"When You Have Forgotten Sunday: The Love Story"
by Gwendolyn Brooks, "the first black American to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1950."

Mind-Candy for jeanne:
Look at Lisette's comment on Jacob Lawrence on Monday, April 17, 2000! and Valencia's comment on Dreams No. 2 The link to the paintings is: Jacob Lawrence's paintings at the National Museum of American Art. Library is two paintings below Firewood, and Dreams No. 2 is just above Firewood. The link worked for me today. Remember that you have to put in Jacob Lawrence's name after you link on search in the top menu and on Artists represented in the collection. jeanne

and See Tyshae Jefferson's comments on Zora Neale Hurston's "Black Death"

• Theory Readings
  • Violent Neighborhoods, Violent Kids (Statistics, Criminal Justice) See the Pass or Prepared? Do not print out the whole article (very long) unless you really intend to read it. Cut and paste so that you can copy just what you need. Or refer to the summary.
  • Martin Ryder's "Affordances and Constraints of the Internet for Learning and Instruction" (Internet, Love 1A, Criminal Justice) See particularly the Stone story of the whales, about a fourth of the way down the file. Good, clear explanation of postmodernism.
  • Homicide Studies Journal (Criminal Justice)
  • School House Hype: Two Years Later (Juvenile Justice)
  • Postmodernism Is Not What You Think (Love 1A, Criminal Justice)
  • "Anarchy and the Internet" (Love 1A, Internet) by Gordon Graham in Ends and Means, Journal of the University of Aberdeen Centre for Philosophy Technology and Society
  • "Could the Soul be Software" (Internet) by John Haldane Ends and Means, Journal of the University of Aberdeen Centre for Philosophy Technology and Society
  • Antidepressant Drugs (Women and Crime, Criminal Justice) Sites for explanations on effects of drugs.
  • Violence and Young Black Men (Criminal Justice) WSSA Paper

  • New Links on Theory Going Up (General)

• Praxis Readings
  • "Taliban Sacks Thousands" (Women and Crime) Report of April 14 Taliban firing of civil servants, mostly women.
  • Excerpts on "Peace" Protests (Love 1A, Criminal Justice) From Peace listservs
    • "This is what democracy looks like . . ." (Love 1A, Criminal Justice) A demonstrator, Amber Gallup, sees love and discourse in the Washington International Monetary Fund protests.
    • Police trample, beat demonstrators outside Treasury Building by Tom Ellington
    • The Tensions of Peace Protests Exchange between Andrew Hund and Tom Howard-Hastings
  • Press Release on The State of America's Children Yearbook 2000. (Juvenile Justice and Women and Crime).
    Table of contents and statistics available on Children's Defense Fund Site.

• Suggested Projects
  • Great Spring Break Project!
    Poetry Collage: Collage City Poetry Project
    Try for a very loose theme, like structural violence, or peacemaking, or love: Bring in your collage poems on Tuesday, April 25, and we'll scan them in for the site! You can also do them next week, while we're at WSSA! jeanne

  • WSSA Process Texts Creation of on-going shared texts in which you can participate.
  • La Zamba del Chevy An art project at the Getty.
  • Site on Langston Hughes "Life ain't been no crystal staircase (from Langston Hughes' Mother to Son) and a Gwendolyn Brooks' poem about ragged head generals" I'll put up suggestions later. jeanne
  • Harlem Renaissance Site Some of Langston Hughes poems, but not "Mother to Son." jeanne will put up copy of Mother to son --- nag.
    • Suggested Project on Zora Neale Hurston's "Black Death" and
    • Tyshae Jefferson's Review of "Black Death"
  • Add your comments to "What Is It, Respect?"
  • Learning without Tests and Quizzes Compare the comments we ask for to what a poetry teacher suggests.
  • "Are There Virtual Communities" (Internet) by Leigh Clayton in Ends and Means, Journal of the University of Aberdeen Centre for Philosophy Technology and Society. Consider the virtual community of Dear Habermas. How might we fit into Leigh Clayton's description of virtual community? How are we different? How might that matter?
  • Suggested Project on Six-Year-Old Shooter (Criminal Justice)

• Pass or Prepared?
  • Revised Dummy Tables on Affirmative Action (Statistics and Affirmative Actiion Issues)
  • On Anarchy as Positive or Negative? (Internet, Love 1A, Criminal Justice)
  • On Modern, Postmodern, and the Story of the Whales (Internet, Love 1A, especially question 5, Criminal Justice, especially question 6)
  • On Violent Neighborhoods, Violent Kids (Criminal Justice)
  • On Violent Neighborhoods, Violent Kids (Statistics)

• Scholarly Reference Sites
  • National Legal Research Group Resource Links
  • Bartlby Poetry Site
  • Poetry Quiz Flint, Michigan Public Library

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  Theory Readings

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  Homicide Studies Journal of the Homicide Research Working Group. Link on the Index for Volume 2. In Volume 2, Number 2, May 1998 you will find "Race, Place, and Risk Revisited: A Perspective on the Emergence of a New Structural Paradigm," Harold M. Rose and Paula D. McClain. Notice that this is an updated paradigm (model) for the Rose and McClain Black Homicide book we have been discussing. Look over the index for each volume. This will provide you with updated material on homicide issues. There are some articles on juvenile homicide.

  If this is a topic which interests you, you have here a good list of authors for your bibliography.

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  School House Hype: Two Years Later By: Kim Brooks, Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg. (Recommended: Juvenile Justice) Ian M. Harris, of the Department of Educational Policy and Community Studies, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, strongly recommended this report over the Peace Education Commission listserv.

  The Peace Education Commission, whose listserv I often refer to.

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Suggested Projects

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La Zamba del Chevy

Take a friend to the Getty on Sunday, April 16. Artist Ruben Ortiz Torres will be there and will show his dancing Chevrolet lowrider. Arnold and I went to the Getty today, Friday, watched Torres' exhibit video of scenes of Cuba and the dancing lowrider. It was the most wonderful start to Spring break I could have imagined. Torres' 3D video is part of the Points of Departure Exhibit at the Getty. And on Sunday, at 1:00 p.m. the actual car is supposed to dance. Regularly enrolled students with ID do not need a parking reservation. $5 parking, museum free. The exhibit closes May 7, 2000.

I bought a stereoscope with instructrions on how we can make our own stereographs! I'm hoping that some of you will see the connections between Torres' inspiration by the stereographs of Cuba to his video of the lowrider, and recognize that you could derive the same inspiration for a more updated piece with our own sterographs. I do have a 3D software program, but I'll have to learn to use it. jeanne

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Measures of Learning without Tests and Quizzes

This suggestion was posted by Susanna Lang on the writenet listserv on April 15, in answer to another teacher's query :

I don't know if this is any help to you, but when I do literature circles (which is what you seem to be doing) I don't give tests/quizzes.  I have the kids keep a reading journal.  First we brainstorm all the ways you can respond to a novel.  I've had classes come up with a couple of dozen ideas.  They always start with summaries, but there are also questions about things you don't understand, illustrations, poems, letters to characters, letters to the author, background research, interviews with people who have had similar experiences to the characters, alternative endings, personal responses....

Then we divide the novels into segments.  For each segment, the students have to write a response, and they have to choose a different kind of response each time.  Each class period, I check the journals just to see if the kids are doing the work-I don't read them, I just glance at them in class.  At the end, I collect them and I have a rubric for grading them.  The rubric covers Completeness (did they respond to each segment, and with an adequate response);  Variety (did they use a different kind of response each time); Understanding (did their responses show understanding of the text); and Creativity (this is your subjective judgement, of course). . .

[T]his system makes day-to-day survival possible in a classroom where several books are being read, though the final weekend when you collect all the journals is hell.  And it forces the kids to really demonstrate their grasp of the text.  I've found it very successful with middle schoolers in a Chicago Public School.  I hadn't thought of it when I was teaching high school, but I don't see why it wouldn't work in high school."

Susanna

On April 15 jeanne commented:

Although the journal concept has the same structurally violent potential as a term paper, the different kinds of responses are very much like our comments. Perhaps they will give you additional ideas. By sending in individual comments frequently, you can see that you get much more direct feedback, can alter your comments, and avoid the problems of term papers.

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Scholarly Reference Sites

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