#SOL16: Folks,This is Genocide

from here.

This is a link to an article in The New Yorker, The Babies are Dying in Aleppo. Instead of reading my blog, please read the article and then ask the leader of your country to take action. To do nothing is to condone the war crimes and murderous actions of President Bashar al-Assad's regime and the aggressive actions of the Russians.

What I'm Reading in 2014: Not The Usual Fare

Image by Robert Adams.

A few books I have either started to read or will be reading soon.  An eclectic set of books about art, photography, poetry, genocide, education, and anthropology.

Adams, Robert. (2012). Skogen. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery.

Brown, Lee Ann. (2013). In the Laurels, Caught. (Fence Modern Poets Series). Pittsburgh, PA: Fence Modern Poets Series.

Image by Doug Rickard. from Doug Rickard: A New American Picture.

Campany, David. (2012). Doug Rickard: A New American Picture. New York: Aperture.

Elkins, James. (2000). How To Use Your Eyes. New York: Routledge Press.

Image by Mary Ann Reilly from Jane Gangi's Genocide in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature: Cambodia to Darfur. 

Gangi, Jane. (2014). Genocide in Contemporary Children's and Young Adult Literature: Cambodia to Darfur. New York: Routledge Press. 

Poem by Noelle Kocot from Soul in Space.

Kocot, Noelle. (2013). Soul in Space. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.

Cover to Saul Leiter: Early Color.

Leiter, Saul. (2008). Saul Leiter: Early Color. Steidel.

Morris, Errol. (2011). Believing is Seeing: Observations on the Mysteries of Photography. New York: Penguin Press. 

Mullen, Harryette. (2013). Urban Tumbleweeds: Notes from a Tanka Diary. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.

Image by Jimmy Nelson. From Before They Pass Away.

Nelson, Jimmy. (2013). Before They Pass Away. New York: teNeues.
Ruefle, Mary. (2013).  Trances of the Blast. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.
Ruefle, Mary. (2012). Madness, Rack and Honey: Collected Lectures. Seattle, WA: Wave Books.

Image by Sebastiao Salgado from Sebastiao Salgado: Genesis.

Salgado, Lelia Wanick & Sebastiao Salgado. (2013). Sebastiao Salgado: Genesis. New York: Taschen.

Image by Klett and Wolfe from Reconstructing the View -  The Grand Canyon: Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.

Senf, Rebecca A. (2012). Reconstructing the View -  The Grand Canyon: Photographs of Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe.  University of California Press.
Trethewey Natasha. (2003). Bellocq's Ophelia: Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press.
Vasudevan, Lalitha & Tiffany DeJaynes (Eds.). (2013). Arts, Media, and Justice: Multimodal Exploration with Youth (New Literacies and Digital Epistemology's).
Wells, Liz. (2002). The Photography Reader. New York: Routledge.

And the night is enormous: CCSS, Percentages, and Genocide

I. 

 A friend sends a draft chapter from a book she is writing about genocide that Routledge will publish in 2013. The chapter is about the influence of the arts (especially) and literature on those who have become genocide scholars and activist.  Professor Alex Hinton cited the Paz poem, "Hermandad" as influential on his study of genocide. 

Here it is. I find it important to hear this aloud.

Brotherhood

Octavio Paz

Homage to Claudius Ptolemy

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment
someone spells me out.

Translated from the Spanish by Eliot Weinberger


Professor Charli Carpenter cited the 'I, Borg' episode Star Trek: The Next Generation as that which was influential on her work on international laws about war crimes. 





Films such as: Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979), Ghosts of Rwanda (Greg Barker, 2004), The Mission (Roland Joffé, 1986), The Shop on Main Street (Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos, 1965), The Killing Fields (Roland Joffé, 1984)--also were cited as influential.

II. 
 
It gives me pause when I survey the list--74% of the influential texts are art, music, and literary works.  The remainder are informational texts--largely autobiographies, biographies, and memoirs. Popular culture, visual and musical arts, photographs, films, literary works--all influenced those who are clearly 'career ready'.  My friend writes that she wonders about the Common Core State Standards and its insistence on percentages of specific text types and I wonder too.   Is there some research apart from David Coleman's remarks that indicates 75% of the high school texts 'should be informational" and 25% narrative? Why?


III.

How foolish to think we can know the proper percentages of anything--let alone that which would make one college and career ready. How many of us simply act on this information via the CCSS as a given truth?

Local matters.  Context (in)forms.  To forget this is to be ignorant.

IV.

And the night is enormous.

Guest Blog: Trail of Tears--A Concrete Poem by Katie (Grade 7)

This is an excellent concrete poem that a seventh grader from a pubic school in NJ wrote in response to a unit of study focusing on genocide. Katie's work came to me via her teacher, Rob Cohen (@rcohen54) and is published here with permission from the author and her mother. I was moved when I read it and thought it a fine example of transmediation: the mix in this case of word and image. 

I hope you will take a moment to post a response to Katie.



Katie's Introduction: Nature is a beautiful thing. This beauty is everywhere but it is always forgotten when a tragedy like genocide occurs. While creating a poem for a project on genocide, I wanted to highlight the scenery and the helpless creatures that witnessed the Trail of Tears, but had no understanding of the real actions being taken. The Native Americans also looked to the Spirits and found hope in animals and nature. I found that this was an important part of the genocide, even though it was not actually realized as that. It is an imperative for a culture to retain many of their traditions and lifestyles in spite of the hardships and tragedy of genocide.