Digital Storytelling

Teaching our students to enjoy reading works by Welty, Wright, Williams, and Walker can be a very challenging feat. However, we can find amazing and creative ways to encourage our children to become readers and writers beyond the classroom. I have been really intrigued by digital storytelling. The University of Houston has a wonderful site to teach educators about digital story telling. Try it out in your classroom.

Unit Lesson on Poetry

I have completed a unit lesson to accompany the poetry book by Patricia Neely-Dorsey. This unit lesson will be posted on our MS 4Ws ning. Presently, I am working on a unit lesson for Margaret Walker. Have you completed a unit lesson? What are your plans for the next school year? Are you going to teach any of the 4Ws?

STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

English actress calls Clarksdale visit ‘invaluable’
Golden Globe nominee to portray Stella in ‘Streetcar Named Desire’

CLARKSDALE – When English actress Ruth Wilson takes center stage as Stella in “Streetcar named Desire” in London this summer, she’ll be remembering Clarksdale’s Cutrer Mansion, Moon Lake, and Mississippi Delta plantation homes.

To immerse herself in the world of Tennessee Williams, this raven-haired beauty and Golden Globe nominee, traveled here to experience the playwright’s childhood home and its influences on his famous plays.

Among the sites she viewed were St. George’s Episcopal Church, the Cutrer Mansion and Clarksdale’s historic district where the spent his childhood, the Stovall and Anderson plantations, Uncle Henry’s Place on Moon Lake, and miles of green Mississippi River levees, farmland, and cypress brakes.

Wilson’s performance in the Masterpiece Theatre television series “Jane Eyre” earned her four Best Actress nominations including a Golden Globe. In a BBC Best Actress viewer poll she was rated second.

The role of Stella’s sister Blanche Dubois is being portrayed by Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz, who won a 2006 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in the movie, “The Constant Gardner.”

“This visit to Clarksdale has been invaluable,” Wilson says. “For me as an actor, it is very important to fill my body and mind with sense memories.”

“So on stage when I talk about Belle Reve (the Cutrer Mansion is generally regarded as the ancestral home of sisters Stella and Blanche in “Streetcar”) or Moon Lake, I have an immediate and natural reaction to those places, those people,” she says.

“It is a way for me to immerse myself in the world of the play; I can literally hear, smell, feel, and see those places, those people,” she continues.

Wilson says Moon Lake was particularly interesting because of its isolation from Clarksdale.

“Being surrounded by a fast flowing river gave it a romanticism and sereneness, but also a deep sense of danger,” she says.

“You could understand why Tennessee depicted it as a place of wild freedom and danger,” she continues.

To learn more about the South, Wilson began her travels in Charleston, South Carolina, and moved on to Savannah through Alabama, and Mississippi to New Orleans.

“What was common about people from the South and what I loved was not only the wonderful generosity, but also incredible humor,” she says.

“You all have such quick minds, but slow mouths; it is the Tennessee (Williams) way of speaking – funny and sharp but rhythmic and languid; it is completely unique and completely beautiful – I hope I can re-create some of that,” she said.

“The more I read of Tennessee’s work, the more poetry I find. He had such a beautiful and rhythmic way with words. I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity to put voice to them,” Wilson adds.

Wilson says “Streetcar” opens July 28 in London at the Donmar Theatre that is currently producing “Hamlet” with Jude Law.Other actors have spent time in Clarksdale researching Tennessee Williams plays including English actress Frances O'Conner who played Maggie in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in London and actors from France who performed in "Orpheus Descending."

Clarksdale’s 17th Mississippi Delta Tennessee Williams Festival will be held Oct. 16-17 and will continue its focus on the playwright’s Delta plays including “Spring Storm,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Summer and Smoke,” “Orpheus Descending,” and others.

A “Stella” shouting contest is a popular component of the festival’s Student Acting Competition. For additional information and updates, view http://www.coahomacc.edu/twilliams.

Photo cutlines: English actress Ruth Wilson, a Best Actress Golden Globe nominee, visits Clarksdale’s historic Cutrer Mansion to experience sites from the world of playwright Tennessee Williams for her portrayal of Stella in the play, ‘Streetcar Named Desire.’ Giving her a tour of the mansion that is generally regarded as Belle Reve, the ancestral home, of Stella and Blanche in ‘Streetcar’ is Lois McMurchy, director of the Coahoma County Higher Education Center.

Summer Reading List!

Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow, but I left yesterday with a summer full of reading ideas. Thank you Maryemma for the stimulating session full of new terms for this inspired librarian. For those in attendance and for those who regretfully missed, I made a reading list based on the book titles or authors thrown into the conversation yesterday. If I miss one, please leave a comment and I will add.

No one will forget Vija Lee's moving book talk on Kneebaby by R.S. Cannon! Thank you for having the courage to share with us Vija.

Books entering yesterday's conversation because they are similar in nature to Jubilee include,

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
and slightly over-top, Fairoaks by Frank Yerby.

Too Similar to Jubilee!?!

Roots by Alex Haley

Tragic Mulatto is a new genre I cannot wait to explore this summer. It reminds me of the tragic young adult books of the 60's and 70's. In this genre, someone would die because the main character committed a moral sin such as drinking and driving, having a baby out of wedlock, or experimenting with drugs.

The Wedding by Dorothy West
Passing and Quicksand by Nella Larsen
Comedy, American Style,

Plum Bun: A Novel without a Moral and

There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset
Short Story The Birthmark by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Want to discover more about Jessie Fauset and Dorothy West? I found this read which carries a bonus author Zora Neale Hurston!

Rereading the Harlem Renaissance: Race, Class, and Gender in the Fiction of Jessie Fauset, Zora Neale Hurston, and Dorothy West by Sharon L. Jones

Hear the melody in this book of sermons,

God's Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse by James Weldon Johnson.

Modern day slavery is the topic of these two reads:

My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban by Latifa
Slave: My True Story by Mende Nazer

Want to spend your summer analyzing the Uncle Remus and Uncle Julius stories then write a compare/contrast article for Black Magnolias Literary Journal? Here’s two books that will get you started.

Charles W. Chesnutt Stories, Novels and Essays by Charles W. Chesnutt
Brer Rabbit, Uncle Remus, and the 'Cornfield Journalist': The Tale of Joel Chandler Harris by Walter M. Brasch

One book, one curriculum idea called the Cardozo Project and sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Maryemma spoke about, used The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison to inspire teamwork amongst teachers and students for a full year. I love the science classes figuring through DNA the chances of producing blue eyes.

To round out the student/teacher experience someone mentioned 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey.

~Happy Reading from Maggie!

Haiku Friday!

#422

My cigarette glows

Without my lips touching it,

—A steady spring breeze.

Haiku: This Other World by Richard Wright

Guilty Conscience by Jamie Tate won the

2004 Southern Breeze "Lallah Award" for Most Innovative

from the Mississippi Art Colony.

(Psst - I think the art looks like the end of a cigarette.) ~Maggie

Creating Essays Using Margaret's Poetry

Having students chose one of Margaret's poems and write a literary analysis essay is a great way to incorporate her works in the classroom. I found an essay on Margaret Walker on the Modern American Poetry website. You may find this essay helpful to use in the classroom.

David Walker

Teaching Jubilee in the classroom can also incorporate history as well. After discussing Walker's poetry and realizing that she often refers to real people in her writings, I decided to look up David Walker. Aunt Sally goes to a secret meeting at Rising Glory Baptist Church and describes her interaction with the papers being discussed and her knowledge of David Walker. After doing much research, I learned some interesting things about David Walker. Born in North Carolina, David Walker used his pamphlet, "Appeal," to cause slaves to revolt against their master. A true abolitionist, David use his pamphlet to deliver his message throughout the south.

Teaching David Walker in the secondary classroom maybe somewhat difficult. Using this teacher resource can help you in teaching the history behind David Walker.

*Each link leads to different information on David Walker.

Here are a list of other resources:

• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931t.html
• http://www.iath.virginia.edu/utc/abolitn/walkerhp.html
• http://www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=3237

America's First Serial Killers!

In Eudora Welty: Some Notes on River Country edited by Hunter Cole, a quote from Welty as told to Dr. Peggy Prenshaw in Conversations with Eudora Welty included in Cole’s afterword, inspired my thoughts. Welty said, “Why, just to write about what might happen along some little road like the Natchez Trace—which reaches so far into the past and has been the trail for so many kinds of people—is enough to keep you busy for life.”

Just as William Faulkner set his novels in fictional Yoknapatawpha County and Tennessee Williams used the Clarksdale area as setting in most of his plays, Welty kept busy with stories set in the River Country between Vicksburg and Natchez. These stories include her book The Robber Bridegroom and short stories: A Worn Path, Asphodel, First Love, A Still Moment, Livvie, and At the Landing.

Cole continues, “It is known that she had read Audubon’s diaries, J.F.H Claiborne’s Mississippi narratives, and Robert M. Coates’s The Outlaw Years: The Land Pirates of the Natchez Trace and wished to verify the history these told."

I, too, wish to verify a sentence mentioned in Welty’s Some Notes on River Country. Welty wrote, “Deep under them both is solid blue clay, embalming the fossil horse and fossil ox and the great mastodon, the same preserving blue clay that was dug up to wrap the head of the Big Harp in bandit days, no less a monstrous thing when carried in for reward.”

What! How disgusting! Is this really true and why haven’t I heard of said Harp, Big or Little?

The Robber Bridegroom and Eudora Welty: Some Notes on River Country are perfect companions to a class on Mississippi history. Yes, I know RB is fictional, but sometimes it takes a story to get students interested. I surely want to know more about the Harps, Mike Fink, Lorenzo Dow, John Murrell, Aaron Burr, Harmon Blennerhassett, and John James Audubon’s search for the ivory-billed woodpecker in Mississippi. ~Maggie

MPB Education Express

While visiting Mississippi Public Broadcasting website, I discovered online resources for teachers. There are several resources available for educators. I also discovered Education Express, a great resource teachers can use to assist in planning their daily lessons. Since we are nearing the last few months of school, I thought you would greatly benefit from a little assist to help you! Check it out! Let me know what you think!

The Story is in the Stars

One of the things I find fascinating about our discussions is the underlying myths associated with the stories. I am caught off guard every time and must face my weak education in the area of mythology. I have no excuse with our next assignment. The play's name, Orpheus Descending by Tennessee Williams, smacks of myth.

For your convenience, this post includes a few websites featuring the retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice: two from Virginia Commonwealth University and one from Women in Myth.

The Wikipedia article on Orpheus includes this statement, “The lyre was carried to heaven by the Muses, and was placed among the stars.” I thought it might be nice to include a couple of website on the constellation Lyra: one by Ian Ridpath (my hero) and another by Constellations of Words that contains an etymology. ~ Maggie

20th ANNUAL
NATCHEZ LITERARY & CINEMA CELEBRATION

Natchez, Mississippi
FEBRUARY 19-22, 2009

"Southern Women Writers:
Saluting the Eudora Welty Centennial"

Conference co-sponsors:
Copiah-Lincoln Community College,

Natchez National Historical Park,

Mississippi Department of Archives and History,

and Mississippi Public Broadcasting

Co-chairmen:
Carolyn Vance Smith, Kathleen Jenkins,

Jim Barnett, and Marie Antoon
Director of Proceedings: William F. Winter

ABOUT THE CELEBRATION…

The Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration, winner of an Olympic Award, the Governor’s Award, and the Mississippi Tourism Award, has been called by official evaluators “Mississippi’s most significant annual conference devoted to literature, history, and culture.”

Sponsored by Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Natchez National Historical Park, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, and Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the Celebration annually presents a theme-based lecture series enhanced by films, field trips, workshops, exhibits, book signings, and discussions.

Each year since the NLCC began in 1990, the conference has been made possible in part by the Mississippi Humanities Council under a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The conference is also made possible in part by a $100,000 National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant that was successfully matched dollar-for-dollar during a three-year campaign that ended in 2006.

For information about Natchez and where to stay, visit:
Natchez Convention and Visitor Bureau
Other Natchez sites to visit:
http://www.visitnatchez.com/
http://www.rosaliemansion.com/
http://www.natchezchamber.com/

For questions and or ticket orders call

toll-free 1-866-296-NLCC (1-866-296-6522) or e-mail info.

~ Maggie

Pic Disposable Cameras!

Now through Feb. 16, 2009 people can view the photographic art of Eudora Welty at the Museum of the City of New York! The exhibit is titled Eudora Welty in New York: Photographs of the Early 1930s and includes her pics taken while living in the city. Afterwards the exhibit will be packed up and shipped back to Mississippi for a showing at the Welty House.

Dr. Prenshaw shared an article she found in The New York Times promoting the exhibit titled "Portraits Taken by a Writer as a Young Woman (in Hard Times)" by Karen Rosenberg.

As a fun classroom assignment, purchase disposable cameras in bulk and let students document a week in their lives for an end-of-the-year exhibit. Teachers may want to lead them by showing Eudora Welty's work and introducing a theme before they start clicking such as My Mississippi or A Day in the Life. How about giving them black and white Kodaks for a back-in-the-day feel? ~Maggie

Copyright information - [Untitled. Front Stoops], 1935-1936 Modern gelatin silver print from the original negative (c) Eudora Welty, LLC; Eudora Welty Collection - Mississippi Department of Archives and History. ~ Maggie

2009 Presidential Inauguration Lesson Plans

Thanks goes out to Shelia Bonner for finding these lesson plans and sharing them with our 4Ws group.

The resource website states, "On Jan. 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States. Teachers across the country can bring this historic event to life in their classrooms using a wide array of free resources and technologies. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) have jointly developed a series of general instructional activities to give teachers lesson ideas to help their students understand the historic significance of this presidential inauguration."

Lesson plans cover grades K-12 and are broken into three sections: Learning History, Making History, and Living History.

Eudora Welty's Snapshots

Who remembers our informative tour at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History (MDAH) in September? It feels like it was a million years ago. Oh, okay, I exaggerate, but who can forget the use of passwords, the typing of secret codes, the passing through locked steel doors, and an x-ray room. It felt like we were going into the U.S. Treasury vault; instead, we accompanied friendly librarians into the lair of Mississippi treasures. Among these treasures resides the Welty collection of manuscripts, photographs, letters, and first edition books. Once in the lair, we faced a sampling of such materials.

I'm not sure which librarian told the story concerning Welty's snapshot titled "Spank," but I culled the following books (below in the picture) in search of the photo. I found it in Eudora Welty: Photographs as number 38; unfortunately, it is much smaller than the MDAH librarian’s example. As the story goes, an author asked to use "Spank" for a collection on corporal punishment and Miss Welty said no. She said the woman posed showing Welty the size of fish caught that day. It was only after developing the photo that Welty thought it looked like the mother might be spanking her child.

Later in the meeting room, someone suggested a writing assignment using her photography. Students can write fictional stories based on a single work of their choosing and be graded on grammar and content. Looking for an easier assignment? Ask the class to analyze one of Welty’s snapshots. What is going on in the picture? What are the people feeling? Is it a negative or positive situation? Then give them a picture such as on the cover of A Known World and (just for fun) let them shout out titles. Afterwards, let them pick their own photo to title and write a short paragraph explaining the name.

As I gaze through her collection on my desk, it is easy to imagine Miss Welty writing her short stories with these images in mind. Thanks to all the MDAH staff for an enlightening tour and chance to see Welty’s work up close. ~ Maggie

First photo from left to right: Eudora Welty: Photographs with foreword by Reynolds Price, One Time, One Place: Mississippi in the Depression with opening remarks and history on snapshots by Eudora Welty, Welty: an exhibition at the Mississippi State Historical Museum, Jackson, Mississippi (catalog) with introduction by Patti Carr Black, and Country Churchyards with an essay by Hunter Cole and introduction by Elizabeth Spencer. ~ Maggie

Who is Jack Robinson...

And what makes him so speedy?

Last night while reading Petrified Man, I ran across this phrase, "and it goes out to his joints and before you can say 'Jack Robinson,' it's stone--pure stone." (27) I remember reading it in Why I Live at the P.O. earlier and went back to find the passage. Sister comments on her Uncle Rondo running for the hammock, "and before you could say 'Jack Robinson' flew out in the yard." (59)

This isn't the first time I've seen a variation on the "before you can say Jack Robinson" line. In one of my favorite juvenile books, Bud, not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, main character Bud says the line. At the time, I thought he meant to say Jackie Robinson and shortened the name as slang. By Welty's usage, I realize the phrase is older than originally thought.

Here is the perfect opportunity to teach idioms to a class. Like my thought of Jackie Robinson, idioms have a time setting and are hard to understand if taken out of context. I correctly assumed (duh) that the saying meant fast, but completely missed the "what or who" makes it fast. Here is a nice explanation provided by Wikipedia. ~ Maggie

I Love Book Covers!

I actually did this! I bought The Ponder Heart because of the book cover in the 1990s. The seersucker gentleman in watercolor screams Southern, and I had to have the paperback!

Have you thought about using book covers to get students thinking about the content; possibly, ask the class to write a 10 word sentence using the cover illustration before reading the story? Might be fun to review the sentences and see if anyone gets close to the plot or a character after the reading. Many authors draw inspiration from art such as the popular Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. She actually studied the portrait and the artist Johannes Vermeer before writing a word of her story.

These illustrations are by artist Barry Moser. A Chattanooga, TN native, he first drew airplanes as a boy then graduated to "nekkid women." Now his bread and butter is the portrait.

From upper right, reading clockwise, covers include The Robber Bridegroom, The Golden Apples, Thirteen Stories, A Curtain of Green, The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty, The Ponder Heart, and The Bride of the Innisfallen. I am missing his Delta Wedding cover that features three southern ladies. ~Maggie

NewTube Your Classroom!

YouTube is everywhere. Kids watch diet colas spurt into the air after adding one, little candy Mentos. Coworkers sit mesmerized through a ton of pass-along e-mails such as this Christmas favorite. Sheri, our Natchez videographer, is working on placing her work on Teacher Tube for the classroom. Even I—the book person—sat through an hour long lecture on my laptop instead of buying The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

Streaming video is the future, and I am pleased to present a website that provides this service. Films on Demand is a sub-group of the Meridian Films Media Group that provide films on VHS, DVD, DVD and 3-year streaming , or 3-year streaming. It is expensive, $149.95, but the cost includes public performance rights. The librarian or media specialist can pay through the library’s budget, and provide one with a laptop and display monitor. All a teacher needs is a blank wall or screen and the willingness to teach.

On this website I found: Africa to America to Paris: The Migration of Black Writers (53min) that includes Richard Wright for 12th graders or college freshmen, Tennessee Williams and the American South (45min) for grades 11 & 12, and Eudora Welty’s A Worn Path (32min) for grades 9 & 10. An interview with Miss Welty by Beth Henley concludes the short film. ~ Maggie

Note: The photograph is a still from the film. Notice the details like the sunken Natchez Trace, her lack of coat, and the umbrella skeleton. ~ Maggie

Before She was Famous

During Dr. Prenshaw’s presentation she mentioned limericks Miss Welty wrote for a friend traveling from Jackson to Chicago then on to New Jersey. That friend was Frank Lyell and she did this little fun exercise for him in 1933. She surprised him with a limerick for each stop such as the one below for Winona, MS.

There was an old girl of Winona
Who lived in a pongee Kimono-
When the Lion’s Club came thru
She politely withdrew,
That delicate gal of Winona.

Here’s an opportunity to teach limericks to a class of youngsters. One could introduce Miss Welty’s work found in Early Escapes, edited by Patti Carr Black (133), and then assign them the task of writing one from a plethora of Mississippi towns.

If anyone sponsors a yearbook or school newspaper club, Early Escapes might again come in handy. Editor Black writes, “…Eudora contributed poetry, short fiction and nonfiction pieces, and pen-and-ink drawings to The Quadruplane, the school annual, and the school paper, Jackson Hi-Life. Her first work published in The Quadruplane appeared in 1922, her freshman year.” (12) The book is filled with everything Black mentions, and if used as an example, might inspire the next great Mississippi writer.

You can read my Book Talk written for this book here and a review by Tracy Carr (pdf 26) for the Mississippi Libraries here.

Websites for Educators on Eudora Welty

Here is a list of websites available to continue using works of Eudora Welty in the classroom. Obtained from the American Collection website, these websites have actually been reviewed by other teachers throughout the country. Feel free to give your feedback about the information and how helpful it was for you to implement in the classroom. Please remember that the Internet is forever changing, so some of the links may not work. Try Google to obtain the latest hyperlink for the mentioned sites.

NCTE Ideas - Joseph Campbell, Cinderella, and Eudora Welty: Using the Journal of a Hero to Explore "A Worn Path" http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/TETYC/0342-dec06/TE0342Creative
(The Website requires a username and password)

The American Short Story: A Selective Chronology - http://titan.iwu.edu/~jplath/sschron.html

Documenting the American South - http://docsouth.unc.edu/classroom/

Eudora Welty - http://users.ox.ac.uk/~worc0337/authors/eudora.welty.html

Eudora Welty - http://www.hmco.com/college/english/heath/syllabuild/iguide/welty.html

Eudora Welty Newsletter - http://www.gsu.edu/~wwwewn/

"Why I Live at the P.O." -
http://art-bin.com/art/or_weltypostoff.html

A Conversation with Tim Gautreaux - http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/factfict/gautreau/tgautr.htm

Eudora: How a Southern writer came to lend her name to a computer program - http://art-bin.com/art/or_weltypreface.html

The Idea of the South http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97dec/south.htm

Thumbnail Book Review: One Writer's Beginning - http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~jmcd/book/revs/owrb.html

Thumbnail Book Review: The Ponder Heart - http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~jmcd/book/revs/ponh.html

Eudora Welty (1909 - 2001)

Short Story Collections

• Death of a Traveling Salesman (pub. as short story, 1936)


• A Worn Path (pub. as short story, 1940)


• A Curtain of Green (1941)


• The Wide Net and Other Stories (1943)


• Music from Spain (1948)


• The Golden Apples (1949)


• Selected Stories (1954)


• The Bride of the Innisfallen and Other Stories (1955)


• Thirteen Stories (1965)


• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (1980)


• Moon Lake and Other Stories (1980)


• Morgana: Two Stories from The Golden Apples (1988)

Novels

• The Robber Bridegroom (novella, 1942)


• Delta Wedding (1946)


• The Ponder Heart, (1954)


• The Shoe Bird (1964)


• Losing Battles (1970


• The Optimist's Daughter (1972)

Literary Criticism and Nonfiction

• Three Papers on Fiction (criticism, 1962)


• The Eye of the Story (selected essays and reviews, 1978)


• One Writer's Beginnings (autobiography, 1983)


• The Norton Book of Friendship (editor, with Roland A. Sharp, 1991)


• 3 Minutes or Less (selected essay, 2001)

Note: The photograph appears in a New York Times piece written August 14, 2005. The caption under the photo says, "Eudora Welty in the 1930's" and appears, "courtesy of James Patterson."