Thread Drift

[OakLeaf]

Most of what I remember from seventh grade English is: A short story must have a conflict. It can be a conflict between man and nature, man and man, or man and himself. To which I always added: Women are not permitted in short stories except as the object of the conflict.


But, I don't remember reading "The Cask of Amontillado" in school. "The Tell-Tale Heart," I'm pretty sure we did.

[Pax]

Most of what I remember from seventh grade English is: A short story must have a conflict. It can be a conflict between man and nature, man and man, or man and himself. To which I always added: Women are not permitted in short stories except as the object of the conflict.

Ha!! Good one.

I remember being "assigned" to the library for PE and recess for two years when I was in a wheelchair and using crutches when I was a kid. The librarian saw a crushed spirit as I was a wildly active kid, but she talked with me and actually listened and started steering me towards books far above my level, she helped me let my mind run free even though my body couldn't, she introduced me to some amazing literature... sure made english classes fun from that point on.

[smilingcat]

I taught that story in 7th grade English for years. But, as we moved from using anthologies to real literature, it went by the wayside.

I bristle at the thought of "using anthologies to real literature" Surely, Edgard Allen Poe will disagree. Perhaps it was the kerosene lamp in his living quarters that gave rise to many of his nightmarish stories.

So would real literature be something from Jane Austin? And would Canterbury tale be considered novellas since it is a collection of stories of characters from different background? Sometimes, serious literature leaves me dry: Die Brechtrommel and Der Butt. Never could get into Gunter Grass. didn't care for Oskar nor the fish nor the story of Awa. German literature is rife with anti-heros. It's a common theme. Same goes for Dickenson. Oh the dread of Nicholas Nickleby.

But I do like some light reading like Mist of Avalon. It was a tale from woman's perspective on King Arthur to something more classical like The Tempest from Shakespear.

So why is Romeo and Juliet so much a standard and same with The Taming of Shrew while Midsummer Night's Dream and (more so with) The Tempest are left in the dust?

[Crankin]

Calm down, Smiling Cat. When I say anthology, I mean a book that is full of either short stories or *abridged* versions of novels or non fiction. Up until around 1990, it was less common for kids to read lots of real books, not abridged versions. I taught a short story unit as part of my Language Arts class, but for 6th and 7th graders, it tended to be more contemporary authors (Sandra Cisceros comes to mind). Since what we were reading was always connected to what we were writing, that was also a consideration. So was the content of their Social Studies class. In addition to 4 whole class novels and a short story unit, my kids read at least one independent reading book (some read 10) a month, wrote 4 writing pieces in different genres, did a research paper, had a hands on project to present for each writing piece, kept a writing journal, and 7th graders performed A Midsummer Night's Dream.

[Catrin]

I just returned home from a conference in Denver where something rather scary happened. Fortunately it wasn't real, but WE didn't know that! The hotel slipped in not telling the conference staff and I'm sure that someone got in trouble for it. They certainly should have.

Tuesday morning I was in my selected session and we were all having a good discussion. Then all of a sudden we heard LOTS of screaming voices, to my ears it sounded more like children than adults, but it sounded like a large crowd. THEN we heard shots! We were all in shock at this point and were looking at each other. At that point many of us tried to find a place to hide in the room - there really wasn't any "diving for cover" as there wasn't any. I (and others) ducked behind a column behind the screen on which a powerpoint presentation was projected. Someone was calling out for someone to barricade the door. At some point, I really don't know how, we got the news that it wasn't real. We were all rather shaky after that and the shock lasted for a time.

As it turned out, there is a dinner mystery theatre group that sometimes has events at our conference hotel and they were practicing right next door. Thier style is to present events that are current rather than an old-fashioned "who-done-it" and, these days, with so many mass shootings they do present those. Personally I find that rather shocking that people would pay to see a mass shooting enacted for dinner but obviously I am not their target client. Someone on the hotel staff neglected to let our conference organizers know so they could warn us.

I'm a bit surprised that none of us thought to call 911 with an active shooter emergency - and thankfully we didn't have an attendee who happened to be carrying - things could have turned out rather differently given how realistically it all sounded. Afterwards I ran across one of the waitor/actors on a potty break and he was very apologetic, they thought we had been told.

No harm done outside of raising our cortisol levels - and the rest of the conference went off without a hitch :-) One interesting outcome of the experience, I was far more patient going through security at the Denver airport yesterday on the way home. Things can happen fast, real or not.

[Pax]

That is really interesting, Catrin. I always enjoy seeing how people react when extreme stimulus is introduced (especially when it's innocuous), after years as a cop/firefighter/medic I go calm and cool, almost icy, so it's strange to watch others get jumpy or panicky or just freeze.

Sorry you had to deal with it though, in this day and age it's unnerving to say the least.

[OakLeaf]

Oh geez Catrin, yeah, that could have turned out VERY badly (and not knowing who all was at your conference or elsewhere in the venue that might have overheard, someone could have gotten very badly triggered and you might not know). That's unbelievable to me that they wouldn't warn people - when emergency services do a drill, there are notices in the papers and on the radio for days beforehand. So sorry you had to go through it.