentation on how to set one up. Immediately, I noticed my heals digging into the 70s faded linoleum floors. In fact, despite my desire to be a model student (give me that A), I refused to blog. Period. There, on blogspot, or here, livejournal. I can't tell you the name of my other blog because it has to be anonymous to the general public - in order to protect the students I am supposed to talk about. Which might be part of the reason I found it uninteresting and counter-productive in the first place. It runs counter to one of the main reasons that I blog. My audience.

There is something that happens when I blog. It's related to a phenomenon we talked about in my Adolescent Development course last week. It's called imaginary audience. When I was a pre-adolescent kid I was truly free. I played freely, dressed without care (purple Tough Skins with orange t-shirt was a favorite), showered infrequently, and had virtually no self-reflective awareness. Without being self-reflective, by definition, I couldn't be self-conscious. Then a cruel thing began to happen. I began to develop breasts. I discovered that I wasn't a boy. I guess I knew that I wasn't a boy. But as a young girl, who identified more with my father than my mother, in a childish fancy, I assumed I would grow up to be a man. So the breasts were hard to accept. (I remember wondering how low I could wear my unbuttoned my shirt, imitating Shaun Cassidy, without revealing the nubs of betrayal that kept spreading their mound across my chest.)

Along with secondary sexual characteristics adolescents gains something they like to talk about a lot in my education department: metacognition. This is simply, the ability to think about thinking. Meta-awareness is a side product of metacognition, the ability to think about oneself. And with that comes the inability to play freely, dress without care, or refuse showers without impunity. The awareness of the self and consequently others, becomes internalized as the Imaginary Audience. The voice of judgment internalized and ever present, watching every private act from using the toilet to singing along at full throttle to Jesus Christ Superstar (acting out all the parts and knowing all the words, for example, while convinced that Mike Nash and Rocket Defabaugh were watching and laughing through the living room window). My imaginary audience was perhaps more cruel than some and as a result I became tragically insecure, self-conscious, self-hating, and generally, weird.

Some say using the word queer to refer to oneself - if you are in fact a lesbian or gay man - is a reappropriation of a word originally used to hate on the non-straight folk. By taking control of the word, lesbian and gays diminish its power when yielded by the enemy. Likewise, I have undertaken a reappropriation of my disparaging imaginary audience, taking control of the concept in the context of blogging. I don't think Mike Nash spends his days reading my blog (my crush on him is long over - I confirmed this at my 20 year high school reunion last summer when I could complete a sentence in his presence without my skin flushing and my pupils dilating). However, I must confess even writing his name here brings about fantasies of him googling himself and finding this link, resulting in him reading my blog. Thus my imaginary audience becomes real.

When my strategic blogging - written for my friends, students who wonder what I think about teaching, or lurkers who are silently thinking, "god someone give her a syndicated column, or book contract" - is co-opted by the academic institution and served up as a tool for assessment, so that I can familiarize myself with the technology that kids are using, I guess, I return to my adolescence, strike that rebellious pose, and deny you throngs of readers my goodies.

I do apologize. Mike, you may resume reading now.

Children Left Standing in the Crossfire

The newspaper article that caught my eye was linked off of an email list I receive from the NCTE. From The Washington Post, the headline said, "Virginia Is Urged to Obey 'No Child' on Reading Test." It caught my eye because it was about "No Child Left Behind." I've heard school principals rechristen, "No Child Left Standing," in reference to the legislation put in place by the current administration. The topic is particularly interests me, as the complex issues surrounding equal access to quality education seem nearly irresolvable, inexorably intertwined with poverty, community violence, and institutionalized racism. For instance, in San Francisco schools have slowly resegregated, because of the ruling in 1997 that race cannot be a factor in determining school assignments. Some SF schools have more than 60% of a single race represented (often African-American and Latino, both underserved populations), and test scores are commensurately low. The city is searching for a new method of school assignments that would guarantee diversity, therefore raising school's collective scores. But I have to wonder, do they believe that the collective scores would rise due to an influx of students who test better, the retention of teachers who teach more effectively, the parent involvement that accompanies the privileged population of children, or a combination of these with other factors. "No Child" ought to guarantee that test scores are no lower in a school with a homogenous student population than in one with a diverse population, right? However, "No Child" doesn't address the fundamental reasons why the underserved populations don't thrive in school such as poverty, absent role models, overburdened parents, gangs, drugs, and violence in their communities. So, when I see an article that has "No Child" in the headline I read it.

This article, published February 1st, 2007 starts, "The U.S. Department of Education threatened yesterday to take 'enforcement action' against Virginia if any school districts defy a federal mandate to give reading tests to thousands of immigrant students." It seems that in defiance of the U.S. Department of Ed, Virginia educators refuse to administer the Standards of Learning test because "students who haven't mastered the language are likely to fail a traditional test and that it is unfair to administer it." Three school districts in Virginia have refused to administer the grade level test to ELL and are administering a skills-appropriate test in its place. Last year, federal education officials refused to accept those tests insisting that the grade level test must be administered to determine if the students are "able to read at grade level." This year, those same officials are unconscionably threatening to withdraw their funding from these school districts.

There has been a lot of resistance to the "No Child" legislation among educators. Having a handle on student progress and benchmarks for teacher feedback are indispensable. On the other hand, we've all know the arguments against testing: that it is incapable of measuring success and learning in a democratic fashion, failing marginalized students of color, poor populations, and English language learners.

Parents who have access to the Internet and are tech-savvy go to www.greatschools.com to read reviews and see the test scores for most of the country's public schools. In nearly all cases readers of the site can determine the socio-economic profile of the school generalized solely by test scores. If Virginia school districts choose an alternative testing method that measures actual student learning and delivers meaningful feedback to the teacher, while withholding the Standard of Learning exam until such a time that the student is prepared for it, then this demonstrates a sophisticated sense of responsibility to the students and an acute understanding of the act of testing itself. As a benefit to our society, test scores might not be blatantly correlated to the wealth and privilege of a student body, evidence of socioeconomic and racial profiling. The Virginia school districts state, "[we'll put the] Standards of Learning test 'in front of the kids when they've learned enough English to have it in front of them."' By waiting until the students are ready to test successfully they are radicalizing the testing experience for their students and altering the profile for their school. The students will not have to take a test that they will most certainly fail, this will prevent the downward spiral for these immigrant children of shame over failing something they have no chance of passing. It also drives home the message that this test is patently unfair. As the Deputy Secretary of Education Raymond Simon points out, "The whole point of No Child Left Behind is to find out what they know and don't know and target resources…" If an entire student population is unable to perform at grade level, what is the point of testing them if the resources aren't available to them anyhow?

Further reading:
Va. Is Urged to Obey 'No Child' on Reading Test
By Maria Glod
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 1, 2007; Page B01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/31/AR2007013102120.html
San Francisco Chronicle
SCHOOLS AT A CROSSROADS
Hard lessons as S.F. public education faces crisis
Nanette Asimov, Heather Knight, Chronicle Staff Writers
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/05/28/MNG4GJ3R251.DTL