The Happiness Project

After an unfortunate period of reading hibernation, I've finally picked up a book that I'm moving through quickly, called The Happiness Project.

I'm excited to blog about this book, as I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and it's easy to make personal connections. The book is written by an educated, affluent upper-east sider who decided to undertake a year long project where she would try to increase her happiness. She focuses on a new area of her life each month: Boost Energy (January), Marriage (Feb), Work (March), Parenthood (April), Leisure (May), Friendship (June), etc.

When I got to the work section, one of her suggestions was to make a BLOG (which made me so excited since I have two going right now and could totally relate)! Launching a blog, Rubin said, gave her "an enormous rush of triumph. I couldn't believe I managed to do it. The experts had been correct about the happiness effect of novelty, challenge, and an atmosphere of growth" (77). The thing about setting up the blog and getting used to it is that it's HARD and UNFAMILIAR and takes WORK especially at the beginning, and you have to do a little bit each day, but it's worth it because you have ACCOMPLISHED something and realize it's OKAY TO ASK FOR HELP. When I first started this blogging idea, I was doing hours of research on features of a blog and how to set up widgets. I was in constant contact with Randy, our district technology expert, to get help setting up the blog. When I introduced the blogging idea to the 9th grade team, I had to demonstrate features of the blog, help them get theirs set up and do some trouble shooting. When we started blogging with the 9th grade, it took some difficulty, tech errors, and time to get the blogs started, but it was all a learning experience. I could totally relate to Rubin when she said, "my blog remained an excellent source of happiness through challenge. The more I did, the more I wanted to do. I wanted to add images. I wanted to drop the world "typepad" out of my URL. I wanted to podcast. I wanted to add live links...I'd find myself overwhelmed with ignorance and helplessness...the images weren't loading...the images were too small..." (77). The she mentions, "As I struggled to master these tasks I would 'put myself in jail' and tell myself I had nowhere to go until I finished the task...It doesn't matter how long it takes, I have all the time I want...of course this wasn't true...but telling myself I had all the time I needed helped me focus" (77).

Despite her troubles, and despite my own struggles with starting up blogger, Rubin and I both came to the conclusion that blogging is gratifying and new challenges lead to happiness. Rubin states, "One reason that challenge brings happiness is that it allows you to expand your self-definition. You become larger. Also, a new identity brings you into contact with new people and new experiences, which are also a powerful source of happiness" (78). I have a new identify as a blogger and have overcome challenges of setting up the blog, learning blogger, and figuring out what to blog about, to help me increase the quality of my blogging. I hope to continue to grow with this experience. I'm hoping to look back to this blog post and think "how amateur!" as I grow in my understanding of writing and blogging.

Rubin said it best, "My blog gave me a new identity, new skills, a new set of colleagues, and a way to connect with people who share my interest. I'd expanded my vision of the kind of writer I could be. I had become a blogger" (78). :)

You can access her blog here: http://www.gretchenrubin.com/

View Act II Scene II over the weekend. Come prepared for our debate on Monday! Can't wait to hear what you come up with.

My reading for the week has consisted of wonderful student narratives and informational reading on Columnist in preparation for an exciting unit we are creating for the B trimester.

Student narratives: The reason I'm enjoying these narratives is because I'm noticing purposeful and authentic dialogue, precise word choice for imagery and setting, and intentional structuring of the text to increase suspense. Thank you for using our short stories as models to incorporate these techniques in your own writing!

The Art of Column Writing by Suzette Martinez Standring: We can use this book as the backbone of the unit. I see lesson potential for writing leads, endings, subject matter, self-revision, and concise writing. There are also several quotes from famous columnist which I think could be used as conversation starters for each lesson. There are several examples of columns which include models for each of these lessons. I can't wait to hear about what my colleagues are reading about in regards to column writing!

Bloggers of the Week

Okay...I tried to get one from each class, but all of our bloggers came from Period One. Step it up Period Two!

Peyton has a great section that analyzes figurative language and how it changes meaning and tone in her Sept. 24th post.

Ever wonder what a book would sound like? Check out Jessica's album for Catcher in the Rye.

Read Trang's for voice. It may seem informal, but she's honest, direct, and casual, and has a unique style.

Kay's blog is great for hearing what it's like to love reading. You can feel her passion as you follow what she is reading.

Good work all!

Wabi-Sabi

I finished Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life over the weekend. Although it wasn't as comical as I thought it was going to be, it helped me to consider finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Also, something great happened. I found a word to describe how I've been feeling lately. Wabi-Sabi. Apparently, the author had been in search of this word too, and thankfully shared the word when she found it. She said she was looking for a word that meant "complete happiness and complete sadness simultaneously" where you feel "content, peaceful, hyper-aware of loss, in awe, perfectly, gently happy/sad" (205). She eventually found the word from 12th century Japanese history. Wabi-Sabi means "fusing two moods seamlessly; a sigh of slightly bittersweet contentment, awareness of transience of earthly things, and a resigned pleasure in simple things that bear the mark of that transience."

This is precisely the word I have been looking for. It's how I feel when I look at my newborn baby girl and am so in love with her big blue eyes, her round cheeks, and her pure spirit. I'm so perfectly happy with my child, yet I realize that this moment is incredibly fleeting, and that she will too soon grow out of this newborn stage, and eventually it will just be a memory that I will be desperately trying to cling to. Because of the "transience of earthly things" it makes this perfect moment of joy also a perfect moment of sadness/awareness that this too will pass as quickly as it came.

This is also the feeling Sayuri would often get in Memoirs of a Geisha and goes back to the discussion of the purpose of a fleeting life mentioned in my earlier posts.

Blogger of the Week Friday the 13th

Honors English Only:  

 

We will begin implementing something I'm going to call the "Blogger of the Week." I'm going to feature someone's blog every Friday. The "feature blogger" will be someone who has posted something that I believe is model-worthy and will help you understand the expectations of the rubric. In most cases, the feature blogger goes above and beyond the expectations of the rubric. I'm asking that each weekend you comment on that person's blog. We have seven more weeks of blogging and you will receive two points for each meaningful, quality comment you make for blogger of the week, therefore this will be a 14 point assignment. This 14 point assignment will be separate from your rubric.

 

 

Our first featured blog will be Jessica W. I would like for you to read through her page, but pay close attention to the September 8th post "Justice is Served." Jessica perfectly meets the expectation for the characters section of the rubric. Notice that she makes assertions on how the character changes or develops, but provides textual evidence to support each assertion and adds her own analysis to connect the quote to the assertion. In addition, Jessica provides a symbol to represent her character and explains in depth how this symbol represents each character's development and how this advances the plot. She also looks at all sides of the character and mentions several traits that are revealed throughout the story about each character. Well done, Jessica!

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life

I'm still not finished with Outliers, but Barnes and Noble called and informed me that I book I ordered, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, was in. It's such a quick read, I'm already on page 92 and need to talk about it. Starting on page two, I haven't stopped laughing. The way this book begins is basically mocking the format of how books are published. Instead of being a memoir written like a narrative, it's a memoir written by meshing together a bunch of random stories and things that have happened in her life by putting them into a category and inserting this into an encylopedia like format. For instance, she'll state something like "Bowling" as her header and then give a short (paragraph or two) blurb or story about that header. (see example!)

 

Penny Kittle, author of Book Love, used this book as a model for a quick, beginning of class, prompt. I may use this in my classes to start class by having them use the header "LOCKERS" for example and have them write a short statement about what comes to mind when they think about lockers.