Book 151: My Antonia by Willa Cather.

“Now I understood that the same road was to bring us together again. Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past.” 

My Antonia is a book that I have avoided since my first read as an incoming high school freshman. It was one of three books we were required to read before the year started (the other 2 were Ender's Game and The Count of Monte Cristo), and it was a novel that my entire class hated. I've actually written about that experience before, back when I read Cather's O Pioneers! as book 25. 

At the time, I think my read of her novel came at the wrong time. First, it followed two books that blew me away with action and plot. And if you've read My Antonia, you know it is a much quieter book.

I also think I fell victim to the pressure of my peers to hate the book. Because I while I remember being frustrated with the novel, I don't think it was until I was in class talking about the book that I hated it.

In all reality, My Antonia is a book I should have loved back then. I have always been fascinated by life on the prairie and the lives of those who went west with the expansion of the United States (as proven by my love for Laura Ingalls Wilder and the fact that my American Girl doll was Kirsten-the pioneer). I suppose I can chalk up my previous experience with Cather to being a stubborn teenager, and to the book finding me in the wrong time and place.

For this read, I was excited to begin. After loving O Pioneers! so dearly, I had high expectations for this, especially because I could barely remember it. I decided to dive in during The Classics Club Readathon, and I wasn't disappointed by the story.

Yes, My Antonia is a quieter story. At its heart, it is a perfect example of picaresque literature. There are small stories that connect together in small ways, but they all come back to the narrator's reflections of Antonia.

“But she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”

The writing is absolutely divine. Cather paints a portrait of life on the American prairie and the challenges those individuals face. And while the read certainly gets to know Jim Burden, the narrator, we also get to know the community he grew up in and how Antonia fit into that world.

The beginning of the novel has some of my favorite descriptions. It is early on in the novel that Jim comes west to live with his grandparents, and the enormity of the landscape almost overwhelms him at times.

“There were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-washed sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disk rested on the high fields against the horizon, a great black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We sprang to our feet, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the share—black against the molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.”

From Jim's appearance on the prairie, there is also the appearance of Antonia and her family-a strong-willed group of immigrants who struggle to survive amidst the hard conditions. Reading about their struggle brought back a lot of images related to the other "pioneer" novels I have read. And like the others, Cather touches on the violence of the conditions, but also the beauty of a land more devoted to nature than human influence.

“There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.” 

The novel also continues to grow with the characters. Jim and Antonia grow up and change-moving to town and discovering loves of their own. Their growth, as well as the growth of the prairie, are central to the entire novel. While they shape the land around them, it also shapes who they become.

In all, it is a beautiful novel, but quiet. It merely reflects on the life of the pioneers-those brave individuals and families who forged the western half of the United States. It does so eloquently and with a quiet strength.

And, it was most certainly wasted on my 14 year-old self. But, I am glad I took the opportunity to read it again as an adult, and to cherish it.

 “The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers...I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”

"A Modern March" Announcement and Sign-up Post.

It has been quite some time since I have hosted a Classics themed event on the blog, and that dry spell is coming to an end in March!

I'm really excited to announce "A Modern March," a literary event focusing on the Modernist period. The event will begin on March 1 and end on March 31. The goal will be to read and focus on Modernist pieces of literature and learn more about that era.

To be perfectly honest, this is a literary movement I am not as comfortable with. While I have read Woolf (love her), Faulkner (love him), and a few selections from other Modern writers, I'm not as comfortable with their work as a whole. This is the perfect opportunity to remedy that!

If you have no idea what constitutes a piece of "Modern" literature (and whenever I say Modern, I don't mean contemporary lit), it generally refers to literature written between the very late 19th century and the halfway point of the 20th century. In general, Modernist writers experimented with style, form, and theme. They broke away from the traditional viewpoints found in literature until that point and strove to focus on the darker and more unpleasant sides of life. This is also the time period where stream-of-consciousness made its roaring appearance.

Some of the big writers of the Modernist period were:

• William Faulkner
• Virginia Woolf
• Ezra Pound
• F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Ernest Hemingway
• Samuel Beckett
• Gertrude Stein
• e e cummings
• T.S.Eliot
• James Joyce

There are more, of course, but those are the heavy hitters of the period and those most closely associated with the movement.

To participate, please put up a post on your blog stating your intentions, then link it back here on the Mr. Linky widget. Starting on March 1, begin reading your Modernist literature selections. There will be a master post here for you to link your reviews throughout the month, and there will be a prize at the end of the event. I also have a sponsored giveaway for a new edition of Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise that will happen at some point during the month!

I hope you're as excited as I am-make sure you sign up!

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Classroom Tour.

I thought it would be fun to give you all a tour of my classroom. Since starting a new semester, I changed some things around and out up some new displays. And while my classroom isn't perfect (you'll see some clutter in some pictures), it is far more comfortable than it was first semester. 

Enjoy!

  

This is the view when you come in through the door of my room. My room is almost in the middle of our building, and was a room that was added on in recent renovations (it was a courtyard, or some such before). You'll see on the far left side a paneled wall-it moves so that my room and the one next door can be combined into one big room, but it's obviously closed during school hours. You can see my front board in the distance, as well as the sign language teacher's desk in the distance.

 

 

On the left-hand side of the door, you'll find our storage cabinet. With the exception of our filing cabinets and desks, this is the only storage we have in the room. Sadly, those boxes on the top were "inherited" from the teacher who retired at the end of last year, and we have yet to go through them. There are a ton of boxes and books in the cabinet I need to go through as well. Not being in my room during a prep hour kills my organization! Anyway, the genre posters are new! They're fashioned after old movie posters, and the kids really like them!

 

When you walk in the door, this is what is along the right wall. It is a huge whiteboard that is semi-useless (the projection screen is on the other wall, or I would use this as the front of my room). So, I've turned it into a display wall. Right now I have my display on The Great Gatsby, which I am really a fan of. :) To the left of the display is the "Schedule" area, where I write down our tasks for the day. At the time I took this picture, I had grades from first semester taped up. Above the board are a couple of banners-one with the presidents, and the other is a timeline of important events in U.S. History. They go along this wall, then curve around the corner to go above the door.

If you go straight into the room (the view above was at an angle), you'll find the "big desk," aka my desk. Since I am in the room for hours 1-4 (the sign language teacher is in here during 5 and 6-I travel to 2 other rooms those hours), the big desk houses a lot of my supplies and personal effects. There is my big (wrinkly) State flag, as well as a white board full of reminders, memos, and student art work. The upper left corner of the whiteboard is a collection of mythological coloring pages from my students last semester. You can also see my big filing cabinets, our TV, and a a bunch of my junk. I usually keep a pretty clean desk, but I have a ton of stuff to file and put away!

Right behind my desk and next to my filing cabinets is our storage space for the laptop and projector (my overhead projector is currently hiding on the bottom. I am using the cart for it to move my Maus books between classrooms). This is one of the many student areas I have. Both of my classes have a set of folders for absent work. This is also where I store papers to be passed back, etc. On the board are where I put BIG reminder dates, etc. You'll also see some lingering books and folders kids have left in my room. 

One of my favorite poster sets is above the board...a big bookshelf with titles of classics. :)

 This just shows the rest of the front of the room. The table in front is where I keep copies for the week and other things for the kids. I will often have kids come work at the table with me if they need extra help, or if we're editing a paper together. The bulletin board on this side of the whiteboard is a student info board. We post announcements for them, the lunch schedule, etc. Everything on the bookshelf is for them-supplies in the bins, and books. You'll also see Angela's desk (sign language teacher). She comes in about halfway through 4th hour, so she sets up shop there until I leave. :)

More of the partition wall. We put up student artwork on the panels as much as possible. Right now the wall is home to some of my mythology students' maps of Greek and Norse geography from last semester. You'll also see one of the 2 skylights in my room (the other is near the door). I don't have a window, so I have these...it's interesting, not having a window, and when it is dark outside, so is my room!

 

This is a new addition to the room-my grammar guide wall! I found inspiration for this on Pinterest, so I started pulling it together a couple weekends ago. It covers a lot of the silly errors students make-like affect v. effect. 

 Next to the grammar wall is a set of literary and figurative language terms. This is another new addition. I had been eying these posters with these terms and definitions online, and when I started looking into them, I realized that it would make more sense to just type them and make them myself (the posters online were like...$50. No thank you). And here we are!

 This was taken from the front of the room-just to show you our seating arrangement. The desks were in some kind of horseshoe last semester, and it worked okay for a while. We tried moving the desks into groups of four, but we just don't have enough room, so this works for now. Anyway, you can see the big back bulletin board. The right side is for Angela and the sign language classes. The left is for me, and right now it has World War II things up. I also have two more posters sets along the top-one on Parts of Speech and the other has quotes from women.

 And here is a close-up of the World War II wall. I still have some pictures to laminate and put up, but it's coming together! My Rosie the Riveter poster is a favorite, so once we're done with WWII, she'll find a home elsewhere in the room. I'll also keep the atom bomb picture up through our Cold War unit as well.

Well, that's my classroom! Like I said, it is a work in progress, but it is cozy and bright. :)

Weekly Wrap-up for Janaury 27, 2013: The Nightmare.

I had really big plans for this week-starting my new classes, beginning discussions on World War II and The Great Gatsby (I was SO EXCITED to talk about the green light).

All of that was thrown away when I came home on Wednesday to find Matt in bed shivering and looking horrible. I woke him up to talk to him and learned that he had been vomiting since BEFORE he went to work the previous day (Note: On Mondays and Tuesdays, we work opposite schedules. He goes to work at 4 in the afternoon and works through the night). So, Matt had been getting sick for over 24 hours.

I let him sleep for a couple hours, then woke him up with a hot bowl of soup. It didn't go well. He couldn't keep it down, and looking at him, I just knew something wasn't right. We decided to go to an urgent care facility a little down the road to get him looked at. I was concerned about his blood sugar level, since he is a type 1 diabetic. I was right to worry. After they got us into a room, I mentioned his diabetes, which got them moving (I should have mentioned it when we walked in). They tested his sugar and he couldn't even sit up. His sugar was at 402 (which is HIGH). Immediately they told me to take him to the hospital, so over to the ER we went.

After being admitted, they took us back almost immediately to a small room and got him hooked up to IVs, etc. His blood sugar was higher, he was still getting sick, and it was horrible. He was so dehydrated that they couldn't get into his veins to give him medicine and insulin. At one point, his blood sugar was so high (over 500) that when the nurse asked him to identify me he said, "I have no idea."

They made the decision to put him into the ICU after that, so we traveled upstairs. The meanest nurse told me to go "Wait somewhere" while they set him up. At that point, it was super late, I was alone, hysterical, and just wanted my husband to be okay. I may have lost it a bit in the waiting room, and eventually she came to tell me I could come see him.

It was so scary to see him hooked up to a lot of machines. They were worried about his heart rate since it was so high. But at least he was awake and talked to me a bit. The room had one chair, so I sat down and settled in for the night. I kid you not, that mean nurse told me at least ten times to go home (Matt agrees that she was really rude). I was not about to leave my husband alone in the ICU. Thankfully, another nurse brought me a blanket and tried to make me comfortable so I could sit with him during the night. I slept a little, but woke up every time they checked his sugar. At around 5, I snapped awake and Matt was awake too. He looked so much better, so we talked for a little while. I had to run home to feed the animals, call in for a sub, and sleep for a couple hours.

I was back by 9:30, and they decided to move him out of the ICU since his sugar level stabilized. At that point, it sank in he would be okay. From there, we spent the next two days waiting for his other levels to regulate themselves and getting some food in his stomach (he hadn't kept anything down since Monday night). He was finally able to come home Friday.

I am so glad to have him home. He feels a million times better, and it's great to see him looking like himself. He has a lot of bruises on his arms from all the needles and bloodwork, and the tips of fingers are bruised from them testing his sugar so much.

I feel really drained (emotionally) from everything that happened, but I am so grateful for my co-workers. They really helped me pull together lessons and make sure the subs were comfortable with my classes. The media specialist, a good friend of mine, stepped in and taught my history classes on Friday so the kids would have a break from book work.

The kids have also been quite sweet. I posted on my webpage that I wouldn't be in, simply saying my husband was in the hospital, and I've gotten some very concerned and sweet e-mails hoping he gets better.

I'm so happy to have such a warm and supportive group of people around me, but most of all, I'm glad Matt is home with me and on the mend.

Weekly Wrap-up for January 20, 2013: The Halfway Point!

On Tuesday, I am starting the second semester of my first official year of teaching. On one hand, I'm thinking that this crept up on me, but on the other, I'm excited for the content and excitement that comes with the spring!

I'm going to be busy. While I am losing a prep (I'm not teaching mythology this semester), I am gaining an section in each of my other classes-so I will have 3 U.S. History classes, and 2 sophomore English classes. In addition, I'm co-teaching theater, so I don't have a prep hour during the school day. I will be busy, yes, but I am excited for the challenges.

And to be honest, I am so excited to only have two classes that need prepping (the teacher I am working with for theater is doing all the planning). I feel like I can put a lot more of myself into those classes and come up with some amazing lessons.

Right now, I'm working on creating a display for The Great Gatsby. I'm printing out a ton of pictures, quotes, cartoons, and more that are related to the book and collage all over a wall. I'm also adding in some "20s" themed decorations-lots of glitz, feathers, and sparkles-to set it all off. There will also be a lot of yellow (oh symbolism), and I can't wait to get the rest of it up!

I'm also finishing up a bulletin board for my World War II unit. Right now I have my big Rosie the Riveter poster up, as well as a huge poster of an atom bomb detonation. There are some other things on the wall now, but I'm adding much more. I've found some pictures from Maus to display (since we're reading it), as well as other images of the time period.

I think both units are going to be amazing and set the tone for this second semester!

But I'm really excited about the collaboration going on between myself and another history/english teacher in the building. She is actually the teacher I subbed for two years ago! She is going to come into my history classes to give a presentation about her visit to a concentration camp, and share some of her family's experiences from during the war. In return, I'm going to her senior composition class to talk to her students about the classics and reading them! It's a win-win situation and just really inspires me. This is what teaching should be about!

And if you can't tell, I'm feeling really good. Now that I'm under treatment, I feel like a lot of pressure is off of my shoulders-I feel a bit free, actually. And feeling better physically? Nothing can really top that. :)

For today, I'm going to keep working on getting things ready for the week. I also need to sit down and read some more of Anna Karenina. :)