The Gates Foundation - spending billions to make my creative writing students' dystopia a reality

This evening during my creative writing workshop we talked about setting and world building. I had the kids do one of my favorite brainstorming exercises for this topic: EXTRAPOLATING INTO THE FUTURE.

I ask the students to make two columns. In column one, they write a current law, issues or technology. In the second column, I ask them to extrapolate what they have written in column one, imagining it in a future society. Is it being taken to an extreme? Is it being used for good or not so good purposes?

The example I gave them is scientists currently using brain imaging for various forms of research (ie/Alzheimers, Autism, MS, etc.) What if in the future they used that technology see how a subject reacted to images of murder or other forms of crime and isolated those who reacted positively to those images because they were likely criminals?

My younger kids (rising 6-7 graders) were more lighthearted, yet I'm amazed by the cynicism and distrust of government I see in all of my students. (Heckuva job, Washington!)

One student had some wonderfully innovative ideas - I told her I want to be her business manager and pitch them to Shark Tank.

One of my guys wrote an interesting, humorous piece about how the government, in an attempt to ensure everyone's safety, created bubbles around everyone's houses for protection. But eventually the citizens started getting upset because they couldn't get out to go do things like go on vacation. The Commander in Chief was President Imafraud. Like I said, cynical!

The same kid, in his brainstorming list, wrote about the iPhone 3D. "They're coming out with the 4D with a few months but it's hard to see the difference." (LOL!)

His piece led to an interesting discussion about the impact the government's protective bubbles would have on community and citizenship. This is an example of why the setting and world building workshop is always one of the most lively and fun.

My older kids (rising 8-9 graders) are all working on dystopian novels, so this exercise was particularly useful.

What was really interesting to me as a political writer was one student's projection that schools would be abolished and kids would be educated via computer - because it sounds very much like vision promoted by the Gates Foundation.

I asked the student how he would feel if that really happened.

"I wouldn't like it," he said. "We're required to have iPads next year. I'm not happy. I like to write things down."

We had another lively discussion about a certain class all my kids had shared last year in school, in which computer instruction was used.

Verbatim comments from my students:

"Our teacher sits us in front of the computer for the entire class. He doesn't actually teach us anything."

"Half the time the keyboard doesn't work and then you can't finish the assignment."

"If you don't get it right you just have to keep on practicing until you do. It's really frustrating."

And then the student who wrote that school would be reduced to a computer said to me, "I like this kind of class, like we're having here."

Here's the thing, Mr. Gates: I am not anti-technology. I love technology. I use it every day. I couldn't even consider writing the two books I have with an October 1st deadline if it weren't for my Macbook Pro (Yeah, gave up PCs years ago) and my Scrivener.

But the difference between you and me is that I see technology as a tool - one among many that can be used to reach students.

You are spending billions of dollars to influence policy to make it THE SOLUTION, thus forcing it on my kids - because I view all of the students I work with as my kids. And that, Mr. Gates, is wrong. Maybe you should get out of your Billionaire Bubble, stop listening to the yes men and the Wall Street folks and hear from some actual young people - the ones who are being affected by your misguided policies.

Stop making excuses for the inexcusable

This was a letter I sent to The Duke Chronicle, the newspaper at my alma mater, after our winning basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewki (aka Coach K) who is lauded similarly to Paterno, defended Paterno in the New York Times last November


"As a proud Duke alum who is also a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I was appalled and disgusted by Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s attempt to make excuses for his fellow Coach, Penn State’s Joe Paterno, for not contacting police when informed of a horrific act by then assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. (New York Times, The Quad 11/14/11) Coach K wants us to give Paterno a pass based on his age (“one thing you have to understand is that Paterno is 84 years old) and thus the “immense changes and how social issues are handled in those generations.”

For a man who in June taped a show for ESPN with Paterno about “ethics and integrity and issues related with college athletics,” Krzyzewski’s moral ambivalence and his insistence that Paterno remains a “great man in a horrific situation,” makes clear that he needs to revisit his understanding of integrity, ethics and greatness.

When teaching writing workshops, I always start with character, because exploring human nature is what makes writing such an endlessly fascinating pursuit. Plot discussions focus on throwing stumbling blocks in the character’s way, so he or she is forced to make choices, because in the immortal words of JK Rowling’s Albus Dumbledore (drawing on Sartre) “It is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

The point Coach K doesn’t understand, or perhaps chooses, willfully, to miss, is that it’s the choices one makes when faced with such a horrific situation that prove whether one is truly great, not the number of football games or basketball games won.

Joe Paterno has achieved many wonderful things in his 84 years. But like many who could have achieved true greatness, he had a tragic flaw, one that resulted in children who might have been saved being sexually abused. His legacy is rightfully tarnished. Coach K shouldn’t be in the game of making excuses for the inexcusable."

What I learned from kids about Accelerated Reader

Last night I taught the first of a series of creative writing workshops at the C.H. Booth library in Newtown CT. It's the second year I've taught these workshops and despite the travel to get there and back (it's an hour each way) I really love doing them. I teach two groups - one rising 6-7 graders and the other rising 8-9 graders, each for an hour and a half.

In our session last night, we talked about how writers get ideas and did some brainstorming exercises.

As a writer, I find teaching these workshops incredibly energizing. After all, these are my people, the kids I write for - okay, maybe some are little younger, but I do plan to write a middle grade again some day. I learn so much from them by listening.

Last night, what I heard broke my heart. In my younger group, the 6-7 graders, I asked the kids for some books that they'd really loved. And from one of the most promising writers in the group, I heard this: "I read this really long book and it was a waste because it wasn't in Accelerated Reader."

I died a little inside. Actually a lot. And then I said to her, "It's NEVER a waste to read a book you enjoy."

The girl next to her said that she'd started reading the Harry Potter series and loved it but then she "got stuck in Accelerated Reader."

This generated a whole discussion amongst the kids about AR. One girl complained that she likes to read high school books but because she is at 8th grade level on AR she is only allowed to read those books. Out of ten kids in the class, there was one kid who was happy with AR, and that was because she'd won a pizza party with two friends because she'd got to 500 AR points and it was a big source of pride and accomplishment.

But this is a kid who is involved with Odyssey of the Mind, multiple after school activities - a clearly bright and motivated child. Is anyone telling me that AR got her to read and that she wouldn't have been reading anyway? That she couldn't have been motivated without "points"?

During the break between my class I spoke to the librarian who runs my CW workshop about how heartbroken I was to hear this. She said that the school librarian at the elementary school was a big proponent of AR, because it had shown marked benefits with the reluctant and average readers.

I'm not convinced training kids like puppies with "treats" is the way to turn them into lifelong readers. I had the privilege of hearing our National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, Walter Dean Myers speak in May at the Hudson Children's Book Festival, and he convinced me more than ever that it's adults modeling enthusiasm for books and reading and getting books into the home EARLY through programs like Reading is Fundamental and First Book that really makes a difference. That and investing in early childhood education.

Instead we are cutting library funding and school librarians, cutting funding to literacy programs, and school systems are spending money on programs like AR, because it seems like an easy, one size fits all fix, instead of letting teachers work their magic. And in doing so, we end up with kids thinking that reading a really long book they enjoyed is a "waste." That makes my blood boil. It makes me wonder who the hell is making decisions about education in this country and if they're doing for benefit of kids or for financial benefit.

For more on Accelerated Reader from those in the trenches here's some further reading:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/2010/09/reading_rewarded_part_ii.html

http://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/accelerated-reader-frustrations/

http://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/what-kids-are-reading-2012-why-it-doesnt-matter/

What kids want to know from a real live author

I'm going back to the wonderful and incredibly picturesque CH Booth library in Newtown, CT to teach writing workshops for young people this summer. It's a five week creative writing course, starting this Thursday.

Before the course begins, librarian extraordinaire, Margaret Brown, who organizes a series of writing workshops for kids throughout the year, including mystery and poetry,
sent out a letter from me to all the course participants, in which I shared three of the books that I'd read recently that I was really excited about (SEE YOU AT HARRY'S by Jo Knowles, ONE FOR THE MURPHYS by Lynda Mullaly Hunt and CODE NAME VERITY by ELIZABETH WEIN)and asked them to send me three questions that they wanted me to be sure to answer by the end of the course. Bear in mind that the kids range from 11-14.

The questions are so awesome I just have to share:

When do you end a paragraph?
I would like to learn more about punctuation.
A personal question, when did you start to write books?

How do you connect your ideas?
How do you make the suspense last?*
How do you come up with the characters?


What is being an author like?
How do they get their ideas for writing?
How do they publish their books?


How do you get your first book published without knowing who to go to?
Did anyone reccomend a publisher or did you ask some one about it?
Has any of your books ever been rejected? If so, how did you feel?

When did you start writing?
Did you have trouble getting published?
Do you ever get "writers block"? If so, how do you get through it?
What's your bestt advice for kids my age who are hoping to become a writer in their future?

UPDATES: MORE QUESTIONS!

How do you get a book published?
How does your book become a nutmeg? (CT State Award)
How do you get to be an author?
What kinds of writing are we working on this summer?
How are we developing our ideas?
Are you working on any books/projects as of now?

And this, my absolute favorite:


If you were seen in public, do you get surrounded by fans, asking for your autograph?

Answer: Yes, in my dreams...but then I wake up!

I'll add more as they come in.

Authors, please feel free to chime in with your advice to these enthusiastic creative minds. I told them that if I didn't know the answers, I would definitely know someone who did!


* Funnily enough, I try to read a book on craft before I start each big revision, one related to what I think I need to focus on in that revision. For the MS I am currently tearing apart like an 80's suit with shoulder pads, it was this book:



So hopefully I'll have some good tips that I'm actually trying to use myself!

Albus Dumbledore on Joe Paterno

 I've not been sleeping well this week. When you've been sexually abused as a child, you can do years of therapy and think "okay, I've dealt with that and I'm 'cured'" but then when you least expect it, something will happen that triggers this reaction from your reptilian brain, the one where the trauma was imprinted when you were young and scared and voiceless. I wrote about that here. 

So ever since I heard about the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, it's been one massive trigger after another. I wrote this initially, but watching the PSU students riot in support of Coach Joe Paterno was incredibly disturbing.

And then I read this piece by Joe Posnanski, Paterno's biographer.

Here's the part that really got me:

 Joe Paterno has lived a whole life. He has improved the lives of countless people. I know — I’ve talked to hundreds of them. Almost every day I walk by the library that he and his wife, Sue, built. I walk by the religious center that tries to bring people together, and his name is on the list of major donors. I hear the stories, the countless stories, of the kindnesses that came naturally to him, of the way he stuck with people in their worst moments, of the belief he had that everybody could do a little bit better — as a football player, as a student, as a human being. I’m not going to tell you these stories now, because you can’t hear them. Nobody can hear them in the howling.

But I will say that I am sickened, absolutely sickened, that some of those people whose lives were fundamentally inspired and galvanized by Joe Paterno have not stepped forward to stand up for him this week, have stood back and allowed him to be painted as an inhuman monster who was only interested in his legacy, even at the cost of the most heinous crimes against children imaginable.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and although I realize my perspective is colored by my experience, I still disagree with Posnanski and here's why. I'll let Dumbledore explain, because he is so much wiser than I am:

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

         Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets  JK Rowling

When I teach writing workshops, I always start with character, because to me exploring the human character is the most interesting part of writing a novel. When we talk about plot, I explain the need to throw create tension by throwing stumbling blocks in the way of our character, because that forces the character to make choices, and it's through choices that the character experiences growth - or, conversely, exhibits the fatal flaw that leads to his or her downfall.

When I think about Joe Paterno, I think about the decent, good man that Posnanski sees, who had superlative abilities and indeed helped many young people. But who nonetheless had a tragic flaw.

Why did he make the choice he did? Is it because he was concerned about his legacy? Was it out of loyalty to a colleague whom he'd worked for years? We don't know the truth yet. But what we do know is that he made a despicable choice, for as yet to be ascertained reasons. And no matter what Joe Posnanski says, despite everything that has gone before, Joe Paterno deserves a tarnished legacy. Because our choices DO show what we truly are.