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¨Heavy¨ Reader Response 1

From my understanding, in the First chapter of ¨Heavy¨ the loudest theme is issues with acceptance. The theme of issues with acceptance shows when Kiese has issues accepting his overall image and wanting to be accepted by others. One moment that shows his trouble with accepting his image is when he was being sexually assaulted by his babysitter. After the babysitter stopped abusing him, it made Kiese wonder what was wrong with him. He began doing workouts to enhance his looks in an attempt to feel accepted again by his abuser. Throughout the chapter, there are several moments that Kiese struggles with wanting to be accepted by others. After witnessing two of his friends get sexually abused by the big boys, Kiese says ¨a part of me knew it was because I was the fattest , sweatiest person at Beulah Beauford´s house ¨(Laymon, 41). This theme shows up when Kiese realizes that the big boys never want to be in a room alone with Kiese and it makes him feel sad although the story behind this feeling is sickening. This moment shows how issues with his identity and image merge together with his issues regarding the acceptance of other people. Kiese also struggles with acceptance when he plays with the big boys and the other kids as he just wants to be touched and accepted by them.

Some (possible) symbols that show up :

Encyclopedias- symbolize his relationship with his mom. His mom is education oriented and he is heavy on books. She does not even like it when he uses slang

calves- Symbolizes looking good and being found attractive by others. Kiese points out that Reneta tells him he has nice calves. He also points out that Delaney has the biggest calves in the neighborhood.

Beaufords house- sexual trauma

The deep end- another symbol of wanting to be accepted. The reason Layla is abused is being she was willing to do whatever the big boys said in order to swim in the deep end

wailing-symbol of feeling neglected, being on the outside. When Layla is in the room with the big boys, Kiese wants to know what’s going on in there and what’s causing the wailing. When his mom is making love to Malachi, Kiese feels neglected in some way and he does anything to not hear the sound of her wailing.

Big Boys/Games- symbolizes manipulation.The big boys manipulate the kids into doing odd things and they use the rules of the ¨game¨as an excuse.

Class 13

Good morning, all! As our “Goals and Plans” Doc indicates, we’re at what very much feels like a midway point in the semester. Today, you turn in the second of your four formal essays. Exactly half, by the numbers.

(Turn it in here, if you haven’t already) If you’re having any issues with file format, hang on and I can help you after class. I fixed a bug in the Form with the multiple choice. English professors and multiple choice questions, we’re kind of strangers.

As fits a mid-way point, we’ll do a bit of looking back and a lot of looking forward. Today’s main activity looks at the draft thesis statements you shared in the chat Monday. We’ll use the same rubric that I’ve used with assessments and that you’ve used in peer editing to analyze these statements. That rubric is two questions: Is this statement arguable? Is this statement structured?

After we do an example in the main room, work in breakouts of 4-5 with this handout. Be ready to explain your discussion when you come back to the main room.

With the balance of class, we’ll do one of two activities. We’ll return to the task we started at the end of class Monday. In that activity, you were looking at the conclusion Carmen Alvarez-Alvarez’s ethnography of book clubs in Spain and trying to pull out its five main ideas in your own words. This artifact is a more urgent one, since book groups start Monday. We’ll do our best to wrap it up today or for homework.

If things go very quickly, we’ll take a look at some of the paragraphs you composed earlier this week. These are really helpful artifacts, too, and if we don’t have time for them today (which seems likely) we’ll look at them as “ice breakers” or “brain breaks” over the course of the book club sessions this month.

Looking forward to class today!

Class 11

Today we’ll peer edit and discuss ways to approach lists as a genre. What can we learn about main idea, organization, and evidence by writing our arguments this way?

Trusting my voice is my biggest struggle. I have a hard time speaking out and expressing my ideas with others. Usually, when I’m alone or with individuals I am comfortable with ill speak out and share my thoughts.

Class 09

Good morning. We’ll start off with a quick review of what we covered Wednesday. The activities from that class, as always, are on our Goals and Plans Doc. Last Wednesday:

  • we looked at the shout-outs in the reply box to last Monday’s post (and reviewed the difference between abstract and concrete language);
  • we shared some (concrete) cultural artifacts and described their (abstract) significance to us (and we also introduced the idea of a narrator’s position; cultural artifacts can help us remember and orient the reader to “where we’re coming from”)
  • finally, we did an exploratory freewrite, positioning ourselves (as readers) in relation to the concrete objects (books) we’ll be “reading alone and with others” over the rest of the semester. Some notes from those freewrites:
    • a number of us, including Taisjuan and Angel, liked how reading with others helped “piece together” the meaning of the text (Taisjuan) allowing for conversations about what was “inspiring” (Angel)
    • others, like Elijah and Janelle, liked the flexibility reading alone offers for people to apply their own techniques, like visualizing (Janelle) and reading at various paces (Elijah)
    • many of us, including Nayely and Leslie, mentioned the importance of finding the work interesting and ‘relatable’. Sometimes that had to do with content (Nayely’s “Leap of Faith” for example) and other times that had to do with form (“voice” and “motive” in the example Leslie brought up, A Long Way Gone.

Today in class, we’ll look at the opening pages (79-87) of a peer-reviewed scholarly article. There were some embedded questions in Hypothes.is that I asked you to look at, and these questions will shape our conversations today.

“These analytic conversations can shape and reshape adolescent identities as they learn to trust and affirm their own voices, take risks to act in new and positive ways, and analyze the texts and their own and others’ perspectives.”

(Polleck & Epstein 79)

This was a popular line for response, based on the annotations you made for homework. So let’s use this as a jumping off point. What is the author saying here? Which of these three elements (trusting your voice, taking risks, and analyzing perspectives) resonate most for you with your past experiences? Has one of these skills been hard for you to do when reading in school, but more possible when reading outside of school? In your experience, what other activities besides reading that “can shape and reshape adolescent identities”?

We’ll start class with some freewriting in response to those questions. Take your writing where it goes — that’s what freewriting is for. We’ll share in pairs and I’ll ask you to post a line or two in the reply box in the last few minutes of class.

Class 08: A Book Club that Doesn’t Suck

Today your first formal essay is due. Please turn it in using the Google Form at the very top of today’s entry on our Goals and Plans Doc.

September is almost behind us, but there is a lot of semester left. This first Module prepared us to choose a book for Module 3’s book groups. Module 4 is reflecting on our progress on many of the above skills and concepts.

So what is Module 2 about?

To borrow the phrase from Rebecca Renner, a journalist whose work we’ll read today: “How to start a book club that doesn’t suck.”

The essays you’ll write will draw on another wide swatch of experience and sources to imagine the kind of experience you want in Module 3. As a class, we’ll read open internet sources and peer-reviewed social science articles about the social phenomenon of reading with other people. What makes it work? How does it change when it happens at school? And what (yes) expectations do you bring to this experiment from your own history as a reader, writer, and student? These are starter questions; we’ll refine them as a group next Wednesday, October 6.

The turnaround for this essay is going to be quite a bit faster: a draft will be due October 12, and the graded revision will be due October 19.

You can write a traditional essay, or you can use a different form: collaborative writing, a powerpoint presentation, a video of a reasonable length, multimodal writing, a story map or some other kind of digital project. Again, more on that this coming Tuesday.

Today, we’ll start class with a freewrite about reading alone and with others. You’ll expand this, eventually, to a blog post. Here’s the prompt — broad, with lots of questions, designed to keep you writing. Go where it takes you and use all 10 mins:

Prompt: What do you enjoy about reading on your own? What’s hard? Is anything different when you read for school? What drives you to share something you’ve read with another person? What was the last thing you read and shared (verbally or otherwise)? What else comes to mind when you think of reading? Of reading for school? Of reading in groups?

Class 07

Good morning, all. Hope you had a chance to enjoy this glorious weekend. Today in class, we’ll review a number of the key concepts from Module 1, go over the expectations we can have for each other when it comes to Essay 1 (due Wednesday), and prepare to sharpen our use of digital tools, academic writing skills, and the richness of our class community as we turn to Module 2: Defining Book Groups.

You’ll want to start in the “Goals and Plans” Doc. There, you’ll see a list of the content and skills we covered this Module. We’ll spend some time writing and talking today about the ways we covered that content–and articulating moment where things “clicked” and questions we still have. Module 1 was quite a lot, but don’t worry, we’ll circle back to most of it in Module 2. That’s one thing about writing: it requires practice, and the more “reps” you get, the better.

After that, I’ll share an example of a student essay from Fall 2020 in response to this same prompt. We’ll look at it as a group, considering where we see its main idea, its evidence, its signs of organization, and the way the writer follows conventions.

With the balance of class, you’ll work on one of three things in independent work:

  1. Give a “shout-out” (do people even say that anymore?) or some “shine” (as they say in my kids’ elementary school) to another person in class who did great work in some way. Post that as a reply to this post by the start of our next class. (So, to be clear, if you don’t finish this in class, it’s OK to finish it as homework.)
  2. Use the “checklist” linked to on the “Goals and Plans” Doc to proofread your essay. There’s also a copy of it in the submission form for this essay. It must follow MLA format or I may ask you to revise it before marking it COMPLETE.
  3. If you’re listed under one of the “housekeeping” tasks, it means you’ve not completed the set-up of one or more digital tools. Please do this first, before the other two activities, and let me know if you need any help. I’ll have some breakout rooms open so we can talk without disturbing others doing independent work.

Class 06

Good morning, all. We have our first peer editing session today. The prompt you’re responding to is on our course site (and has been since the first day of class.)

Many of us have posted our drafts. Some of us haven’t. The groups have been updated accordingly. In class today, I’ll briefly go over the rubric I use; you’ll participate in editing this rubric for this essay once you’ve completed peer editing. After we’ve done that, we’ll discuss how to use your prior work in this essay. Then, editing or (for those not yet prepared with a draft) outlining.

While you work, I may call some students into “Room 7” for conferences. I’ll give you a heads up and then will move you myself. Might be a little disorienting. Zoom life.