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Feb. 8th, 2012 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
floorpigeonThings:
- I suck at time management, to the point where my biggest fantasy right this second isn't that I wake up in faerie, but that I wake up being good at time-management. Is that how you know you've grown up? Um, I hope not.
- Washington State legalized same-sex marriage! YEAH! I am suddenly proud of 'my' state. In fact I've never thought of it as 'mine' before, but NYS sure as hell ain't mine. I disown it, anyway. More importantly, we rock.
- I'm getting used to going to HS to intern/practice sitting quietly/etc, wtf. I'm so not cut out for hardcore urban schools, though. Even my nice, tiny, alternative HS makes me nervous till I relax. Seriously. Hardcore urban? Not my bag.
- We're reading a fantasy YA novel about historical African-American gods/characters/folklore in my class, and some of my group are like, 'fantasy is what turned me off literature in middle school'. O___o for realz! They are having flash-backs, and are like, really struggling to relate to black people's mythology, etc. Even the ones who've got fantasy-reading experience. People comfortable with this book make up a huge minority in our 10-or-so person group. Meh.
...I dunno. I feel let down but unsurprised. I just feel sad, maybe? I dunno. I just have to repeat to myself 'I am different, I am weird, I am different', 'cause like, I forget sometimes. Ok, so all the dialogue being in Ebonics kind of annoyed me (but I got used to it), and the plot was a little boring (but it got better), but they just had this huge resistance, and it was all because of this social/racial gap, and it's just depressing, man. I mean, really? REALLY???
And I can't blame them 'cause it's a visceral response, not an incorrect belief or misguided feeling. Fundamentally, the way I use literature and the way most people (probably) use literature are not the same, and the way I relate to new worlds and cultures is also fundamentally not the same. I mean, like I said, I wasn't thrilled about the Ebonics, but neither was I alienated. I was annoyed, a little bored, but not alienated. Black? Chinese? Rich? Poor? American? Japanese? Realistic? Fantastical? Gay? Straight? God? Human? Other? I don't care. Most people do, apparently. Is that okay? I guess it's neither ok nor 'not ok'...??
Depressing. These are supposed to be future teachers, interested in YA lit. I dunno, I don't blame them. I don't. The need to connect viscerally with literature is a real thing, and it's why these super-personal 'niche' books get written-- because black teenagers don't see themselves reflected in the literature. But I like to think that's not a majority feeling, across the board. I like to think literature can reach you regardless of your culture, and that universal meaning isn't a stupid pipe-dream, but maybe I just have to believe this book isn't good enough, and that's it.
- I suck at time management, to the point where my biggest fantasy right this second isn't that I wake up in faerie, but that I wake up being good at time-management. Is that how you know you've grown up? Um, I hope not.
- Washington State legalized same-sex marriage! YEAH! I am suddenly proud of 'my' state. In fact I've never thought of it as 'mine' before, but NYS sure as hell ain't mine. I disown it, anyway. More importantly, we rock.
- I'm getting used to going to HS to intern/practice sitting quietly/etc, wtf. I'm so not cut out for hardcore urban schools, though. Even my nice, tiny, alternative HS makes me nervous till I relax. Seriously. Hardcore urban? Not my bag.
- We're reading a fantasy YA novel about historical African-American gods/characters/folklore in my class, and some of my group are like, 'fantasy is what turned me off literature in middle school'. O___o for realz! They are having flash-backs, and are like, really struggling to relate to black people's mythology, etc. Even the ones who've got fantasy-reading experience. People comfortable with this book make up a huge minority in our 10-or-so person group. Meh.
...I dunno. I feel let down but unsurprised. I just feel sad, maybe? I dunno. I just have to repeat to myself 'I am different, I am weird, I am different', 'cause like, I forget sometimes. Ok, so all the dialogue being in Ebonics kind of annoyed me (but I got used to it), and the plot was a little boring (but it got better), but they just had this huge resistance, and it was all because of this social/racial gap, and it's just depressing, man. I mean, really? REALLY???
And I can't blame them 'cause it's a visceral response, not an incorrect belief or misguided feeling. Fundamentally, the way I use literature and the way most people (probably) use literature are not the same, and the way I relate to new worlds and cultures is also fundamentally not the same. I mean, like I said, I wasn't thrilled about the Ebonics, but neither was I alienated. I was annoyed, a little bored, but not alienated. Black? Chinese? Rich? Poor? American? Japanese? Realistic? Fantastical? Gay? Straight? God? Human? Other? I don't care. Most people do, apparently. Is that okay? I guess it's neither ok nor 'not ok'...??
Depressing. These are supposed to be future teachers, interested in YA lit. I dunno, I don't blame them. I don't. The need to connect viscerally with literature is a real thing, and it's why these super-personal 'niche' books get written-- because black teenagers don't see themselves reflected in the literature. But I like to think that's not a majority feeling, across the board. I like to think literature can reach you regardless of your culture, and that universal meaning isn't a stupid pipe-dream, but maybe I just have to believe this book isn't good enough, and that's it.
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Date: 2012-02-10 09:41 am (UTC)lol isn't there a cliche of the brilliant male asshole writer? And I guess it's a human mental divide where an author can sympathize wonderfully with fictional characters, but be a dick irl. Though, hm, I also think prejudices will almost always shine through. If only because authors usually are blind to them and don't realize what they're letting slip.
Ok my opinion on this book... Is that a Dillon cover? :DD 1. I love their art. Some of it is v famous so you'd prob recognize it. 2. The Dillons are interesting because they are husband and wife team (like they do the art *together*, which I'm trying to imagine the trust that takes and how it works), and *also* they met in art school in like the 1950s and she's white and he's black.
Ok that had not much to do with anything, but does show that maybe some care went into the design. Also the Dillons are talented and I encourage you to google them for more cool art. :D
The colloquial speech/language is really distracting and distancing to me, I admit. Some things work fine in speech but read oddly. And I'm always distracted by accents written out so much ("de" for "the"). I wonder if this would be easier for me as a book on tape? I can probably get into the groove, but yeah, tough for me to get into, and the sample pages skip around, so there's not enough plot to grab me. And then I'm wondering why the non-American god-child speaks this way. Maybe this is my prejudice? Associating more flowery speech and standard grammar w power? Maybe that's the point--that you can talk like this and it's normal and you can be a god? idk Or maybe I should imagine this story being told by someone who talks this way? lol many thoughts on "correct" language and class and race and my assumptions and I've only read like 3 pages. So it accomplished something. Then again, in the end, I'm not the target audience, so maybe this speaks really well to the people it's trying to reach.
It was funny, 'cause one girl said she *didn't* look things up to empathize better with the common experience of disadvantaged readers.
Um. But I assume, if this book was written with the idea it would reach certain people, it would speak to their experiences. So if you don't have those experiences, don't know the stories they have, and you want to get all the refs, you'd need to do research... I feel like this girl not looking things up basically had the idea that the target audience wouldn't know anything or have any stories. It feels like she didn't even think that they'd know things and have experiences she might not know. idk. I don't really know what the target audience would know or what the author assumed, but it seems dismissive to assume that I already know more than them. I mean, if nothing else, I don't know what it's like to be black in America. I mean, I read and talk to friends, but there are certain things I still don't know, or just miss because it's not my lived experience.
If nothing else, I feel women should be able to get this, since men often have the same problems writing and reading about women.
Plus we have google now! Research takes like 3 secs. I mean, I think a good book doesn't usually need outside research, but this isn't reading for pure fun, but for cultural broadening as a teacher.
Eh, you know that was prob just bs and she was making an excuse to not look things up though.
Certainly, I wonder about the teaching chops of people who just can't use their imagination very well (I mean, err, well, you can *not like* it as a genre, but when you just don't get it, it seems that's the issue).
ia ia Plus imagination will help deal with kids who learn in different ways, which many ppl do even from similar backgrounds, so they can present the same info in different ways.