Elementary schools are alive with reading. Students are excited about the books they read in class, they enjoy going to the school library, and they beg their parents to fill out the Scholastic book orders. Teachers of elementary aged children seek out new material, read it, and incorporate it into their classrooms. What are your elementary aged children reading? Most of it is not what you read as a child. The books are new and hip and relevant to today’s kids. The world of children’s literature is alive and vibrant, and elementary schools bring that world to students. Exciting stories in the classroom promote reading outside the classroom.  This doesn’t happen in later grades. Between elementary school and college, students stop reading. It happens in junior high and high school, and the current curriculum is the reason.

When examining what my children are experiencing in junior high and high school English classes, and listening to my college students about their reading experiences in high school, I see that the books being taught in high school are not chosen to encourage an enjoyment of reading. In eighth and ninth grade, my son read Great Expectations, The Fall of the House of Usher, Fahrenheit 451, Lord of the Flies, and Robinson Crusoe. I loved these books (English major that I am) when I read them, but couldn’t something contemporary be added to mix? The most recent of these books was published more than fifty years ago.

Classics are good for teaching; they show “universal truths” and provide good opportunities for analysis and discussion, but they are dated. They are hard to read. There are contemporary novels that handle the same “universal truths” and provide similar opportunities for analysis and discussion that adolescents would enjoy much more than the ones being used in today’s classrooms.

My son spent the first twelve years of his life an avid reader; he called the library his favorite place to be. Last year, he told me he hated English. His comment at the end of eighth grade: “The Diary of Anne Frank was the most cheerful book we read this year, and it was only cheerful because she didn’t know she was going to die.”

The classics should not be thrown away, nor should contemporary books be ignored. Amazing books are being written for young adults that could be used in combination with the classics. Compare The Lord of the Flies to The Hunger Games; Have journalist Anne Frank interview The Book Thief‘s Liesel Meminger. How would one of Sarah Dessen’s protagonists handle being stranded on a desert island? Students bored and not participating in group discussions? Get them to read Jodi Picoult and you’ll hear their opinions on a whole range of topics. Topics that matter to them.  If they discover a new author in school that they like, there is a good chance they will want to read outside of school as well.

Junior high and high school English teachers should take a look at what is going on in elementary schools. Reading is alive; it is dynamic; it is exciting in the early grades. It could be this in the older grades too.

 

Richard “Dick” Howard Caulfield died August 19, 2011, in Bloomington, Indiana, following a brief battle with cancer. He was born November 28, 1936, to Howard and Dorothy (Lovelace) Caulfield. Dick grew up in Indianapolis, went to Shortridge High School and received a bachelors and masters in education from Indiana University. He married Betsy Pearson, and they had four children.

Dick was first and foremost a teacher, at the elementary and middle school levels, all the way through graduate school. He was always willing to share his knowledge and experience gained from nearly fifty years of experience. He taught elementary and middle school in Indianapolis, worked as an educational consultant, and was a visiting professor at Indiana University.

Dick was active in the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics. He was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, a Danforth Fellow, a regular presenter at conferences, and a writer for educational testing services and professional journals.

In his free time, Dick enjoyed golfing and watching Indiana University sports. He had season IU football tickets for more than fifty years.

Dick was one of the most generous people who ever lived. If you needed something specific, he would give. If you needed something vague, he would give. If you didn’t think you needed anything, he would give. If you didn’t need anything, he would give. Giving is what he did. Because of this, there are a lot of people walking around with holes in their hearts today.

A memorial service followed by a reception will be held Saturday, August 27, at 11:00am at Trinity Episcopal Church, 111 S. Grant St., Bloomington. Donations in Richard’s name may be sent to Waycross Episcopal Camp, 7363 Bear Creek Road, Morgantown, IN 46160 , or to the IU Foundation/Varsity Club at 1001 E. 17^th St. Bloomington, IN 47408.

We encourage those who cannot come to Bloomington for the service to reserve 11:00 ET on Saturday to spend a few moments thinking about Dick and joining us in spirit.

I’m an irregular blogger. I only post when I feel I have something interesting, clever, funny, or informative to say, but I’m a quiet person, both in person and on paper, and meaningful conversations develop slowly (if at all). My blog forces me to spend time in my head, trying to be poetic, to be a writer that people will want to read. For me, planning a blog post is an enjoyable mind-puzzle–more personal than a Sudoku, more challenging than a crossword, with no wrong answers but with some solutions being much better than others.

I’ve been in my head a lot the past few weeks, but I don’t feel like words are coalescing into anything worthwhile. A part of my life has been crumbling all around me, and I want to pick up the pieces through my writing and create something meaningful and beautiful. Something about my father. My father and I did not agree on very much, but he was a man with a large heart who wanted the best for everyone.

He died of cancer a few days ago. He was diagnosed with cancer only about three weeks earlier. For my family, death has moved swiftly.

I’ll write more when I can think what to say.

This blog post is a lame solution to my current mind-puzzle.  When I come up with something better, you’ll read it here.

Wendy Wetzel has won my blog/facebook name-your-favorit- children’s-story contest and will receive a copy of The Stolen Goldin Violin!

The Goodreads Giveaway winners are:

Katrina Buell, Indiana

Holly Kinsey, Georgia

Sam Pierce, Arkansas

Jo Ashley, North Dakota

Lionel Garcia, California

 

Their copies of The Stolen Goldin Violin are on the way.  I posted them today!

Thanks for playing and I hope readers enjoy our story!  If you didn’t win and would like to buy a copy, Order Here!

 

The Historical Novel Society conference in San Diego was wonderful! Historical novelists are such interesting, funny and fascinating people. I enjoyed chatting with people at dinners, listening to authors and editors at workshops, volunteering, and dressing up!

My favorite session was put on my Karlee Turner Etter and was called Nineteenth Century Fashion, From the Inside Out.

Karlee started the session wearing only a corset over a chemise (and thus I learned that no woman would ever wear a corset against her skin, because then she would have to wash it regularly and that was difficult to do.)

Then, piece by piece, Karlee got dressed, and while she got dressed she explained what the pieces were called, how they were worn, how often they were washed, and all sorts of incredibly interesting facts. When she was all dressed this is how she looked:

 

This dress represents what a middle to upper middle class woman would have worn in the 1880s / 1890s in America, and thus is similar to how my own Miss Olivia Snow would dress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wore my own costume in the Saturday evening costume pageant. I had nothing to do with making it, and would thank its creator if I had her name. This dress was a gift, but my aunt and I did make the mobcap.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to author Christopher Cevasco for taking this picture during the costume pageant. Here’s another he took of everyone at the pageant:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, I have two close-ups of my mobcap. My aunt was so generous in her skills, materials and work in creating this cap in time for the pageant. (Thanks to Princess Esmerelda for modeling the cap, though it was too big for her)

 

 

 

 

Note Princess Esmerelda’s cute little tail below the cap:

I’m editing/revising and came across this typo

anti-antimacassar

Rather than just delete the extra anti-, I started wondering what exactly an anti-antimacassar might be.

For those of you who do not know, in the nineteenth century, many men wore macassar oil in their hair. An antimacassar was a cloth cover, often crocheted or embroidered, placed on the top of a sofa or chair to keep the macassar oil off the furniture. Even after macassar oil went out of fashion, antimacassars remained.

I remember a number of chairs in my grandmother’s house that always had a lace antimacassar pinned to the top. Knowing my grandmother, she probably knew the original purpose of the antimacassar and used the lace just to achieve that nineteenth century look.

I picture an anti-antimacassar as a person involved in a movement to simplify interior design by getting rid of the unnecessary, embracing the modern. Of course this movement would not be gentle and pleasant, but rabid and controversial. An anti-antimacassar would be a militant interior designer, bent on molding the world to his/her specifications. What do you think?

I need to get back to revising. Revising is hard and thinking about anti-antimacassars was so much more fun.

Yes, I know, I’m weird.

About thirty minutes ago I typed the last words to my fourth novel. What a great feeling!! I love finishing things.

Of course the words I typed might not be the “real” last words. The story is out, but I have many revisions to make. Today’s manuscript is not clean and ready to be read by a publisher / agent — but it’s close.

Wilde Wagers was both the hardest and the easiest book for me to write.

Easy, because Olivia Snow and Philip Lamb showed up regularly. I’ve never liked any characters as much as I like these two–really, they wrote themselves. The mystery and intrigue are complex, yet the tone is light-hearted. I was trying so hard to be literary and poetic in my first two novels that I think I struggled more writing them. Wilde Wagers is intended to be a fun romp, with mystery and romance thrown in.

Hard, because my mom loved this story. She loved Olivia and Genevieve, and every time we talked about the story and the characters, she always ended with one command: Write faster! I was writing fast, but not fast enough. After she died, I struggled with this story. How could I not? I had no one to talk to about these characters that she loved. Without her fire, my own spark went out. I couldn’t write anything, and when I did everything was flat and depressing.

I guess I have Olivia and Philip to thank for the end. They came to me and talked to me and pretty much demanded that the story be finished.

And now it is. I hope you get to read it some day.