Etta and Otto and Russell and James
by Emma Hooper

Dust, water, fish, deer. In the open arms of the wild earth, the elements and God’s creatures move together in a rural dance. Gophers are sacrificed so the land can better support. A daughter will always ‘know where to punch a calf to kill it, if it needs it. And hard enough.’ Prairie Canada seems the same but so very different to the rural experience everywhere else. The same: life and death are but a waltz apart. Different: there is dust, geographic specificity and the Canadian voice – ‘Doesn’t look like Russell’s back yet, hey?’

Although the uniquely Canadian aspects appeal, it is the universal that really draws us in to Hooper’s story. Etta and Otto are both at the curtain-call end of their lives – their life – together. More than 60 years of prairie living have passed in what one assumes is contented and compatible companionship. Except Russell lives next door, and Russell has also been a part of their lives for more than that 60 years of prairie living. The subtlety of their shared story resonates beyond the pages. The tale of Etta and Otto and Russell is centred by two locations; where they meet and when they part. The setting is importantly both of these things – time and place. The reader moves between historical wartime and present day as crucial decisions made almost by accident are relayed and related. ‘Russell waltzed instead of walked’ because of an accident on Otto’s family farm – even here at the start, Otto and Russell’s stories are intertwined.

As is Etta’s. Young Etta is a teacher. She has suffered the loss of her dear sister Alma and turns to teachers’ college, perhaps to stay near to her vulnerable parents. Otto is one of 15 Vogel children, attending the school at which Etta is teaching. When Otto signs up for active duty during wartime, Etta becomes his pen pal. Slowly and with absolute grace, these letters lead to love. Russell, because he ‘waltzes’, is left behind. Such is to be the story of his life.
Letters are present in older age, too. Otto writes to Etta, knowing they may not get to her. He signs these ‘Here, Otto’; a reminder of place and belonging. She has left; ‘I’ve never seen the water, so I’ve gone there’, she writes. But she is ‘Yours (always), Etta.’ Her memory is failing – dementia? Alzheimers? Perhaps just aging, so she carries a piece of paper that reminds her of self, family and others. There is a satisfying symmetry of action here; at the beginning of their story, he leaves her, and at the end, it is Etta’s turn for adventure. Otto remains and channels his grief through cooking Etta’s recipes, and creating papier-mâché creatures that bring him state-wide fame.

Fish are an important trope throughout. Not only because they live in the water Etta is yearning, but also because they provide a tenuous link to her lost sister. ‘They can come back alive when they touch your skin,’ says Alma of fish skulls. Etta wonders if ‘being against the skin of her fingers’ is enough to ‘wake them up, to make them talk.’ Later, as she consumes fish to survive, they whisper Il faut manger – it is necessary to eat. Sacrifice is necessary. ‘One small fish skull’ is one of very few precious belongings that Etta takes on her journey – a reminder that grief may settle but never really leaves.

Russell’s grief is the most heartbreaking. He loves Etta timelessly. ‘Why didn’t you tell me she was wonderful?’ he asks of Otto after his first day at school with his new teacher, a young Etta. She falls into his arms but once, when Otto is at war and all seems lost, except dancing. And so they do. As an old man, he is their neighbour, and yet can never share what Otto and Etta have. When Etta leaves to walk 2000 kilometres to the sea, he is frustrated and chases her. Otto wisely realises ‘it’s not what she wants, Russell,’ conveying an intuitive understanding that only one who shares intimacy with a person over decades can.

The magic realist elements in this text are harmoniously woven throughout the story. James is a coyote companion gifted words, although it would seem named, in another nod to the power of grief and memory, after Alma’s stillborn son. He is perhaps there to be looked after, as well as look after, Etta on her journey – a surrogate son or nephew. For Etta and Otto never have children, and little is said about this throughout.

The many evocations of grief and memory sting the reader, too. I felt for Russell, who spends his life pining after what he doesn’t have. He, Etta and Otto are at the end of their lives, and so there is a natural inclination to feel a certain sadness when reading. The book evokes a wistful and nostalgic air reminiscent of good poetry or music, and left me thinking for a long time about the exquisite pain and the exquisite beauty that is to be found in the irretractable rhythm of our lives as we simply and plainly just go about living them.
Reviewed by Lara Liesbeth

Etta and Otto and Russell and James
by Emma Hooper
Published by Fig Tree
ISBN 9780241185865

Originally published: https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/book-review-etta-and-otto-and-russell-and-james-by-emma-hooper/

The Anchoress by Robyn Cadwallader

Review by Lara Liesbeth

Imagine you are in a room, a cell really, ‘seven paces by nine’.  There is a door - nailed shut.  There are blocks of stone (they will become your friends).  And, luckily for you, a cat, who decides to make your cell his home, too.  (The cat can leave - and does - anytime he wants.  You can’t - or rather, don’t want to).

These circumstances are those of seventeen year old Sarah in 1255; the country, England.  The Anchoress tells the story of Sarah’s first few years as an anchoress, ‘a holy woman shut away in a small cell’ who dedicates herself to God and receives, in return, the care and protection of the Church.

I felt a little nervous about this premise - just a room?  Inside someone’s head in the room THE WHOLE TIME? Crikey, I thought - there had better be some flashback. It takes a writer wielding a powerful pen to write around such a limited setting.  Robyn Cadwallader should be well-pleased with her debut efforts here, for the story is crafted well and does indeed shift from inside to out - I need not have feared for my claustrophobic, reader-self.  And yes, there is flashback to vary the story.  All jokes aside, it is a necessary variation.

There are two narrative ‘voices’ in this novel - the first is that of Sarah, told in first person past tense.  The second is Father Ranaulf, a gifted scribe who starts out in his own small room, a scriptorium he dreams of growing.  His story is noticeably told in third person, giving him and the narrative a distant, less-caring air. Which is fairly fitting - Ranaulf is burdened with the spiritual care of Sarah quite early in the book.  He visits Sarah and the interactions are gruff and brief.  He doesn’t want anything to do with the woman, really, but land will be lost if the anchoress does not have ‘adequate counsel’.  I felt sorry for the man when his superior said ‘Your quill can wait, Father’, for I think Cadwallader writes the nearly-surly Ranaulf in all his complexity.  All he wants to do is work with his quill and produce beautiful scrolls. Yet he is required by duty to attend to Sarah.  In all truth, I wanted to let the man be, with his parchments and ink and admiration for fellow artists who work alongside him.  Even if he was lucky enough to be there because he was a man.

And what of Sarah, herself?  Shut in this room, with only two maids through a wall to interact with on a daily basis?  I found it hard to understand why she would choose this life, even with the necessary first person narration, and the reader’s omniscient ability to hear her thoughts.  The main internal conflict for Sarah is whether she can rise to the mighty challenge of being an anchoress - the anchoress immediately before her couldn’t bear it, and the one before that is buried beneath Sarah’s feet - yes, in the cell.  A lot of reading time was spent with my feminist self quietly chanting ‘just get out, just get out ...’.  A virtual impossibility in the 13th Century, of course.

However, even as I struggled with the decisions Sarah made, I also felt transported by Cadwallader to a completely different time and place; a time of serfs and lords and theology above all else.  A time of patriarchy and religion.  Although there is a long way to go in religious and gender equality, I was left feeling after reading this that perhaps we have come quite a long way.  In the end, the way Sarah compromises to resolve her inner turmoil makes for a satisfying conclusion to this story about a very repressive time in England’s history.

Originally published: https://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2015/04/01/book-review-the-anchoress-by-robyn-cadwallader/

Relationships, relationships, relationships

And then, in the blink of an eye, summer was more or less over and the nose is, once again, at the grindstone.  Usually I don't feel so 'grindstone-y' about school, but it's been a bit of a tough start.  I'm writing this from home, sick again in February, in what seems to be a habitual forced respite.  I look back on last year's emails, and see that February 2014 was also when I first fell off the health wagon for that year.  Why, you ask?  Well, I think any teacher will agree that it's relationships, relationships, relationships.  And high school student bugs, of course ... but I'm more interested in examining the former - I hand wash and sanitise, so there's not much to consider with the latter except bad luck.  And that I should touch my nose less.

When I go down, it's always the throat first, followed by the lungs, and the voice.  At school we are speaking, speaking, speaking, performing, facilitating, moving, moving, busy, busy. We are dealing, as most schools are, with some very large classes and limited resources.  Stress is immediate, with technology double-booked, professional relationships to once more give time and love to, and students asking when that first piece of work will be back, having handed it in two days ago.  This year I feel like I'm cracking a bit more, but my memory has always been shocking, and my husband tells me it's the same every year.  I'm going to choose to believe him, because, if it is actually getting harder every year, I don't want to think about what is to come.

I've really only had to talk to my family (and some friends, admittedly) during December and January.  That's 6 people, maybe 20 tops if you include those aforementioned mates. Suddenly, upon return of students, I'm engaging with 140 plus students, daily, and another 40 staff. I think the body goes into shock. Plus, a lot of those students are new to me - I've never taught them before.  And so, the re-negotiation of how the classroom will work begins.

Forming relationships is hard.  It's not something that happens overnight.  It takes little actions, on a daily basis.  It takes consistency and humour.  Even though some believe you don't have to like a student to form a working relationship with them (and you don't, as a student, have to like a teacher to form a relationship with them!) there surely has to be SOMETHING there.  Maybe respect?  Well, respect doesn't come cheap, either.

Click on the picture to see the animation

So much time and energy is (quite rightly) given over to figuring out what, as one of my very dear colleagues and mentor from another school used to say, is the bridge for the gap between you and the student. I'm really not surprised that I'm sick, I'm more surprised that my colleagues aren't, too!

There's that old saying 'teachers aren't in it for the money' or something similar to that.  In some ways, that's not true.  You need to feel like you are able to live a decent life outside of school.  And I think that teachers are paid okay.  Obviously, if you were to add up everything most (not all, for sure) teachers do, you'd have to be paying them much, much more.  

In many more ways, it is very, very true.  Teachers (mostly) ARE NOT in it for the money.  It's the feeling, for me at least, of helping teenagers try to be the best human/adult they can be that keeps me in this vocation.  I think teenagers, for the most part, are amazing.  And if they're not yet, they have the potential to be.  It is eye-roll worthy, but it is a privilege to potentially affect how another forming human being sees the world.

So even though my lungs feel like they're collapsing, I'll probably end up marking even though I should be sleeping.  And even though my body is sending me definite signals in this first period of lurgy about SLOWING DOWN and eating properly, I'll probably still end up having my lunch after school, as was the case most of last year.  I don't think that's martyrdom or anything, it's just that simple thing it always comes down to: do the good old pros outweigh the good old cons?  Thankfully, I don't need to write that list down to know that the pros are still winning.

 

 

DECEMBER! AGGHHH!

Well, I can't quite believe it, but my last post here was in August.  AUGUST! That was winter.  That was the cold, dark depths of what makes Dunedin Dunedin. That was before the crazy exam season for seniors, including preliminary and actual NCEA exams. And, of course, marking, marking, marking.  Welcome, December.  You are a gift to teachers!

What I also love about December is that finally I can read.  By this I mean, I have the time to read.  I can read for pleasure and I can read to inform my teaching practice. 

At the moment, I'm getting into audiobooks.  This was triggered by need and curiosity - a long road trip driving between Dunedin and Christchurch and back again in a weekend.  There is an extra dimension to audiobooks; a scary variability - the narrator.  If the narrator grates, it's unlikely that I'll keep listening.  That voice! Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North was my choice for the drive, and I was reassured by the fact that the book was read by Flanagan, too.  So, I reasoned, even if I didn't like his voice, it was being read the way intended when written. 

It was so enjoyable listening to this year's Booker winner in this way.  It opened up a new (but, of course, old) way of enjoying stories for me.  In the past, when it's come to storytelling, I've always favoured reading over listening (unless you count my writer husband spinning another good yarn at the dinner table.  'Tell us another story about when you were in India!' says Esme (aged 5), yet again.  Solomon (aged 15) groans and rolls his eyes, yet again.  But he is always secretly interested). 

In the Secondary Teaching and Learning Guide for my subject area, English, the key concept areas are Identity, Communication, Story and Meaning.  This guide is well worth devoting some holiday time to this December.  The guide says this:

Story

People use oral, written, and visual English to tell stories, and to read, hear, and view the stories of others.  Our stories define us. When our stories connect with the stories of others, our lives change.

I agree.  Stories define us.  Stories help us empathise.  Stories are yet another form of creativity - vital in life and for living (and certainly in the classroom and in education.  Have a look at the video in this post.  Ken Robinson explaining this again - it's an old favourite).

I thought a lot about this as I listened to a story in a different way - via audiobook rather than reading.  When we read we decode via a range of semiotics; we make meaning using signs and symbols on a page - words.  When we listen we are still decoding and still engaging with semiotics - but it a different way.  This got me thinking about signs and symbols a little more, too.

The New Zealand Curriculum has some fabulous aspirational guidelines in the 'Values' and 'Key Competencies'.  It says this about signs and symbols:

Using language, symbols, and texts

Using language, symbols, and texts is about working with and making meaning of the codes in which knowledge is expressed. Languages and symbols are systems for representing and communicating information, experiences, and ideas. People use languages and symbols to produce texts of all kinds: written, oral/aural, and visual; informative and imaginative; informal and formal; mathematical, scientific, and technological.
Students who are competent users of language, symbols, and texts can interpret and use words, number, images, movement, metaphor, and technologies in a range of contexts. They recognise how choices of language, symbol, or text affect people’s understanding and the ways in which they respond to communications. They confidently use ICT (including, where appropriate, assistive technologies) to access and provide information and to communicate with others.

So, of course, listening to language is as vital as reading language.  That is why 'listening' is as valued as 'reading' in the New Zealand English Curriculum Area.  'Understanding, using, and creating oral, written, and visual texts of increasing complexity is at the heart of English teaching and learning. By engaging with text-based activities, students become increasingly skilled and sophisticated speakers and listeners, writers and readers, presenters and viewers.'  

I guess that listening to Richard Flanagan's charming Australian drawl is another text, another life experience, that has led me again to the New Zealand Curriculum, and once again I find myself reflecting on and thinking about my teaching practice in response to this.

Conclusion?  Perhaps more oral texts in class.  And maybe I'll start with The Narrow Road to the Deep North.




'Civilisation is a race between education and catastrophe.' H.G. Wells

Year 10 Speeches

 

I've just this minute finished teaching my Year 10's, who are in the middle of presenting their oral texts to the class.  This has been an interesting experience; one that has been quite different from similar tasks with my Year 9's.  

At our school, we stream in the Junior School.  My Year 9 is a top class, whilst Year 10 is middle.  I have mixed views on streaming - of course, there are positives and negatives for both.  But I would mostly argue and believe that while streaming is generally great for the top kids, it's not so much fun for the others.  I've been with classes who have said 'we're the cabbage class, miss', and others who know they are top and have an arrogance to boot. If you think of yourself as the 'cabbage class', how do you fly?  Do you even bother? It reminds me of a great TED talk I watched recently, in which a teacher described convincing a class that they were the best class (even though most believed they were not).  You can find Rita F. Pierson's talk 'Every kid needs a champion' here.

Whilst my Year 10's are not the so-called 'bottom' class, they know they're not the top.

For oral texts this year, I wanted to try what I had tried with my Year 9's - that is, opening up the floor to them to choose how to show me what they know.  After extensive teaching and discussion around presentations/speeches/oral texts, I asked them to put forward some suggestions.  I must say, they weren't that keen. Where Year 9 lapped up choice and offered several creative ways to present work, Year 10 almost shut down.  Not to be deterred, I reflected that perhaps that needed slightly narrower parameters to start to feel safe enough to offer up their suggestions.  So I limited it to: a TED talk scenario in class, a motivational talk by a coach or captain at half time, a pecha kucha presentation, or a good old fashioned speech on something they were interested in. We looked at lots of examples of each of these, and they all seemed quite interested.  I was looking forward to seeing what they would come up with.

All chose speeches. I guess it was safe.  But I wonder if, by streaming our classes, we don't allow all students to feel safe enough to creatively experiment. In the end, I want them to choose a format that they like (or, at the very least, have chosen!) but it's been a very interesting experience for me observing both my junior classes and their enthusiasm and reticence balanced equally on between both classes.  The only difference I can see is the streaming.

Senior Exam Week

And so we send our seniors off the week before preliminary examinations with the best wishes and the highest hopes that they will put in the work necessary to do well.  I always try to refer to these mid-term school exams as preliminary - we usually have 20 students or so who need to access these results as derived grades for NCEA.  It's a fine line between encouraging students to take these as seriously as NCEA for that reason, and not freaking them out about a three hour assessment held two months before their learning journey ends! This year I've pushed for all students at Year 11 and 12 to try everything, see how they go and assess it from there.  

In addition, our school prizes are decided on the back of these examinations.  If students only sit two of three papers, they pretty much eliminate themselves from the running at Prizegiving.  Such pressure.

I really encouraged my students to write practice essays and email them to me over the weekend.  As is the same most years, I received four essays from classes that total 70 students.  I guess you can only offer your services at this time - they have to take you up on your offer. I live in hope that I will receive more closer to NCEA. In the weeks leading up to these exams, we do lots of practice 'testing' - forced time constraints in class - to make sure that they are at least writing some essays in the lead up.

I have become more and more enthused about Unfamiliar Texts as the years progress.  I've done some concentrated teaching around this standard this year, and my Masters student teacher also did some great work with my Year 11 class.  I'm marking 127 (all Year 11!) Unfamiliar Text papers after the exam on Wednesday morning - wish me luck!  As you English teachers out there know, that's actually 388 answers, with three unfamiliar texts in each student's paper. Woohoo! I'll be a marking expert by the end of the week. I'm looking forward to seeing if some of my teaching adjustments pay off for my students.  The inquiry cycle in action!

Last year I marked most Year 11 Unfamiliar Text papers, and found it to be amazing professional development as far as my teaching was concerned.  By the 80th paper, I sure knew what I was looking for, and plans were swirling around in my head around the teaching I could do around what I'd learned.  I'm really looking forward to similar enlightenments this year.

Good luck, all students out there!  Show us what you know!

Book Review #2

And here is a second review in my quest to 'walk the walk'.

http://booksellersnz.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/book-review-a-song-for-issy-bradley-by-carys-bray/

A Song for Issy Bradley

By Carys Bray 

 

There are no words. That is what is written in Claire’s journal after her young daughter Issy dies from meningitis. And there really are no words to describe reading her death, and the excruciating nature of this experience for characters Claire, her husband Ian – a Mormon bishop – and their children Zippy, Alma and Jacob.

The first half of this book is exact in exploring the profound trauma of grief. That this grief comes from the death of a small person really takes your breath away. It is every parent’s worst nightmare that their child – not yet fully grown and full of potential – could not just be sick, but dying, before ever reaching his or her human potential. Bray captures this exquisite pain and explores it from all angles with grace and, believe it or not, humour. The point of difference here is that this family is a conservative Mormon one, and Ian, the father, is a bishop in the Mormon Church.

Claire is Issy’s mother. She is a latecomer to the Mormon Church, after meeting and falling in love with Ian whilst at University. This ‘outsider’ status was a relief for me, as a non-religious reader. All other characters in the book grow up in the Mormon Church, and I would have found it harder to understand the absolute pervasiveness of religion in the story without Claire and her life before becoming ‘Sister Bradley’. After Issy dies, Claire emotionally checks out and takes to Issy’s bunk bed for the foreseeable future. Claire’s physical protest at the death of her youngest daughter feels real – like a challenge to a god that seems to have very little discretion when it comes to pain, suffering and death. Whilst the other family members struggle in different ways, none of them question God as Claire does, with a refusal to continue with life post-Issy.

Of course all family members struggle, and it is the surviving three children and Ian who try to get on with life as they experience this profound grief. Alma just wants to play football, but is haunted by images of his youngest sister fetching the ball. Jacob believes so hard in God that he is determined to resurrect Issy and make everything all right again. Zippy is the responsible, teenage sister who is expected to cook all the meals when Claire emotionally falls apart and takes to Issy’s bed permanently. Some of the humour comes from the depictions of expectations of teenage girls in the Mormon church, although these are somewhat tragicomic: Zippy in her mother’s wedding dress at a Mormon fashion show, where all teenage girls are wearing relations wedding dresses, and promising chastity at a time when hormones are obviously all over the show. And then there is Ian, the most fundamental believer of them all. Every action and decision taken by Ian comes from a place of God – a Mormon God – as he too struggles with Issy’s death.

Ian would be an easy character to dislike. Early in the book he provides religious reasoning for everything that is happening and seems very sure that Issy’s death is as it is meant to be. His life’s soundtrack is provided by the Tabernacle Choir, a touchstone of peace and reassurance in his Mormon life. However, Bray counters his religious beliefs with enough perplexed humanity for the reader to understand that he is as lost as Claire, but is trying to manage it as best he can through the filter of his belief in God.

It is obvious that Carys Bray has a personal understanding of growing up in a fundamentalist Mormon family. Bray’s experiences both shape and care for this work as she poses questions about the Church and the place of organised religion in children’s lives. These are explored in a sympathetic way, especially through her characters and their personal struggles in the face of indescribable grief and pain.

For a situation in which there could be no words, Bray seems to have found the right ones.