Playing with Google Lit Trips

One of my favorite undergrad professors published a book on travel literature (A Wider Range: Travel Writing by Women in Victorian England by Maria H. Frawley), which at the time was a new genre to me.  I have since read, with varying degrees of interest, a few travel-inspired texts.  This summer, I reflected a bit about the literature-travel connection as my husband I drove hundreds of miles through amazing scenery in Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.  The landscapes seemed rich with story.

So, when I learned about Google Lit Trips at a recent conference, I was excited to check it out.  The website explains it as follows:  “Google Lit Trips are free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature on the surface of Google Earth. At each location along the journey there are placemarks with pop-up windows containing a variety of resources including relevant media, thought provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about “real world” references made in that particular portion of the story.”

I took a few of the “trips” and found it interesting, if a bit clunky.  It is interesting to zoom into a “Street View” perspective of some of the terrain traversed by the Joad family on their westward journey or see how much of the country Sal covered in Walk Two Moons.  Benefits of Google Lit Trips are that students might gain perspective on settings, learn a little about geography (I always found it interesting to learn how little traveling my students had done), and perhaps “see” stories in a new way. 

As of now, there are a limited number of “trips” available, but students and teachers can compose new trips to add to the archive.  I’m going to recommend it as an option for my 466 students when they do their “book report alternative” assignment, which they might then use in their own classrooms one day.  Taking or (even better) composing a Lit Trip seems like a way to use technology to enhance the literature experience and to build 21^st century skills.  

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. ~ Mark Twain

A New Semester

No matter how many times I start a new teaching year, I always walk into the classroom with anticipation, optimism, and a small case of the butterflies.  Tomorrow will be my first teaching day for the new semester.  I am teaching one of my favorite courses—EDCI 466 Literature for Adolescents.  This class provides opportunities to explore good content, try out new pedagogies, and engage in thoughtful, fun, and productive conversations with future English teachers.  This year, I am looking forward to trying a few new things, but at the same time, I’m grappling with new challenges.  

One of the things I’m excited about is doing further work in core practices pedagogy, an area of research and teaching that I’ve been interested in for the past year or two.  Last spring, I did some initial work with core practices in EDCI 466; I believe it was helpful for students, and I know it provoked reflection, rethinking, and lots of planning for me.  If you aren’t familiar with the core practices (or high-leverage practices) movement, I recommend checking out the Teaching Works website.  In particular, I’ve been inspired by Pam Grossman’s presentation in the Teaching Works seminar series (it’s well worth watching!).  Grossman’s discussion of how she had redesigned her reading methods course prompted me to revisit my own syllabus.  I’ve integrated some of her ideas for helping preservice teachers recognize and make explicit their own reading strategies, and then translate this knowledge into lessons to help student develop and refine those same skills.  I’m excited to try it out, and I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.  No doubt I will learn a lot, and I hope my students do, too.

While I’ve been thinking about the opportunities to facilitate the learning of preservice English teachers, I’ve also been contemplating challenges that are new to me this semester.  (I love that teaching is always presenting new challenges!).  This fall, I’ll be teaching the smallest class I’ve ever had.  There are four students on the roster, with a possible fifth waiting in the “permission required” wings.   I’ve taught classes of 10 o 12 in the past, and I’ve found that small-group dynamics and logistics require some creative teaching.  Of course, a lot will depend on my students’ willingness to be engaged and talkative, but I anticipate moving more quickly through book discussions and class activities.  How can we then productively use the inevitable extra time?  EDCI 466 is a discussion-based course with lots of in-class activities, modeling pedagogical techniques for teaching literature, and in the past I’ve used a lot of small-group and jigsaw activities.  But with only four students, I’ve really had to rethink the syllabus.  This semester, we will be reading more novels as a class and fewer as small groups.  Also, we’ll be tapping technology to facilitate discussion and to maximize participation, reflection, and involvement.  Some of the things I’m going to try are blogging and occasional on-line class meetings.  I’m thinking of ways to use blogs or discussion boards as versions of digital jigsawing.  Again, I’ll keep you posted!  And I’d love to hear any ideas you have.

  

Many Hands...

During the past two weeks, I have spent an extraordinary amount of time focusing on food.  Not on eating it, or even cooking it, but on preserving it.  Four bushels of green beans, six bushels of peaches, 1200 ears of corn—not to mention tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and potatoes, which are still underway.

Yes, it’s harvest season, and we Hessongs take it seriously.  We are not Amish, and we are not preppers, but each summer we can, freeze, dry, and store bushels of produce, filling pantry shelves and basement freezers with food to enjoy for months to come.  The work, the routine, and the jars and jars of preserved fruits and veggies have all become part of our summer heritage, and we continue these old-fashioned rituals as much for the company as for the food we put away. Perhaps more for the company, truth be told.

As I worked alone last week to pick, husk, cook, cut, and freeze fifty (a measly 50!) ears of corn from my own garden, I reflected on the contrast of my lonely work with the social labor of the day before, when nephews, parents, sisters, spouses – up to 10 people at any given time of the day-- worked to tackle a pick-up bed loaded with freshly picked sweet corn from my dad’s field.  That was a long but good day, and we accomplished a task that would have been daunting, if not impossible, to do alone. 

As I worked on my solo task, pulling corn from boiling water and dropping it to cool in the sink, my mind turned to the “End of Summer Play” group (and the blog I had to create!) and the value of collaboration.  The corn harvest work had been much more fun and productive with the whole family working together.  Similarly, my teaching and learning has benefited from collaboration.  I thought of the group of teachers I am privileged to work with at the University of Maryland and the UMD National Writing Project.  Over the past four years, I have had valuable times of teaching, writing, and researching alone, but some of the richest experiences I’ve had came from collaborating with the talented, creative, and dedicated folks around me.  I’ve learned so much from this professional community, and I’m looking forward to getting new ideas from our “play group.”  Thanks to all of you for being such supportive colleagues who are willing to share your resources, insights, and talents.  

And if we have a get together, I’ll bring the peaches!