What does it mean to be "ready for college"?

MAXIMUS (at right) has no use for college, of course, but everyone in the class will end up in college some day.

Some of you WILL go directly to college from high school and others will delay it until you discover that you want to be in college and you need college to get ahead.

So, where are you in the college admissions process?  I ask because one of your classmates said, "I have 15 colleges to apply to."

I was a little alarmed.  Fifteen!  And he plans to stay at home and not go away to college!

My response to him (and all of you):  Choose wisely.  Narrow the college choices to FIVE:

1. ONE "safety" CUNY school you are willing to attend.  More on "safety" school below.
   
2. TWO CUNY colleges with your intended major
   
3. ONE or TWO SUNY colleges out of the city with your intended major
   
4. ONE or TWO private colleges out of the city with your intended major

Another option:  Add a NYC private college

A "safety" school is a college you are willing to attend, qualify to get admitted and if you receive no acceptance letters from your first choices, you have a fall-back plan with the "safety" school.

Let's give you some time to think about it.  I will ask you next week to discuss your plans in class.

College Reading & Writing Tip: Read George Orwell and Follow His Commands!

This post is ONLY for students serious about college-level reading and writing!

You've earned an A in the course.  Congratulations, you've got the job!  Welcome to the team, when can you start?

It's nice to hear these kinds of things, right?  Or how about a letter in the mail that begins:  "We are pleased to inform you of your acceptance to the university"?

What's going to set you apart from other candidates - in college, at your job, as you begin a career - will be your ability to WRITE AND SPEAK clearly and creatively.

George Orwell (more on him here ) has a famous essay called "Politics & the English Language" and I want you to read it.  I want you to make a page in a notebook to write down all things he suggests to write with CLEAR MEANING and fresh, vivid metaphors.

On Friday, October 2 when we review your drafts for the first "into the light" essay, we will be able to talk about what Orwell recommends for your writing.

Here for the link to "Politics & the English Language" 

FREE! FREE! FREE! Meet Powerful & Inspiring Writer Cornel West this Weds. at B & N!

DOG STAR knows and respects Cornel West for his enlightened, clear and articulate views on race, civilization and life in general.  Among those with "West" for a last name, it is Cornell who should get your attention most.  Kanye has much to learn from Cornel, too, humility chief among them and having a values-centered philosophy of life is another.

This Mr. West, Mr. West, Mr. West (a reference to a lyric on Kanye's "College Dropout") has tackled issues of hip hop's place in our culture, has rapped a few songs of his own and is a a professor at Princeton University.

Now, he shares his memoirs in a new book "Living & Loving Out Loud: A Memoir."  And he will read from the book and be available for signings and conversation this Wednesday, September 30 at Union Square Barnes & Noble.

If you are starving for something richer than the usual playlist of your life, consider heading over to B & N by 6:30pm to get a seat.  Mr. West is very funny, very accessible - he talks plainly and truthfully - and you will surely become a fan of his too.  When you do become a fan there is a treasure of previous books to dive into DOG STAR recommends "Democracy Matter" for the chapter on hip hop culture.  It will open your eyes and, no, he does not bash it, he sees it in a different light.

Will you give yourself the chance to see life in a different light, too?

Here for the Barnes & Noble event website for details

Here to read excerpts from "Living & Loving Out Loud: A Memoir" 

Here for Cornel West on the web (including audio and video) 

Here for Cornel West on Wikipedia 

QUOTE OF THE DAY

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Mark Twain (1835-1910)

FREE! Read a great short story this weekend!

Edwidge Danticat has published a number of memoir pieces and short stories in The New Yorker magazine.

Here are links to two of the stories:

Ghosts (click here )

Short story about an aspiring radio journalist in Haiti and the gangsters who frequent the restaurant owned by his parents.

Reading Lessons (click here )

Short story about a Haitian teacher in America who slaps one of her students.

And...Edwidge is friends with Junot Diaz.  Listen to Junot read his short story “How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)” and then hear Edwidge discuss the story (click here )

FREE! - Go to the Whitney this weekend!

Look at this painting by Georgia O'Keeffe.  Is it a highway cutting through the night landscape with a burning horizon off in the distance?  Is it a beating heart, aching for love?

It is both of these things and neither of these things.  Magically, the power and the beauty of this painting - and many, many more like it - is in the way it can grip your sight, first, and hold on to your other senses, too.  And then the imagination generates wildly different responses - all bursting with half-explanation because the mind wants to sort it out and make sense of it.

Don't let it.  Enjoy the superb technique (the smooth lines, the very clean shapes, the expertly applied paint) and enjoy the incredible color crawling through the paintings.

DOG STAR urges teens to run, don't walk, to the O'Keeffe show at the Whitney Museum at 75th Street and Madison Avenue.  We're not even going to suggest it only if you like this one.  Just go.

The Whitney is ALWAYS free for everyone under 18 years old.

Here for the Whitney Museum link to this exhibit (with a super short video intro) 

Week Ahead & Class Update

HOMEWORK DUE NEXT WEEK

By next Wednesday, September 30, read ONE of these stories:

"Alma" by Junot Diaz (here for link online)

"Gleason" by Louise Erdrich (here for link online)

"Ghosts" by Edwidge Danticat (here for link online)

"Going to Meet the Man" by James Baldwin (here for link online)
For this link you will need to click on it and then when you reach the website, scroll down until you see the title of the story.

You will have an exam solely on the short story you have chosen on Thursday, October 1
Whichever story you choose, you will be asked to identify, discuss and support with evidence:

1.  How the short story show the course theme "into the light."
2.  How a character in the short story is like the cave prisoner who is unshackled, exposed to the light (the truth) but is distressed by what he discovers
3.  Your own original insights and fresh ideas to make connections between the "Allegory fo the Cave" and the short story

"Orientals" are carpets, not people: Ban on usage becomes New York State law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 9, 2009

GOVERNOR PATERSON SIGNS LEGISLATION TO ELIMINATE THE USE OF “ORIENTAL” IN STATE DOCUMENTS 

Law Ends Use of Disparaging Term in State Forms and Preprinted Documents

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Governor David A. Paterson today signed legislation that will eliminate the use of the term “oriental” in reference to persons of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage in forms or preprinted documents used by State government, public authorities or municipalities. The law directs that existing forms be amended no later than January 1, 2010.

“The words we use matter. We in government recognize that what we print in official documents or forms sets an example of what is acceptable. With this legislation, we take action against derogatory speech and set a new standard,” Governor Paterson said. “The word ‘oriental’ does not describe ethnic origin, background or even race; in fact, it has deep and demeaning historical roots. I am pleased to sign this legislation and remove the phrase from preprinted forms and documents. I congratulate the work of Senator Johnson, Assemblywoman Meng and the community leaders who worked to bring this important bill to my desk.”

Senator Craig Johnson said: “Allowing derogatory and hateful language to linger in public discourse and gain legitimacy through its inclusion in official State documents is improper and inexcusable. I am proud to have partnered with Governor Paterson and Assemblywoman Meng to ensure that decency prevailed when this legislation became law.”

Assemblywoman Grace Meng said: “Thank you to all my colleagues for their support and to Governor Paterson for his vision and leadership on this historic legislation. I am especially proud that this bill was able to pass unanimously in the Assembly and the Senate. Derogatory and insensitive language, like that Senator Johnson and I are addressing with our legislation, should not be allowed to linger in official State forms. This bill will hopefully serve as an important vehicle to eliminate any future derogatory classifications of people from all ethnic backgrounds. We are all Americans regardless of our ethnic backgrounds and as such should not have to suffer being referred to in an offensive manner.”

The term “oriental” is widely considered a disparaging term, but has been used in some forms and preprinted documents issued by State government, public authorities and municipalities.

Yale Murder Story

The recent murder of the Yale student researcher, Annie M. Le, was strange from the start.  She was killed just days before her wedding in Long Island and her body was found stuffed inside a wall in Yale lab on the what should have been her wedding day.  And now it has gotten even stranger!

Police have arrested a Yale employee, Raymond Clark, for the murder.  He wasn't a stalker.  He wasn't another researcher.  He was the team leader of a crew assigned to the CARE, FEEDING AND WELL BEING OF LAB ANIMALS and it is believed that when he just couldn't take Annie's refusal to follow the procedures in the lab, he just snapped and killed her.

The New York Times runs a story today that pulls all of this into focus.  It is very interesting and shows a sharp contrast of two worlds:  those who take care of lab animals and sometimes grow attached and those who conduct medical research on same animals.  In one very sad instance these two worlds collided so badly that one person chose murder and another lost her life.


Here for the New York Times story 

Sneakerhead Profile

The Mayor of Sneakerdom

A cautionary tale laced with obsession

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

• Gray Hamner

  

  Farese is an unusual collector: He actually wears his shoes.
• 

  At the Crash Mansion, even the sneaker exchange has felt the effects of a recession.

Mark Farese is a man with two feet and 1,400 pairs of sneakers. In his New Jersey basement, plastic shoeboxes line the floor in rows and stack up in six-foot-high walls. The boxes, custom-made for him in Japan, bear his nickname: "The Mayor."

More here... 

And do not miss this comment at the end of the story:

py on Thu Aug 27, 2009, 11:25:17, says:

Great. A celebration of rampant consumerism. Farese is a real hero – to Nike. Voice, why not look a bit deeper into the extremely sophisticated marketing tactics by large companies that use street culture to convince potential buyers that purchasing their products will make them cool? Or better yet, how about NOT doing a story celebrating Farese, and others who have swallowed the marketing of these companies hook, line, and sinker? The most insidious part of this whole scheme is that Farese probably doesn’t even realize he’s being manipulated. And he in turn, by acting as an “influencer”, is passing on this acceptance of consumption to others, especially young minority males. Now that’s good marketing! Buying sneakers for $800 and perpetuating this obsession doesn’t make you cool, but it does make you a pawn to a multi-national company. I’m sure Nike is down wit’ dat.

Social Justice Topics

HW: For class on MONDAY 9/14 have THREE topics and two articles for each topic.  Place these in your folder or envelope and be prepared to talk about what you found.

Today in class we began making a list in our LJ of possible topics for the project. You should continue this list on your own.  In class on Friday we will talk about more about the topics that most interest the class.  Be prepared to ask questions of me and of each other on possible topics.  Right now you are at the very earliest stages of this project so it is important to "explore" topics to find the three most engaging and most likely to keep your interest and attention to the end.

Social Justice in America Project: An introduction

Learning the academic research paper as a “targeted progression”

Students identify and research a current social issue (problem) most interesting to the student

Initially, students choose THREE topics (social issues) - Students are to identify three social issues and define why each is a chronic problem in America. Find an article (magazine, journal, online, newspaper) on each fo the three issues.

Materials:
Students should get a two-pocket folder or 9 X 12 envelope to maintain the collection of articles for the project

Social Justice in America reflects the “targeted progression” of the activity in that it is outcomes-driven and so is, ideally, the discovery of solutions to the problems facing America.

Definition:
A social issue in America is an on-going and complex condition not limited to any single news event (although it may be part of a series of news events) that occurs without permanent relief or solution and by its continuing to exist has implications for inhibiting individual freedoms

This inhibition is reflective of the larger society/ culture’s norms that intentionally suppress these freedoms. For example, the governing body of a city may refuse to address a particular social problem and those who suffer from it and those who are affected may have their freedoms abridged by the city government’s failure to act.

This is an on-going process with very specific “assignments” or directions (targeted) intended to push the student toward a successfully completed academic research paper with MLA documentation and in-text citations (progression)

The project is set up as a series of “DIALOGUES” in which students meet in small groups to complete a targeted task during each class. The culmination fo the project is a completed research paper.

HW: For class on MONDAY 9/14 have THREE topics and two articles for each topic.

New school year - New YOU Year!

This course aims to get you ready - as much as we can - for real college reading and writing assignments. G is frequently asked, "What's the difference between your course and advanced placement English?"

G responds: Students in my course are not engaging in test prep for a terminal exam in May. My students will not receive college credit for this course if they score a 4 or better on an exam. Greater flexibility in the curricula allows for planning and instruction that meets student needs - modifications can be made when material or method is not reaching students. Ultimately, the student in this course learns in a low-stakes class setting - they identify their strengths and set goals get ready for college reading and writing for their freshman year of college.

How do we operate?

Various projects will be introduced on different themes. Each project is intended to engage students and have an outcome-driven assignement (project) explicitly to demonstrate skills and knowledge aligned with college level instructional expectations.