ENGL 4800 Final

I'm doing my final project for my ENGL 480 Teaching Literature In Secondary Schools. It will be a multi-genre project including blogs, creative writing, and art. The project will be using PostSecret. What I need from you are secrets. If any of you are interested in helping me I need you to either send your secrets to me or if you see me in class casually drop your secret into my backpack. All secrets will be posted on a blog. I'll post the link when I am finished.

Guidelines (the same Frank Warren uses for the PostSecret Blog.)
You are invited to anonymously contribute your secrets to PostSecret. Each secret can be a regret, hope, funny experience, unseen kindness, fantasy, belief, fear, betrayal, erotic desire, feeling, confession, or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything - as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before."

"Create your own 4-by-6-inch postcards out of any mailable material. But please only put one secret on a card. If you want to share two or more secrets, use multiple postcards. (Please do not e-mail your secret.)"

"Please put your complete secret and image on one side of the postcard."

"Tips:
* Be brief - the fewer words used the better.
* Be legible - use big, clear and bold lettering.
* Be creative - let the postcard be your canvas."

You can mail it to me at

Rachel Trembley
2017 Elkerton Ave
Apt. 308
Kalamazoo MI, 49048

For those of you who don't know what PostSecret is... http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

"PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."

"Since Frank Warren created the site on January 1, 2005, PostSecret has collected and displayed upwards of 75,000 original pieces of art from people across the United States and some parts of the world (international readers have also been known to send in postcards). The idea of the project is simple: completely anonymous people decorate a postcard and portray a secret that they have never before revealed. There is no restriction on what the content of the secret must be, only that it must be completely truthful and must never have been spoken before. Entries range from admissions of sexual misconduct and criminal activity to confessions of secret desires, embarrassing habits, and hopes and dreams."

There are now four books filled with postcards from the site. They are:

PostSecret : Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives
MySecret: A PostSecret Book
The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book
A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book

Week 8 - Webb Ch. 7

Chapter Seven - Testimonial, Autoethnography, and the Future of English

"Poststructuralism begins with the assertion that "consciousness" as we experience it resides in language and that language is always a social phenomenon, created by an interactive community of speakers. (Webb 135)"

"Deconstruction asks us to look carefully into what is already there, ans, as well, to see behind, around, above, below and so on. If the poststructuralist insight is correct that our consciousness is determined by language and social discourses, then deconstruction means the English classroom, rather than being separated form the "real world," is a place where meaning and change take place as we examine, rethink, ands play with the texts and roles set up for us. (Webb 139)" This quote helps me understand deconstruction better. I had a hard time coming to a solid understanding of it from Appleman's book.

"A postmodern approach to teaching would freely examine the kaleidoscopic variety of contemporary life...Postmodern teaching would invite different voices; it would find the historical in the contemporary, and the contemporary in the historical. (Webb 143)"

"Like poststructuralists, traditional Marxists believe that they way people think and believe, their "ideology," is not something they freely choose. For Marxists, ideology is most basically the result of the economic structure of society, and changes in forms of thought derive from changes in fundamental and underlying economic realities. (Webb 150)"

There was a lot of theory discussion within this chapter. I felt like it was thrown at me, and I have a hard time working with texts like that. I still don't fully understand postmodern and Marxist theories. I think I may have to research them further. I really feel that by the end of the chapter I had been so overloaded with theory that I just wanted to be done with the chapter, which is unfortunate because it is the last chapter I have to read in Webb's book.

I think this chapter should have been broken up into smaller more digestible theory sections.

Week 8 - Webb Ch. 4

Chapter Four - Addressing the Youth Violence Crisis

The first thing in this chapter that really caught my eye was Scott's viewpoint on page 56. He talks about the high school freshman who has not future for college, but can sell drugs to make money. The way he explained his viewpoint was very interesting, and I found it hard to argue with. It would take an immense amount of willpower to overcome the urge to take the easy way out, especially for a 16 year old. I thought Scott's reasoning was very well done.

"Multicultural studies brings new and broader conceptions of literature to teaching. Reworking traditional philological approaches, scholars recover oral and popular traditions and stress the importance of understanding literature in cultural and historical contexts. (Webb 59)"

Within the section on Multicultural Studies Webb discusses the Norton Anthology of African American Literature. I used this in my Black American Literature class at Western and I found it to be an amazing text. The way my teacher used the text in addition to interviews, reviews, and jazz selections enhanced the anthology and made me interested in the selections. It was one of my favorite Literature classes at Western.

I'm interested in the section of Mass Media. It's something I want to incorporate into my final project. "Creating their own media "texts" sharpened their literacy, their understanding of language, texts, and images, and their ability to read and "deconstruct" the world that surrounds them. (Webb 66)" I think incorporating the PostSecret blog, having students make their own postcards, and creating our own blog will enhance the students learning.

Week 8 - Appleman Ch. 8

Chapter Eight - Critical Encounters: Reading the World

"Critical encounters with theory help students and teachers re-evaluate what counts as knowing in the literature classroom, Contemporary literary theory helps students reshape their knowledge of texts, of themselves, and of the worlds in which both reside. (Appleman 139)"

"Students' ability to read texts, the world, and their own lives is enhanced not only by the study of individual theories themselves but by the notion of multiple perspectives. (Appleman 141)"

I think using theory within the class would be helpful in understanding the text and multiple perspectives. I think this could be enhanced further by combining the theories and teaching them together.

I think this book is a great resource for better understanding literary theories and multiple perspectives. It has certainly helped me understand the purpose of theory within the classroom. Although I don't like all of the theories or fully understand all of them, I can see myself returning to this book for help and guidance.

Week 7 - Appleman Ch. 7

Chapter Seven - From Study Guides to Poststructuralism: Teacher Transformations

Reading about Martha's transformations during teaching led me to think about my own teaching, especially about my classroom. I already know I don't want straight rows of desks. I really want a student centered classroom, this may mean a bit more chaos and noise, but I fully believe the end result is worth it. My ideal class would be students seated in groups or tabled pairs with my desk in a corner. I don't want to sit at a desk all day, I want to be an active participant within my own classroom.

It's interesting to see the transformations a real educator went through. Teaching Goals, Changing Curriculum, Collaboration, Theory, Development, all of these are things that I have ideas about now, but I know they will change as I get further into my teaching career.

I really like that Martha states that she didn't try to change overnight. It most definitely will be a long process that will take in my newly learned knowledge from my experiences within the classroom.

What do you want your classroom to be like?

Week 7 - Appleman Ch. 6

Chapter Six - Deconstruction: Postmodern Theory and the Postmodern High School Student

"Deconstruction is a strategy for revealing the under layers of meaning in a text that were suppressed or assumed in order for it to take its actual form...Texts are never simply unitary but include resources that run counter to their assertions and/or their authors intentions. (Appleman 101)"

I was somewhat confused by the beginning of the chapter. I suppose it helps to clarify what deconstruction is, but there were so many separate quotes and ideas on what it is, that I just ended up confused on what the real definition was. Appleman addresses this on page 106."Perhaps...the most difficult part of teaching deconstruction to adolescents is the attempt to define it."

I really liked the section on student reflection on Deconstruction. Along with it the list of Books and Poems to use for deconstruction was helpful. I was surprised to find out that I have already read many of the books and poems listed. I think I may try to go back and apply deconstruction to some of them to see if I can enhance my understanding.

Week 6 - Appleman Ch. 5

Chapter Five - A Lens of One's Own: Of Yellow Wallpaper and Beautiful Little Fools

"Theory provides us with a way of recognizing and naming other visions while promoting our own ways of seeing. Theory helps us recognize the essential quality of other visions: how they shape and inform the way we read texts, how we respond to others, how we live our lives. Theory makes the invisible visible, the unsaid said. (Appleman 75)"

I liked the application of the Feminist lens to Hamlet. It was interesting to see the interpretations of Gertrude and Ophelia traditionally and with the Feminist lens.

I think the application of the Feminist lens to The Yellow Wallpaper would be an activity I could apply within my classroom. I've read it many times, but when using the Feminist lens I've taken much more from the story and gained a greater understanding of the main character.

"The goal of teaching theory is not to produce discrete interpretations of individual artifacts; it is to help interpret, understand, and respond to our lived experiences. (Appleman 91)"

"Feminist Criticism is a political act whose aim is not simply to interpret the world but change it, by changing the consciousness of those who read and their relation to what they read. (Appleman, 93).

I really like the idea of applying the Feminist lens to texts with a strong female character base. It allows us to reconsider their part within the story, and maybe gain a better understanding of the text as a whole.