Week 11: "Just Keep Writing"

Week 11:
March 15-21


This week, the week before SPRING BREAK, I am finding my energy drained and my efforts spread thin. In addition to teaching full time I am taking an online graduate school course and as much as I love it, there are times when I feel it more as a burden than a blessing. Every week we must write a commentary expressing our thoughts and reactions to the week's assigned readings. I genuinely love doing this. We share our thoughts and then respond to one another and engage in an online dialogue about matters of education near and dear to our heart. Usually our commentary pieces are thoughtful reflections. Very seldom do we argue or disagree with one another. Earlier in the course, our professor had made us read some articles by a literary theorists that just rubbed us all the wrong way. We were united in our respectful disagreement with his ideas and concepts. 

Sometimes I feel as though my graduate school cohort may be too supportive. I love my peers deeply and genuinely see them all as friends, in addition to partners in learning, but shouldn't a learning environment contain a bit of controversy and push-back? I do not wish to be in a hostile learning environment, but a little healthy debate and disagreement is what, for me, makes learning so fun! 

So for this week's blog post, I am taking the easy way out and rather than coming up with a new or original piece of writing, I am going to be copying and pasting my graduate school commentary. I spend approximately 45 minutes to an hour composing my commentaries. Sometimes the words flow easily and other times, I find myself struggling to articulate my thoughts. Fortunately my professor doesn't much care about our writing style, so long as it is authentic! Sometimes I write in a very free and stream-of-consciousness style of writing and sometimes I strive to be more "academic". 

As much as I love having this blog as a place to publish my thoughts and hold myself accountable to my discipline of writing I do feel pressure to keep it up and maintain my weekly commitment to posting. 

Writing is a discipline. Even the best writers in the world must force themselves down and put fingertips to keypad, or pen to paper. Inspiration is fleeting. Sometimes we just have to be our own kick in the ass. 

The readings for the past few weeks have confirmed for me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am a literature teacher through and through. I love writing, but like my yoga practice, writing is something I do privately, for me. Sure, I’ve had fantasies about publishing a book of my poems or travel experiences, but my love for classic literature stops me from making that dream into a reality. I don’t consider my writing to be worthy enough to be placed on bookshelves alongside the works of Plath, Chatwin, Thoreau or Emerson (four of my favorite writers who I draw tremendous inspiration from in my “personal” writing). However, when I walk through bookstores today and pick up copies of the newest and shiniest bestsellers, self-help texts and memoirs, I cannot help but think, “Ok, I can write better than this person”.

Like Peter Elbow, I love that I was trained in classical literature. I love that I had older male professors who walked through the hallowed stone hallways of Wellesley with their beaten leather briefcases full of spindly handwritten lecture notes on texts they knew inside and out. I hung on their every word and considered insights on literature from them to be gold. My literary education definitely felt like a religion at times. These professors were the high priests who knew how to access the secrets of the Gods – Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Plath, Bishop.  I was a lowly servile nun, furiously pouring through scripture looking for the “key”, the secrets that I knew lay beneath the words, if only I was smart or dedicated enough to find them.

But this kind of attitude is completely lost on most of my students. Most of them want to go to college to escape their parents, make money or take steps towards forging a successful career. In many ways, I admire them, they are much more practical than I was in high school. I applied to the best liberal arts schools in the country and honestly, if I had unlimited funds, I would happily just stay in school forever. Learning in and of itself was the gift for me. This may be one of the reasons why I push so hard against the current trends in education to make learning more “skills” oriented. Our learning coordinator (curriculum police, as I quietly refer to her) repeats in all of our planning means, “If you can’t measure it, then you can’t assess it”.

So much of Elbow’s article resonated with me. I have numerous notes that I wrote down in the margins of his paper that I wanted to share with you all, but I want to challenge myself to write about something that makes me slightly uncomfortable: getting kids to read.

Gerald Graffs’ article was a perfect piece to read this week as I have just begun tutoring a sixth grade boy who is a classic “reluctant reader”. His reading teacher has shared with me that he reads at fourth grade reading level and that he likely has undiagnosed ADHD. His father won’t hear of it – he’s a military man who just wants to see his son “buckle down” and start improving his reading scores. “Go hard on him”, he’s told me. “Just hit him with the tough stuff”. Oh boy. What have I gotten myself into, right? Truth be told, I know that I am probably not the best person to be tutoring this child, but I am a friend of the family and none of the other teachers really want to deal with this father any more. So here I am, tutoring a twelve year old four times a week in basic reading skills.

I must admit, I was hoping that Graff’s piece would give me more answers. After all, he too admitted to being a “reluctant reader”. Now the big difference between Graff and my tutee, J, is that J is so much younger than Graff. J is just in 6^th grade, while Graff describes his struggles with reading through high school and college. Most of Graff’s struggle with literature stemmed from his insecurities about not being able to grasp the “critical vocabulary” of literary analysis. J, however, doesn’t have to do literary criticism in sixth grade. In fact, from what I’ve observed, the educational system in middle school is actually perfect for reluctant readers. The sixth grade English team uses book clubs and literary circles to engage kids in reading – that is the social component Graff (and Appleman, last week) mentioned is so necessary to fostering a love of reading. Yet, J still doesn’t like to read. In sixth grades, the kids get to pick their own books – free choice! Another strategy I thought would help foster a love of reading in a reluctant reader. Nope. He just passively picks the books he sees other kids reading and says, “this is good”, but he doesn’t actually care. He doesn’t know what he likes to read and furthermore, it doesn’t even bother him all that much.

I became frustrated. While I appreciate Graff’s points about how literature teachers teach more criticism than actual literature, this information wasn’t helping me get through to my little reluctant reader. Though I must admit, I liked when he wrote “…students who do well in school and college are those who learn to talk more or less like their teachers, who learn to produce something resembling intellectualspeak” (47). I couldn’t help but smile as I recalled the fruitful discussions I had with my students last semester when I taught 1984. Teaching 1984 in Saudi Arabia had to have been one of the more enjoyable experiences of my teaching career. If the Saudi authorities had heard some of our discussions, I am sure I would have been exported in a hot second.

But back to J. How am I going to help this kid not only improve his reading skills but actually come to enjoy reading? I don’t think it is possible to improve reading skills without actually buying in to the process of reading (right guys?). So how do I pull him out of his reluctance to accept reading? 

Graff writes, “reading books with comprehension, making arguments, writing papers, and making comments in a class discussion are social activities….the social conversation that reading, writing and arguing must be part of in order to become personally meaningful”.

J will read if he thinks that reading is meaningful. But right now social activities aren’t doing it for him. So what is missing?

The answer was in front of me the entire time. His father. Two nights ago I was at their house for a few hours tutoring J and when the father came home from work I looked over and saw him relaxing on the couch. What was he doing? Playing on the iPad.

I realized that if I am to get J to read and see reading as an important life activity, I am going to have to get the father to read. I’m a little scared to bring this up to him, he is an intimidating person after all, but I think that this is the key. For the most part, we mimic the behaviors of the people we look up to and respect. Growing up, that was my parents. I loved them and looked up to them. Whenever they got home from work, what did I see them doing? Reading. They were always reading.

This week I finally realized that teaching really is impossible. Because we cannot confine our learning to mere classrooms. If we are to truly master the art of teaching, we must also get into the homes and work directly with parents.  I know that parenting is a tough job. I am sure that most parents at the end of hard working days do not want to sit and do homework with their kids or read books with them. I don’t have kids, but I get it, I really do. But it has to be done.

Cover Photo from Stephen King's inspirational memoir, On Writing.

After reading this book, I finally began to understand that great writers
aren't born, they are made. Writing is hard work, it requires tremendous
discipline and above all, a thick skin. King was rejected hundreds upon
hundreds of times. Yet he kept writing. He writes that he must force himself
to write for a few hours every day and that it is crucial for writers to have an
isolated, quiet space that is only used for writing. 

Week 10: March 7 - 14

Week 10:
March 7 - 14


This week I had a paper due for my online graduate school course. I spent the majority of this week writing sections of the paper and not taking much time for informal, creative or journal writing. Therefore this blog post will be a collection of extracts from my paper. 

The "paper" I had to write, wasn't really even that much of a paper at all in the traditional sense. It is a self-audit: a type of analytical essay that allows for my professor to see how I assess, process and reflect upon my work as a writer. Being a "writer" is an unspoken requirement of our course. We are encouraged to engage in a Daily Discipline of Writing, meaning we must write something every day. It could be poetry, short stories, journal entries, blog posts, screenplays, rants....any form of written expression is allowed (and encouraged). While there are days where this feels like a tedious obligation, for the most part I engage in my Daily Discipline of Writing quite willingly. Sometimes I even find it necessary to preserving my sanity. 

So here are several excerpts from my self-audit, an essay I wrote as a means of assessing and reflecting upon myself as a writer:

This semester I am experimenting a great deal more with my writing style, technique, approach, form and needs. While in Cairo several weeks ago I bought a beautiful hand-bound cloth notebook that I have chosen to use exclusively for creative writing. I have filled approximately thirty pages in it with random creative passages, incomplete story-lines, partially composed poems, detached dialogue and other attempts at honing my skills as a creative writer. I must admit, the impulse to write creatively does not come naturally to me, but I am finding it to be a surprisingly comforting and engaging act. I have also, of course, continued to maintain my usual personal narrative writing practice in the form of journaling. Since January 19th I have filled approximately 40 handwritten pages in my large moleskine notebook (my notebook of choice). This is a typical amount for me. I wrote slightly less during the days I was committed to writing creative fiction, however, I always strived to “return to my roots” and write freely in my journal whenever possible. My journal entries are also accompanied by scraps of images from postcards, magazines and newspapers. I love juxtaposing text with image as I find it inspires and enhances my journal writing. 

At the beginning of the new year I made a commitment to myself to more regularly maintain my blog as a means of holding myself more accountable with regards to writing on a consistent basis (as opposed to writing on impulse, which had been my previous practice). My other motivation for maintaining an updated blog was to keep my parents and family members, without access to or interest in social media, apprised of my life. Since January 1st I have written one blog post a week and I plan to continue this habit throughout the year.  My blog entries range in length from approximately 500-2000 words. They are almost always accompanied by photographs. The writing style of my blog is semi-formal narrative nonfiction. The majority of these blog posts are travel narratives, however, occasionally I will write and reflect upon various ideas and themes that I think about on a consistent basis. Thematic trends in my writing are: independence, self-preservation, defining my life purpose, gratitude, self-acceptance.

I wanted to use this cycle of the DDW to really challenge myself and step outside of my comfort zone as a writer. I can’t just write in journals forever. I have ambitions of publishing a memoir or collection of my travel essays someday. Though I do not believe I have a future as a fiction writer, I found the act of writing stories to be surprisingly rewarding. I relished the opportunity to just make things up and use overly descriptive words in an attempt to paint more vivid pictures through words. I committed to writing creative short stories for the first two and a half weeks of February. Every single day after school I would engage in what I called the “30-30-30”. 30 minutes of running, followed by 30 minutes of yoga, followed by 30 minutes of writing. Creating a timed routine helped hold me accountable and it forced me to maximize my time and write with a sense of urgency and passion. It also prevented me from over-thinking it or judging my own efforts. While it may not be the most appreciative approach to writing, just sitting down and “getting it done” was the attitude I found I needed to adopt in order to most effectively complete my DDW.

After a delightful, but grueling hour of mind-releasing fitness (intense running followed by slow and deliberate yoga is the perfect combination of physical exercises to work my body and calm my mind), I would sit down at my desk and set the timer on my phone for 30 minutes and just write. I would not even give myself time to think, I just put pen to page and let the words drift away. I began writing with a singular image in mind; sometimes it would be a single word or sentence and from there I would let my imagination run away into forming descriptions of people, places or objects. I challenged myself to describe the settings and moments in my stories with as much sensory imagery as possible. I noticed that the majority of my stories contained Arab characters, places and experiences. This make sense. I have always been drawn to the beauty of the Arab world and because I have lived in it for the majority of my life. Even in my nonfiction writing, I feel as though I find a constant source of inspiration in the sights, sounds, smells and flavors of the Arab world.

Interestingly, for all the time I devoted to faithfully sitting down and writing creative fiction,I was never actually able to finish one of my creative short stories. In fact, I was never able to even go back and re-work an aspect of a piece I had already started. I had a narrow, forward-looking lens as I wrote. I would just write continuously, adding in more details and descriptions to the storyline I was pursuing, but I never had any sense of plot. I felt like an artist merely experimenting with color and technique. I would blend various words and phrases together and see what they looked like, and I marveled at the beautiful ways words can work together to capture a feeling or experience, but in the end, my canvas was just a smattering of colors, lines, shapes and sketches, there was no “bigger picture” or masterpiece to be seen in my creative writing practice. As a result of practicing this form of writing, I have developed an even greater sense of appreciation for famous fiction writers like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling. How they can work tirelessly year after year on the same story, with the same characters over and over again and juggling all these intersecting plot-lines in their heads at once is beyond me. While I plan to continue writing creative fiction from time to time, I think I will just stick to short stories and narrative essays for now.

I turn to writing as a source of empowerment, as a way to express myself and listen to my own voice. I am too easily influenced by the ideas and opinions of others, but when writing, I truly feel as though I am “the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul”. I noticed this same sense of strength and control in the journals of Sylvia Plath as well. She too felt disenfranchised and at a loss of control over her life. Though we differ in that she struggled with depression and the loss of her father, we align in our approaches to writing because we share a fiercely competitive internal compulsion to be the best and impress everyone we meet. Plath discovered her voice through writing in a journal for the majority of her life. True, her prose is much simpler and “to the point” than that of her verse, but I find it to be even more beautiful for its simplicity.

As I look forward to the weeks and months ahead I cannot help but think about all the upcoming changes that are preparing to happen. I am going to be re-build a life for myself in New York City. I will moving to a new city, a new apartment, a new school and a new way of life all on my own. In my younger years I never thought much about companionship. I was always a fiercely independent young girl who relished the opportunity to be a trailblazer and step out into the unknown alone and unhindered. Yet as I’ve grown older and watched my friends and colleagues get married and start building families I cannot help but wonder if I am missing out on something. Most people envy my life. After all, when viewed on paper one cannot help but notice that I have so much in my life to be thankful for: I am free, I am single, I am financially independent, I am young, I am healthy, I am intelligent, I am employed. Yet, I am also alone. Though I describe the benefits of writing to my students, their parents and my colleagues as a way of honing critical thinking skills and engaging in constructive self-reflection, the truth is, we write to feel less alone. Writing is a form of communication and when I pour my heart out onto a blank piece of paper, I cannot help but feel comforted. Though a piece of paper cannot hold me in a warm embrace or provide me with any advice or words of comfort, writing gives me the power to be that source of love for myself.

Week 9: "Prayer Call"

Week 9:
Feb 27 - Mar 6

It is 7:30 pm and the distant sounds of prayer call lull me into a state of calm. No matter where you may be in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia you are always within earshot of prayer call. The elongated vowels undulating up and down in a hypnotic rhythm have no meaning for me intellectually or spiritually, but emotionally they are a powerful source of comfort.

Five times a day, no matter what, the muezzin sings a prayer up into the heavens and into the homes and hearts of all of the country’s inhabitants. Most Westerners curse the call to prayer, for at the very moment the first “Allah” is chanted, all stores and banks and restaurants shut down immediately. Doors are locked, screens are lowered, gates are shut and people are shuffled out into the streets and corridors of offices and shopping centers. When in the middle of running errands this scheduled interruption can be quite irritating. I have often found myself sprinting through aisles, plucking cans and boxes off shelves in a rabid manner, arriving at the cashier red-faced and panting, as the teller slowly slinks away for his religiously sanctioned “break”. Much to the chagrin of the religious police, very few people actually pray during prayer call. Most cashiers and waiters and store clerks leave their positions during prayer call to step outside to make phone calls, chat and smoke cigarettes. They passively stare at frustrated customers attempting to bargain for the opportunity to make one final purchase or complete their transaction. But their efforts are in vain. It is out of their hands, they shrug apathetically.

But I must admit, prayer call doesn’t much bother me (except, of course, for when I have just sprinted to the cashier and missed the chance to pay for my goods by a fraction of a second). I often savior the opportunity to step out of my hurried tracks and just wander about aimlessly, staring into closed shop windows, observing the men, women and children around me who have also had to press the pause button on their lives as well. Some curl up on benches and floor space and just sit patiently waiting for prayer call to pass. Others walk about aimlessly. Many just stand leaning against walls and door entrances tapping away on their cellphones, no doubt playing the newest version of Candy Crush.

Oftentimes, I will wander into the bathroom during prayer call to watch the women shed their veils and abayas and chat and gossip as they touch up their lipstick, eyeliner and curled coifs. As a child it amazed me how beautifully the Saudi women dressed under their concealing, black, religiously-sanctioned robes and veils. I couldn’t understand why they would put so much effort into doing their hair and make up when no one would see it. It wasn’t until I moved back to Saudi as an adult that I began to understand the phenomenon. Appearances are everything in Saudi Arabia. It isn’t only what you look like, but whom you know and whom you associate with. One’s reputation is everything. Though Westerners care about their looks and reputations as well, in Saudi these things rank supreme. It is difficult to explain, but it is a way of life that is deeply rooted in traditional tribal codes of conduct.

Unable to understand the stunning women’s animated Arabic conversations, I slip out of the bathroom after a few minutes and check my phone to see how much longer I have until prayer is over. I have an app on my phone that tells me when prayer call is and how much longer until the next one.  Prayer usually only lasts about thirty minutes, although sometimes (oftentimes) store clerks and owners are slow to get back to work and deal with the demands of others. And truth be told, I can’t say that I necessarily blame them.

The key to surviving in Saudi Arabia as a westerner is to simply embrace the crazy. Ladies, embrace the veil and the abaya. It’s honestly a relief to wear sometimes – no one ever knows that I’m walking out and about in just my pajama bottoms and a sports bra! Bad hair day? Not a big deal with a loosely draped veil over those untamed locks. Prayer call screwing up your schedule? What a great excuse to arrive late to events you don’t want to go to or to catch up on emails or social media. Segregated restaurants and lack of quality food frustrating you? What a wonderful opportunity to buy a cookbook and learn how to make different types of meals. The lack of social opportunities in Saudi can certainly be frustrating, especially for young, single people like myself, but on the other hand, it allows me to spend my time doing more productive and healthy things, like go to the gym, write and cook healthy meals. The secret to happiness, in any country or situation is to focus on the positives. Life is all about perspective. I could easily let the religious and societal rules of Saudi Arabia drive me into insanity, but I choose to focus my attention on energy on the things I can do as opposed to complain about the things I can’t. As a result, I am able to deal with difficult situations in a healthy and meaningful way. Life is what you chose for it to be. So I choose to smile, wander and make the most of the thirty minutes of stillness that is prayer call.