tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-843583638028300822024-02-19T04:46:29.698-08:00Unified TheoryAngela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-74158379054147521052019-05-03T14:14:00.001-07:002019-05-03T14:14:40.728-07:00SMPs for Parents and Other Civilians: MP 2<img align="baseline" src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-wnTZnKk/0/e433b11c/O/Screen%20Shot%202017-10-03%20at%209.24.09%20PM.png" style="margin-bottom: 5px;" width="700" />
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<i>This is the third follow-up post to a previous one aimed at parents and other non-math teachers, </i><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-real-power-of-studying-mathematics.html">The Real Power of Studying Mathematics</a><i>, about the significance of the Standards for Mathematical practice.
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<p><b><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">MP 1, Part 1: Making Sense of Problems</a></b>
<p><b><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">MP 1, Part 2: Persevering in Solving Problems</a></b>
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In our last two posts, we talked about MP 1--what it means to make sense of a mathematics problem (part 1) and persevere in solving it (part 2). Today, we'll continue Math Practice #2: Reasoning abstractly and quantitatively. What does it mean to reason abstractly and quantitatively? What does it look like? What does it look like to struggle with either or both? And what can parents do to support students?
<p>Like MP 1, MP 2 has two distinct parts:
<ul><b>1) Reason abstractly
<p>2) Reason quantitatively.</b></ul>
<p>To understand the real significance of the second practice, we need to understand each of these two pieces, as well as why they are presented together in a single practice. After thinking about this for a bit, though, I find it easiest to explain if I turn it around, and we talk first about reasoning quantitatively, and THEN about reasoning abstractly.
<p><b><u><font size="4">Reason Quantitatively</u></b></font>
<p>Reasoning quantitatively is one avenue of <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">making sense</a>. (Many thanks to <a href="http://www.fosteringmathpractices.com/avenues-of-thinking/">Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta</a> for codifying this framework, and to my colleague at WestEd, Cathy Carroll, for bringing it to my attention.) When we reason quantitatively, we're thinking about the <b>quantities</b> involved (goats, apples, meters, seconds, miles per hour, the <i>x</i>-coordinate, degrees, radians, the difference between functions <i>f</i> and <i>g</i>, etc.--basically, anything we can count or measure) and considering their <b>relationships</b> to one another (How does the number of goats compare to the number of apples? What is the relationship between the number of minutes elapsed and number of feet traveled? How is the <i>x</i>-coordinate related to parameter <i>t</i>?)
<p>At a recent seminar, we spent some time working with teachers on ways to support students with MP 2. The problem stem we used for a lot of our discussion was the following:
<p><center><b>Parkview Elementary</b></center>
<ul><i><b>Two thirds of the students in Parkview Elementary School wear something red during the last School Spirit Day. Of the students wearing something red, half of them were wearing red hats. Of the students wearing red hats, two thirds of them are boys. 53 girls were wearing red hats.</b>
<p>Source: <a href="fosteringmathpractices.com">Fostering Math Practices</a></i></ul>
<p>We call it a problem <i>stem</i> because, as you may have noticed, there's no question to answer at the end. The purpose of leaving off the question was to focus on making sense of the problem, rather than immediately gunning for the answer. We wanted everyone to really focus on reasoning quantitatively as they thought about the problem stem, about what <b>quantities</b> are involved, and <b>how they are related</b>.
<p>If we were to peer into the mind of say a 5th grade student who is reasoning quantitatively about this problem, we might witness an inner monologue that goes something like this:
<ul><i>"Okay, two-thirds of kids in the school wear red <b>[Identifying a quantity explicitly mentioned in the problem]</b>. So I'm going to draw a pie chart, divide it into thirds, and outline 2/3 in red. So I can see that 1/3 of kids are NOT wearing red <b>[Identifying an implicit quantity not explicitly mentioned in the problem stem]</b>, which is only half the amount of kids wearing red <b>[Identifying a relationship between two quantities, kids wearing red and kids not]</b>.
<p>"Of the students wearing something red, half of them are wearing red hats.' Okay, so students wearing red, that's my 2/3 that I outlined. <b>[Identifying a relationship]</b> And half of them are wearing red hats. Well, I can see from my diagram that half that amount is 1/3 <b>[Relationship]</b>. So 1/3 of the kids in the school are wearing a red hat <b>[Relationship]</b>. And this other 1/3 is kids who are wearing red, but the red isn't a hat <b>[Implicit quantity]</b>.
<p>"Let's see...2/3 of the kids wearing red hats are boys. So where's 'kids wearing red hats' <b>[Quantity]</b>? Oh yeah, it's this 1/3 I labeled here <b>[Relationship]</b>. So I need to divide that part into thirds...And let me shade two of those parts and label them 'boys in red hats.' The leftover 1/3 there has to be girls then <b>[Quantity AND relationship]</b>, and the problem tells me there are 53 of them, so I'll label that too."</i></ul>
<p>Thus far in their thinking, this student has not performed any calculations--but they've done a *heck* of a lot of math! All this business above is an example of <b>reasoning quantitatively</b>--making sense of the problem by identifying explicit quantities of interest, using those to identify <i>implicit</i> quantities of interest, and then determining how those quantities are related to one another. As the "official" definition of SMP 2 puts it,
<ul><i><b>"Quantitative reasoning entails habits of creating a coherent representation of the problem at hand; considering the units involved; attending to the meaning of quantities, not just how to compute them; and knowing and flexibly using different properties of operations and objects."</b></i></ul>
<p>Reasoning quantitatively is one way to making sense of a problem, and if that's the approach I take, I can't really do anything calculation-wise until I've understood what quantities are important and how they are related.
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<p><b><u><font size="4">Reason Abstractly</u></b></font>
<p>What does it mean to reason abstractly? In contrast to thinking carefully about the various quantities and units and how they are related given the context of the problem, <b>reasoning abstractly</b> means <i>stripping away</i> the quantities and units and other referents and working purely symbolically.
<p>If I give kids a bunch of "naked" calculations to perform such as 24 x 7, without any context or real-world story behind it, I'm asking them to reason abstractly. The same goes for solving algebra equations like 7x + 9 = 30. There are no goats or apples or radians to think about, and all the relationships are spelled out for us symbolically; it's all just numbers and operations.
<p>Reasoning abstractly does play an important role in solving real-world / contextual problems like the one above, though. Say for example that we give a kid a problem like:
<ul><b><i>"There are twice as many kids wearing hats as there are kids with no hats, and there are 27 kids in all. How many are wearing hats and how many are not?"</b></i></ul>
<p>The <b>quantitative</b> part is being able to say, "Ah, yes, I'm adding together two groups of kids where one is twice as big, so I need to compute 1/3 x 27 (or) 27 / 3 (or) 2/3 x 27 (or) solve 3x = 27, etc." The <b>quantitative </b>part is determining what calculations you need to do or what equation you need to set up or what have you, based on the quantities and relationships involved.
<p>The <b>abstract </b>part is actually <i>doing</i> those calculations or <i>solving</i> that equation. It's reasoning through the symbolic manipulations in a way that has nothing to do with what the numbers or symbols actually refer to in the problem. The abstract part is, once I know I can find the answer to my problem by solving 3x = 27, being able to reason my way through with the numbers and symbols and operations and actually get an answer:
<ul><i>"Ah, okay, so three multiplied by something is 27. So that means I can find the 'something' by going backwards and dividing 27 by three, which is 9."
<p>(OR)
<p>"Right, three times blank equals 27. That's a fact family I know, the missing number is 9, because 3 x 9 = 27."</i></ul>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong; using the context to solve a problem is an important skill. In fact, pedagogically, having kids use a real-world context to reason through a problem is a <b>critical </b>tool for helping them to notice mathematical patterns and relationships and start to make sense of shortcuts they can use to solve problems more efficiently. One of the biggest problems in all of US K-12 math is that kids get pushed too quickly from solving problems intuitively in ways that make sense to them into abstract algorithms and procedures, before they've had time to see the connections between the two and transfer their understanding from the concrete to the abstract.
<p>HOWEVER, it is still a skill we want them to have once they're ready.
<p>Take this problem, for example:
<ul><b><i>"I know I need to buy 4 packages of hot dogs and 5 packages of buns and that hot dogs cost $8.50 a package and buns cost $4.75, and then also there is 8.75% sales tax. How much is that going to cost me?"</b></i></ul>
<p>It's completely feasible and logical to solve this problem by thinking:
<ul><i>"Okay, I need 4 packages of hot dogs, and hot dogs cost $8.50 per package, so that's four groups of packages at $8.50, which is $34 for hot dogs. And then 5 packages of buns which cost $4.75 each, so 5 groups of buns at $4.75 each, so that's $23.75 for buns. Then $8.50 for buns combined together with $23.75 for hot dogs, that's $57.75 for the food. Then 8.75% sales tax, so if $32.25 is 100%, then 1% is $.3225. 8 of those is $2.58 for tax, and then there's the .75%..."</i></ul>
<p>In fact, as kids first start to work with decimals and percents and performing various operations with them, this is 100% how I would want them to do it. I want them to take their time and think through the various quantities and relationships and use their common sense to figure out what should be added and what should be multiplied and with what and when and why. This is <b>making sense.</b>
<p>However, I don't want kids solving that problem that way forever. I don't want them to have to constantly refer back to dollars and hot dogs at every intermediary step. Eventually, I want them to feel secure enough in their quantitative reasoning to read this problem a few times and then go, "Right, I can set up this calculation to find the total cost:"
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<p><center><b><font size="5">(5*4.75 + 4*8.50)*1.0875</font></b></center>
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<p>As they carry out these calculations, they are NOT thinking about dollars and hot dogs; they're just doing calculations with numbers. This is <b>abstract reasoning.</b>
<p>In our Parkview Elementary problem above, if we wanted to find the total number of students, the reasoning abstractly might look like:
<ul><center><b><font size="5">53 * 3 = 159
<p>159 * 3 = 477</b></font></center></ul>
<p>The "reasoning abstractly" part is the part that a lot of people tend to think of as "the math part," but in reality, it's only part of solving a math problem, and we can't get there without doing the sense-making part first (even if for some types of problems we did it the sense-making a long time ago and figuring out what calculations to do is now second nature).
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<p><b><u><font size="4">Reason Quantitatively...Again!</u></b></font>
<p>Even once we've translated everything into symbols and reasoned abstractly according to what we know about mathematical operations and equations, we're not quite done. Once I've got my answer, I still need to go <i>back</i> to the context of the problem and do a little quantitative reasoning in order to figure out <i>what the answer really means</i>.
<p>Not quite sure what I mean by that? Take a minute to consider the following four division problems:
<ul><li>Candace has 7.44 meters of ribbon from which to make 60 bows. How much ribbon can she use for each bow?
<p><li>The lunch budget is $744 and there are 60 students on the field trip. How much can each student spend on lunch?
<p><li>There are 744 students going on the field trip and 60 students fit on one bus. How many buses are needed?
<p><li>You have 744 grams of chocolate and it takes 60 grams of chocolate to make one cake. How many cakes can you make?</ul>
<p>For all four problems, we can reason <i>quantitatively</i> and determine that we need to divide 744 by 60; then we can reason <i>abstractly</i> by actually performing the calculation 744 ÷ 60 and getting 12.4.
<p>But I hope we can all agree that the <i>answer</i> to all three problems is <i>not</i> 12.4.
<p>In order to determine what the answer is, we have to go back to the problem and revisit our quantitative reasoning. In order to answer question, should we round up, round down, leave it how it is, or adjust the format of the number slightly? (And then, of course, there is the question of units.)
<p>Teachers often say to students, <b>"When you finish the problem, always be sure to go back and make sure you've answered the question that was asked."</b> That's SMP 2, right there!
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<p><font size="4"><b><u>What Can Parents Do?</font></u></b>
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Math-Stock-Photos/i-fPhZ5Cv/0/87816fe2/X3/Dollarphotoclub_82328038-X3.jpg" align="right" style="margin-right:10px;" width="400"><i>(<b>**Caveat**:</b> It's always a little tricky to make suggestions to parents because a) not all parents have the luxury of being available regularly to support their kids with homework; b) even for those who do, or can shuffle things around to make the time, it often comes at great opportunity costs; c) parents have a limited amount of control over what and how much work kids are being assigned, how it's being presented at school, etc.; and d) when kids are struggling with school work, emotions between parents & kids can run high & parents trying to help can start to feel like torture for both parties.
<p>So I don't want to come across as if I'm suggesting you're responsible for doing your kid's homework, or teaching them what they didn't learn in class for whatever reason, or even sitting patiently next to them night after night until they're done. But if you do have interactions with your kids around their math work, particularly if they're struggling with something, here are a few things to keep in mind that help support students' ability to persevere in solving math problems.)</i>
<ul><li><b>Say it with me now: Focus on sense-making.</b> Everything in this post applies, because reasoning quantitatively is one specific avenue of making sense of problems. Doing calculations is a waste of everyone's time unless and until kids understand WHY those calculations make sense in the context of the problem.
<p>I think there is a lot of power in the "Capturing Quantities" routine created by Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta, and if you want to borrow from it to help your student with word problems at home, you might try asking them
<ul><li>What are the quantities in this problem (that is, what can I count or measure)?
<li>How are those quantities related to each other?
<li>Can you draw a picture or diagram that shows those relationships? (Or even just one relationship at a time.)</ul>
<p><li><b>Go back to the question.</b> I don't know if you have any idea how many times math teachers look at student work where s/he's done everything right *except* go back and answer the actual question, which includes interpreting the numerical answer correctly. Sometimes kids need a reminder to not just do the calculations and stop.
<p><li><b>See if they can explain what they've done so far.</b> This is particularly useful with abstract reasoning, if a student is struggling with the symbolic process of doing a calculation or solving an equation. Questions like, "Can you tell me where this expression/calculation/equation came from? What do the numbers mean? Why are you adding/dividing/squaring?" Sometimes when students struggle with abstract reasoning, it's because they've lost sight of the meaning behind the symbols or where they're trying to go. On the other hand, these questions might also uncover deeper gaps in the meaning behind particular operations or relationships or symbols, and that is also useful information. Identifying the problem is a crucial first step in solving it.</ul>
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<p><b>Next time:</b> We take a look at Practice #3, "Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others"!
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<p><i>(Thank you for reading this far! I consider these posts to be living works in progress, so please do feel free to share any thoughts, suggestions, or questions. I want to make them as accurate and useful as possible!</i>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-46715929316972698422018-05-10T13:58:00.001-07:002018-05-10T17:50:49.820-07:00Equality, Coherence, & Re-engagement Prompts<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-2zN2jnF/0/e04fd025/O/Screen%20Shot%202018-05-10%20at%201.31.31%20PM.png" align="left" width="350" style="margin-right:10px;">I spent Wednesday at the SVMI General MAC meeting, listening to David Foster give us an overview of the 2018 Mathematics Assessment Collaborative data. We sat in grade level groups, and since I had attended scorer trainings for Integrated 1, 2, and 3, I joined the Integrated 1 table, where copies of several of the 2018 tasks and rubrics were stacked on the table, along with copies of student work.
<p>At one point, David asked us to select one of the tasks to work on as a group. We chose one called "Alan's Equations" that dealt mostly with systems of equations. After working the task individually, we completed a task anticipation guide, which asked us to think about questions like, "What parts of this task do you think students would be successful at?" and "Which parts of this task do you think students would struggle with?" as well what these successes or struggles might tell us about students' mathematical understanding.
<p>Next David asked us to look through the student work and see what patterns emerged in terms of how students did with different parts of the task. Although much of the task was devoted to making sense of and solving systems of equations, one of our table members pointed out that most of the papers were either very good (7-8 points out of 8) or very poor (0-2 points), and you could almost perfectly predict which bucket a paper would fall into just by looking at their response to the first question, which asked students to take an equation given in standard form and rewrite it in slope-intercept form--something like, let's say, 8x + y = -13.
<p>David's next instruction to us was to choose one particular area that as teachers we might like to revisit with the class based on the papers, come up with a learning goal, and then select one or two pieces of the work with which to create a re-engagement prompt--a question that directs students to examine a focused element of the task, but is open-ended enough to invite a variety of responses and inspire meaningful discussion.
<p>Although much of "Alan's Equations" focused on systems, we were concerned about this first problem, which seemed in some way to function as a sort of gatekeeper to the rest of the problem. If students couldn't change an equation from standard form to slope-intercept form correctly, that did not bode well for their ability to make sense of and work with systems.
<p>So, we created the following re-engagement prompt (I'll admit to refining it just a touch, as I've given it more thought since Wednesday):
<p><center><font size="4"><i>Here are two equations:
<p><font size="5">8x + y = -13
<p>y = -13 + 8x
<p><font size="4">What do you notice about these two equations?
<p>What about them is similar?
<p>What about them is different?</i></font></font></font></center>
<p>For those who are not familiar (and many aren't, don't feel bad), a re-engagement lesson is where you have students work on a task (alone, in pairs, groups, whatever), and then later you go back and review the student working, looking for patterns in what students understand and what they struggle with. Then you pick one specific piece that you want to dig in further, choose one/two/three/whatever pieces of work, and come up with some questions to pose to students about the work that will get them thinking about the math you want to dig into. (This is in contrast to 're-teaching', where you pretty much just teach the same stuff over again slower and louder and hope that somehow this time it sticks.)
<p>Now, a prompt is not a complete lesson, but this might be an interesting place to start in terms of getting kids to do some thinking about the extent to which these two equations are the same or different, what that really means, and how they might be able to check.
<p>When all the groups had come up with our prompts, David directed each group to pair up with another group and share what we'd come up with. Our Integrated 1 group paired up with the Integrated 2 group and chatted about both our prompts, and in particular shared with them that we felt this type of error--rewriting 8x + y = -13 as y = -13 + 8x--indicated a lack of true understanding of the equals sign and its role in determining how we can manipulate equations.
<p>"It's how kids think about the manipulations," said someone, "as moving things around, rather than thinking about keeping the two sides in balance."
<p>"It's even in the way we talk about it, the language we use with them sometimes when we're not being really careful," added someone else, " 'Oh, we need to get y on its own, so we need to <i>move the 8x to the other side</i>.' It completely obscures the idea of equality and the role of the equals sign."
<p>Yep; I've been guilty of that at times and I know I'm not the only one. In part, this is what is meant by "Attending to precision" (Mathematical Practice #6); as experts with solid understanding, it's easy to slip into casual, somewhat sloppy language. Meanwhile, kids with significantly less firm understandings are paying attention and sometimes getting the wrong message.
<p>As groups finished their conversations, people began wandering around to other grade levels. At some point we had several elementary teachers come over and end up listening in on the conversation we were having.
<p>"You know, we have the same issue in primary," said one woman. "You think you've taught them what the equals sign means but they don't really understand. That's why we've really started pushing this idea of balance early-on. Even in Kinder or first, we spend more time talking about different equations we could write, and how to keep them in balance, even using actual, physical pan balances. I'm so glad to hear you talking about this."
<p>A couple of takeaways for me on this one:
<ul>1) Content is connected across the grade levels. Waaaaaay across. The foundation for success in Algebra is laid in elementary school, and a solid understanding of the <i>idea</i> of equality as well as the role of the symbol '=' is one of the biggest predictors of whether or not students will struggle. A number of studies have shown that when students (of varying ages) are asked to fill in the blank for an equation like 8 + 4 = ____ + 5, a scary percentage of them write 12. That is, they interpret the equals sign as meaning "Write the answer" rather than "the things on either side are the same."
<p>2) We need to be very careful with our language around number and operation. Yes, as an adult with two math degrees, <i>I</i> know what you mean when you say "Move the 8x the other side" or "cancel the 4's" or "get rid of the x terms," but with students--even high school students--we need to follow our own advice and attend to precision, always connecting the procedures--<i>what</i> we're doing--to the underlying mathematical meaning. If we're subtracting 8x from both sides, we should say so. If we're dividing a term by itself to get one, we need to say that. Etc.
<p>3) Re-engage, re-engage, re-engage! If my students are rewriting 8x + y = -13 as y = -13 + 8x, I am not going to fix that problem by standing up at the front with an example and saying to them slower and louder, "Students, let us now review solving one-step equations, here are the steps, now let's practice by doing one through thirty odd in your notebook." The issue here is not the procedure. The issue is that they are missing some fundamental understanding of how equations work, and we don't fix that by telling; we fix it by giving them something rich and confusing to chew on, by digging in, re-examining, asking confusing questions, and throwing their own questions back at them. If one through thirty odd isn't getting the job done, then time to try something else, preferably something that involves actual thinking.</ul>
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<p><i><b>For More...</b></i>
<p>Knuth et al. (2008). <a href="http://itp.wceruw.org/Fall%2009%20seminar/Knuthetal08.pdf">The Importance of Equal Sign Understanding in the Middle Grades</a>. Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School 13(9).
<p>Knuth et al. (2006). <a href="http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT7050/articles/KnuthAndOthers.pdf">Does Understanding the Equal Sign Matter? Evidence from Solving Equations</a>. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 37(4).
<p>Hornburg et al. (2015). <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270968841_A_specific_misconception_of_the_equal_sign_acts_as_a_barrier_to_children's_learning_of_early_algebra">A specific misconception of the equal sign acts as a barrier to children's learning of early algebra</a>. Learning and Individual Differences 39(January).
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Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-91900433223449648102018-03-23T15:12:00.001-07:002018-03-23T15:16:24.486-07:00Books 2017: Quarter 4<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-WrrjKJS/0/ff9b60e4/X3/books_header-X3.jpg" align="left" width="350" style="margin-right:10px;"><i>Soooo I've been working on getting my "Books 2018: Quarter 1" post together & suddenly realized that I never posted 2017 Quarter 4! Whaaat?? Such incompetence.
<p>Anyway, here it is. Better late than never, amirite?</i>
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<p>Nothing like logging out of work email for the year and curling up by the fire with a good book! The holidays were busy with various family & social events and all kinds of travel, but I still found some time to knock out a few tomes.
<p>As you probably already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore. You can find my past reviews by clicking on the "books" tag at the end of this post, or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/126714-angela">be my friend on Goodreads</a>. (You can also just go to the site & hunt down my review feed without being my friend, if that's more your speed.)
<p>ICYMI, the classics I selected to read in 2017 are <a href="http://sfroadwarrior.blogspot.com/2017/03/2017-classics.html">here</a>.
<p><i><b><font size="3"><a href="http://sfroadwarrior.blogspot.com/2017/04/books-2017-quarter-1.html">2017 Classics: Quarter 1</a>
<p><a href="http://sfroadwarrior.blogspot.com/2017/07/books-2017-quarter-2.html">2017 Classics: Quarter 2</a>
<p><a href="http://sfroadwarrior.blogspot.com/2017/10/books-2017-quarter-3.html">2017 Classics: Quarter 3</a></i></b></font>
<p>On to the reviews!
<P><a name='more'></a><b><font size="3">THE CLASSICS:</font></b>
<p><b>October: <i><a href="">The Big Sleep</a></i></b>, by Raymond Chandler<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1377.Raymond_Chandler"></a> (1939, 231 pages). 2 stars. Private Detective Philip Marlowe is summoned to the home of dying general Sternwood to look into a bizarre case involving the kinda-sorta-maybe-not-quite blackmail of one of his two (troublesome & problematic) daughters. To say hijinks ensue would be putting it lightly. I'm glad I read it because it's interesting to get a sense for the books that commenced the whole noir genre. On the other hand, I fount it slow going and not that interesting for the most part; although it was less than 250 pages it still took me nearly the entire month to read because I just could not get into it. The plot is a bit confusing so when I found my eyes glazing over from boredom I often had to go back and re-read in order to follow what was going on. The 20s/30s slang is also a little tough to understand at times, and yes, I get that it's a product of its time, but I still found it incredibly hard to overlook the sexism and homophobia. (The way the female characters were written was particularly upsetting.) So, okay in terms of the historical interest, but not particularly entertaining, and I spent most of the book asking myself why the heck I should care about any of these horrible people and their exploits.
<p><b>November: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1231119691">Far From the Madding Crowd</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15905.Thomas_Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a> (1874, 433 pages). 4 stars. Oh, man. I feel like I could write a dissertation on my experience of this book, but since we don't have all day here let me just say that it makes *such* a difference how you frame this book in your mind. A few chapters in, I started reading the heroine (young farmer Bathsheeba Everdeen) as a long-suffering Victorian lady who cannot for the life of her get free of tiresome self-important dudes, a la <a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/10/28/women-terrible-time-parties-western-art-history/">Women Having A Terrible Time At Parties In Western Art History</a>:
<p><center><a href="http://the-toast.net/2014/10/28/women-terrible-time-parties-western-art-history/"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2018/i-W69d89R/0/bc843197/M/flowers9-M.jpg" align="baseline" width="600"></a><br><br><font color="cc3300">hi hey
<br>what are you doing over here all by yourself
<br><i>i’m just
<br>enjoying the view</i>
<br>but you’re facing the wrong way
<br>you’re not facing the party
<br>you can’t even see me talking to you
<br><i>i know</font></i></center>
<p>But seriously, a good book, and a reasonably enjoyable read, if only because most of my thoughts were "O GOD BATHSHEEBA I FEEL U GIRL" and/or "Tiresome dudes: Ruining ladies' perfectly okay days since forever."
<p><b>December: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4406.East_of_Eden">East of Eden</a></i></b>, by John Steinbeck<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/585.John_Steinbeck"></a> (1952, 601 pages). DNS. Guys, I rolled into December on fumes, took one look at that 600+ page tome & scurried off to read some guilty pleasure YA (see below). Maybe I'll try again next year.
<br /><br />
<p><font size="3"><b>OTHER RECENT READS:</b></font>
<p>I've read a lot of stuff this quarter, but here's the best of it (leaving out as always anything I gave two stars or less):
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-TjsbLkm/0/1d41ec2d/XL/bookwormboutique_530x%402x-XL.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="300"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1917331575">The Upside of Unrequited</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7579036.Becky_Albertalli">Becky Albertalli</a>. (2017, 336 pages) 5 stars. Becky Albertalli is my new Young Adult spirit animal. In spite of twenty-six secret crushes, 17-year-old Molly has never so much as held hands with a boy, a fact thrown into sharp relief by her sister and a few other close friends who all seem to be moving right along the flirting-dating-relationship curve. This summer she finds herself in the throes of <i>two</i> distinctly different new crushes while her friends navigate relationship challenges of their own. There are so many things I love about Albertalli's style of YA stories. They feel really <i>real</i>, in terms of the characters, the issues they have to navigate, and how they talk and interact. The author pulls no punches in these areas and those looking for "good, clean, wholesome" YA (read: completely unrealistic & sanitized) should look elsewhere. But, her books are <i>also</i> realistic in the sense that they aren't melodrama, and aren't characterized by OMG the worst possible things that can happen to teens. Yes, there are tough (and sometimes cringe-worthy) situations and conversations, but they're also hilarious, light, and soul-filling. See also: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1341213114">Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda</a></i>.
<p><i><b><a href="">All the Crooked Saints</a></i></b>, by Maggie Stiefvater<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1330292.Maggie_Stiefvater"></a>. (2017, 311 pages) 5 stars. In Bicho Raro, Colorado, the three Soria cousins care for pilgrims, broadcast pirate radio from the desert, and perform miracles. Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, will grant the first miracle to any pilgrims who come asking, but all Sorias know two things for certain: 1) You must never help a pilgrim to perform the second, transformative miracle, and 2) Sorias must never perform miracles for other Sorias, or God help them all. <i>All the Crooked Saints</i> is a story of the Sorias and those they help--the things they want, and and the things they fear. Poetically and gorgeously written, spinning family-oriented magical realism in the tradition of Gabriel García Márquez, with a bit of modern, youthful flair. Fans of <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i>, <i>When the Moon Was Ours</i>, B<i>less Me, Ultima</i>, and <i>The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender</i> will enjoy.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2229261541">By the Smoke and the Smell</a></i></b>, by Thad Vogler<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17155028.Thad_Vogler"></a>. (2017, 352 pages) 5 stars. Part memoir, part survey of independent spirits, all poetry from Vogler, respected barman and proprietor of two well-regarded San Francisco restaurants. I have been fascinated by interesting and unique spirits for years, so I really enjoyed reading about his experiences traveling the world looking for ways to distill the singular charm of tasting with an independent producer into something he can pour for patrons in his restaurants. It's as much a swashbuckling travel log as it is an atlas of independent spirits, entertaining and educational by equal measures, and just beautifully personal to read. If you're new to the world of spirits but curious, you'll surely find it a friendly and approachable introduction, and even a seasoned spirits nerd will likely gain a new perspective or two on the industry.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2196345058">What Happened</a></i></b>, by Hillary Rodham Clinton<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2778471.Hillary_Rodham_Clinton"></a>. (2017, 512 pages) 5 stars. I knew I wanted to read this from the time I heard it was coming out, but the 2016 election took a lot out of me, and it was a while before I felt ready. As you can imagine, there are some really tough parts. But, there are also a lot of really beautiful, inspiring, hopeful parts, along with a ton of political history and biographical stuff that I didn't know and a lot of the 2016 election details that I never really followed that closely. Politics aside--As a smart, ambitious, somewhat socially awkward female who has been accused of being shrill and intimidating boys and more than once gut-punched by the "I-don't-know-why-but-I-just-don't-like-her" billy club, I can't help identifying with the Hil-dog a bit. If you're already a Hillary/Clinton hater, it's doubtful that anything in this book will change your mind, but if you're at all sympathetic (or even just curious), it's worth a read. I laughed, I cried, and to be honest, I kind of developed a whole new perspective on the amazing HRC.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2157995331">Practical Magic</a></i></b>, by Alice Hoffman<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3502.Alice_Hoffman"></a>. (2003, 286 pages) 4 stars. Orphaned as young girls, Sally & Gillian Owens were raised by their two witchey aunts in an old, bleak witchey Massachusetts mansion. The aunts aren't much on parenting so logical, practical Sally takes it on herself to raise free-spirited, mischievous Gillian while the aunts traffic in love spells various & sundry with the town women. Wanting nothing more than a normal non-magical life, the two girls eventually flee their town and aunts, but now circumstances are drawing them--as well as Sally's own two young daughters--back into the witchley life. I enjoyed this book, but not for the reasons I expected. I saw the Sandra Bullock movie when it came out years ago, and as I recall it was cute and entertaining and reasonably well done so I sort of expected the same from this book. There is a good bit of overlap in the story, yes, but the book was much darker and bleaker and more emotionally raw. The movie is mainly about the two grown-up sisters, while in the book Sally's two daughters play a much more prominent role, as does their relationship with their aunt. Really well written and neatly threading the line between fantasy and magical realism.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-c6mFfXc/1/9897a355/Th/sauvage-Th.jpg" align="right" style="margin-left:10px;" width="250"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1915650796">La Belle Sauvage</a></i></b>, by Philip Pullman<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3618.Philip_Pullman"></a>. (2017, 464 pages) 4 stars. So, first things first, if you haven't read Pullman's Hist Dark Materials, I'm not judging you but really, what have you been doing with your life. As I understand it, The Book of Dust is a new trilogy that explores both the years preceding HDM as well as those that came after. <i>La Belle Sauvage</i> takes place when Lyra is an infant and is about how she came to live at Oxford. It was super interesting and well written, fleshing out and further exploring some central ideas from HDM (most notably the human/daemon relationship) & shedding light (and mystery) on some familiar characters, such as Lyra's parents. There was a section in the middle that dragged on a bit and maybe could have used some editing, but by & large it was great & I enjoyed it & will definitely read the rest of the trilogy, because Philip Pullman.
<p><i><b><a href="">The Golem and the Jinni</a></i></b>, by Helene Wecker<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6466778.Helene_Wecker"></a>. (2013, 486 pages) 4 stars. Don picked this one up at our local sci fi/fantasy book shop and I picked it up because it was nearby when I finished something else. Chava is a realer-than-real golem whose unscrupulous master died after rashly bringing her to life on a sea crossing and then suddenly dying; Ahmad is a centuries-old jinni with no memory of the wizard who trapped him in human form indefinitely. In early 20th century New York City, the two forge an unlikely friendship, until a dark threat from the Old World shows up in their new home. Urban/period fantasy is not generally my thing, but this was a well-written story with interesting, well-written characters, so I still enjoyed it.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2229289092">Flight Behavior</a></i></b>, by Barbara Kingsolver<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3541.Barbara_Kingsolver"></a>. (2012, 436 pages) 4 stars. Low-key disgruntled, 28-year-old, stay-at-home-mom of three, Appalachian farm wife Dellarobia Turnbow has her life turned upside down when thousands upon thousands of Monarch butterflies migrate not to tropical Mexico for the winter but to her family's failing sheep farm; a team of butterfly research scientists soon follow with their warnings of climate change and soon finding themselves butting heads with religion, family finances, unprincipled journalists, and more. People keep recommending Barbara Kingsolver to me but every time I would read the description of one of her books I couldn't help feeling like, "I dunno, guys, this sounds a little hard-hitting in the gritty reality department for me." And, I was right; it <i>wasn't</i> exactly up my alley and I found it a bit slow going at times, but it is still a really smart, well-written, beautiful book that covers a lot of oft-ignored facets of an important topic, and I think a lot of people out there will really enjoy it.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-5wNFBZb/1/c4f09705/Th/sleepingbeauties-Th.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="180"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2135813133">Sleeping Beauties</a></i></b>, by Stephen King and Owen King<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3389.Stephen_King"></a>. (2017, 702 pages) 4 stars. For reasons no one understands, women all across the world are falling asleep and generating silky white cocoons from which they don't awake. And if you do try to wake them, you are likely to find yourself horrifically mutilated or dead. At the same time, a mysterious, beautiful, naked woman has appeared in the small Appalachian town of Dooling, and it's slowly becoming clear to the town residents--from the Police Chief and her husband the prison psychiatrist, to the prison warden and her charges, to the young lady reporter and the town's hot-tempered dog catcher--that Evie Black, as she calls herself, is somehow linked to the bizarre "Aurora" sickness. Women struggle to stay awake; some men frantically protect their sleeping womenfolk while others pursue a cure at any cost. Stephen King-ishness ensues. What I was not prepared for in this book was how it'sactively feminist. There are many prominent women characters! Who are strong! And do stuff! And aren't one-dimensional tropey stereotypes! They are diverse, satisfying gritty, and given real agency throughout the story, rather than serving mainly as plot points for the stories of men. I give the Kings an awful lot of credit for confronting and wrestling with a whole lot of prickly topics around patriarchy and power dynamics between men and women in general. Just being able to write a book like this which basically centers around the relationship between men and women, writ both small and large, and actually pull it off, says quite a lot to me about the character of the men who wrote it.
<br />
<br />
<center>* * *</center>
<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31451186-borne">Borne</a></i>, by Jeff VanderMeer
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29939336-empire-games">Empire Games</a></i>, by Charles Stross
<p><b><i>Up Next:</i></b>
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28110852-the-girl-who-drank-the-moon">The Girl Who Drank the Moon</a></i>, by Kelly Barnhill
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23341578-broken-monsters">Broken Monsters</a></i>, by Lauren Beukes
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31372242-chalk">Chalk</a></i>, by Paul Cornell
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20575425-wolf-in-white-van">Wolf in White Van</a></i>, by John Darnielle
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30780283-white-tears">White Tears</a></i>, by Hari Kunzru
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653843-radio-silence">Radio Silence</a></i>, by Alice Oseman
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow">Gravity's Rainbow</a></i>, by Thomas Pynchon
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/825.Zodiac">Zodiac</a></i>, by Neal Stephenson
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821043-the-secret-place">The Secret Place</a></i>, by Tana French
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31817749-the-stone-sky">The Stone Sky</a></i>, by NK Jemison
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5310515-when-you-reach-me">When You Reach Me</a></i>, by Rebecca Stead
</ul>
<br>
<p>And who knows, whatever else tickles my fancy. (Taking future suggestions as always!)Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-46073998643771984112017-10-30T13:44:00.001-07:002017-10-30T13:47:12.525-07:00Books 2017: Quarter 3<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-pmzkT8N/0/3d71d4e0/M/FallBook-9ce92869-M.jpg" align="left" width="400" style="margin-right:10px;">Friends, it is fall. And fall is definitely the best time for talking about books.
<p>As you probably already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore. You can find my past reviews by clicking on the "books" tag at the end of this post, or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/126714-angela">be my friend on Goodreads</a>. (You can also just go to the site & hunt down my review feed without being my friend, if that's more your speed.)
<p>ICYMI, the classics I selected to read in 2017 are <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/01/books-2017-classics.html">here</a>.
<p>On to the reviews!
<P><a name='more'></a><b><font size="3">THE CLASSICS:</font></b>
<p><b>July: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6867.Atonement">Atonement</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2408.Ian_McEwan">Ian McEwan</a> (2001, 351 pages). 4 stars. In 1935, precocious-yet-juvenile 13-year-old Briony Talis, budding novelist and playwright, sticks her tortured artist nose where it doesn't belong; a series of terrible misunderstandings ensue, resulting in her 23-year-old sister Celia's love interest Robbie being accused of rape and imprisoned. Written in three parts plus a sort of epilogue, the book follows the lives of the three thereafter, exploring the short- and long-term consequences of Briony's mistake and her attempts to atone for it. I enjoyed this book. It isn't exactly up my alley (I tend to really, really not enjoy WWII books and a large chunk of this one happens during that time period) and I didn't find it earth-shattering but it was creative and well-written, and I spent the whole thing not irritated and interested in what happened next, so win.
<p><b>August: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1885.Pride_and_Prejudice">Pride and Prejudice</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1265.Jane_Austen">Jane Austen</a> (1813, 279 pages). 3 stars. Ugh. You guys, I hung in there, but man, what a slog. I felt like I was watching a Victorian episode of Gossip Girl. Like. I just cannot bring myself to care who is crushing on who and who is telling what stories about who behind whose back in order to sabotage whose relationship. Fifty pages in and my eyes were already glazing over. I feel like I kind of have to give it at least three stars, because it's a classic for a reason, but ye gods. Parlor books are just not my bag.
<p><b>September: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32049.Lady_Chatterley_s_Lover">Lady Chatterley's Lover</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17623.D_H_Lawrence">D.H.
Lawrence</a> (1928, 376 pages). 5 stars. This is such a beautiful, sweet book that gets at so many complex & intertwined themes (love, marriage, sex, and classism, sure, but & in particular, the role of women in each of these arenas during this particular time period) and if you're just reading it to skate from one Victorian sex scene to the next, you're missing out. Yes, the discussions and depictions of sex are frank and explicit, but they are always tasteful and in service to the story and character development rather than intended to titillate & shock. At the time I assume it was considered pornographic simply because everything is so explicit, but it did not strike me while reading it as pornographic. Funny, I read this one right after <i>Pride and Prejudice</i>, and about 3/4 through I kind of found myself laughing and thinking, "Lol, this is totally <i>Pride & Prejudice</i> for grown-ups." Similar themes and some overlap in character archetypes, but richer, more complex, and a lot less juvenile.
<br /><br />
<p><font size="3"><b>OTHER RECENT READS:</b></font>
<p>I've read a lot of stuff this quarter but have not done a great job with keeping up with all of it (leaving out anything I gave two stars or less, of which there were unfortunately several this quarter). So here's what we've got.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-phBRLGm/0/59fa6791/M/emotions_0-M.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2058425374">How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain </a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1332670.Lisa_Feldman_Barrett">Lisa Feldman Barrett</a>. (2016, 448 pages) 5 stars. For the psychology/neuroscience geeks in the room. Essentially, a really well explained, civilian-friendly look at the cutting edge understanding of what emotions are (hint: probably not what you think), how we develop them, and the implications for everything from child rearing to the criminal justice system to pet ownership. As a certifiable psych/neuro geek, I ate it right the heck up and learned all kinds of amazing things.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2151668230">Inversions</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807106.Iain_M_Banks">Iain M.
Banks</a>. (343, 1998) 3 stars. For the most part I've enjoyed the Culture books. I read this one out of order, but they don't really go in a particular order, so that didn't much matter. It's kind of funny because the Culture books are generally sci-fi, but while this is a Culture book, it's...weirdly not particularly sci-fi-ish. The book goes back and forth between two stories that both take place on the same (non-Earth) planet: That of foreign lady doctor Vosill who has somehow gotten herself into the position of personal physician to the (objectively awful, revoltingly misogynistic) King Quience of Haspidu, and DeWars, always-vigilant bodyguard to (gregarious and somewhat blustering) Prime Protector UrLeyn, of Tassasen. At the beginning of the book, the writer hints that in time the connection between the two stories will become clear, but until then, just go with it. I thought both stories were interesting and well written, but I have to admit that I finished the book still unclear on what the relationship was between the two that I was supposed to pick up on.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2122451695">Redshirts</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4763.John_Scalzi">John Scalzi</a>. (2012, 320 pages) 5 stars. If you've watched much Star Trek, you will immediately recognize the title reference--low-rank and often unnamed crew members who accompany the leads on an "away" mission, only to be cruelly cut down by some terrible alien threat or other unsavory circumstances, inevitably clad in a red uniform or "redshirt." The story follows the adventures of Officer Andrew Dahl, who could not be more thrilled to be assigned to the Starship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union. Alas, Dahl and his fellow new Intrepid assignees soon notice that a) there are an awful lot of away missions where three high-ranking crew members always get super banged up but dramatically survive, while some low-ranking crew member suffers some gruesome death, and b) lower ranking Intrepid crew members spend an awful lot of time and energy avoiding getting sent on said away missions. Dahl and his buddies begin to investigate what the heck is going on exactly, and hijinks ensue. Brilliantly and hilariously written, yet still three-dimensional and moving. I would have been happy with a fun fluff read but this ended up being so much more.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-MKR49cr/0/f3d09015/X2/The-Collapsing-Empire-John-Scalzi-X2.jpg" align="right" style="margin-left:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2122451318">The Collapsing Empire</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4763.John_Scalzin">John Scalzi</a>. (2017, 336 pages) 4 stars. Hey, as long as I'm on a Scalzi kick, might as well read the latest! However many hundreds of years into the future, humans have left earth and spread out across the galaxy thanks to the discovery of The Flow, which, to grossly oversimplify, is kind of a network of wormholes that have "in" ports near some planets and "out" ports near others. It's this intricate "Flow network" that holds human civilization--The Interdependency--together in a kind of economic ecosystem. But a physicist and close friend of the Emperio (head of The Interdependency) has discovered via the Powers of Math and Science that the Flow is in fact unstable, and one by one the portals that connect vastly distant parts of the galaxy together are about to disappear. And because that's not dramatic enough, the Emperio is dying, and his carefully-trained-and-painstakingly-prepared heir has mysteriously mysteriously died in a mysterious mysterious accident, leaving only his very very NOT trained and prepared bastard daughter to ascent to the Emperio-ship. Politics, plotting, and machinations ensue. Also, did I mention the many kickass female characters? THERE ARE SO MANY AWESOME KICKASS FEMALE CHARACTERS!
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2092336412">The Fifth Season</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2917917.N_K_Jemisin">N.K. Jemison</a>. (2015, 468 pages) 5 stars. As one person described it, there are a lot of fantasy books in the world that are all about "Yeahhhh let's go save the worrrrld!" but not a whole lot that are more "Oops, well, we didn't." And that's more this one. I don't know how to even begin to introduce the story, but it takes place on a very hostile, very volatile land ironically called "The Stillness," which has just been "broken" via orogeny, the system of earth/land magic that underlies the whole book. The story alternates between Essun (a small-town school teacher who has come home to find her husband has murdered her three-year-old son and fled with her older daughter), Damaya (a young girl just beginning her training in orogeny), and Syenite (an ambitious, somewhat accomplished young woman orogene). It's hard to get too much into the story without getting into paragraphs and paragraphs of explanation, but let me just say this book was absolutely brilliant in the richness and detail of the world-building, the depth and dimensionality of the characters (including multiple awesome women! And multiple awesome not-white and/or not-straight people!), and the complexity and multi-faceted-ness of the story itself. A crazy ambitious premise, crazily well executed. Can't wait to finish the trilogy.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31443398-the-perfect-stranger">The Obelisk Gate</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2917917.N_K_Jemisin">N.K. Jemison</a>. (2017, 337 pages) 5 stars. Not sure what else to say about this one that I didn't already say about <i>The Broken Earth</i> <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2092336412">here</a>. Brilliantly written; unique and fantastically executed premise; rich world building; diverse and compelling characters that suck you in. Whatever your feelings about Book #1, you're in for more of the same.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Books-Reading/i-LbrTcFz/1/1599c91c/M/thug-M.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1916828925">The Hate U Give</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15049422.Angie_Thomas">Angie Thomas</a>. (2017, 453 pages) 5 stars. You guys, if I could, I would give this book ten stars. Twenty stars. Basically, all possible stars. The story is told by sixteen-year-old Starr Carter who lives in poor, mostly black Garden Heights but goes to school at suburban, mostly white Williamson, and has spent most of her life carefully balancing her two different lives. Her life is turned upside down when her friend Khalil--unarmed, not breaking the law--is shot and killed by a police officer in a routine traffic stop, with Starr in the passenger seat. Suddenly her two worlds come crashing together, with Starr doing her best to navigate issues of race, privilege, and justice in virtually every arena of her life. To testify or not testify? To date the sweet cute white boy or not to date him? To overlook the casual racism of a friend or ignore it? Emotionally demanding? Yes. Gut wrenching and hard to read at times? Absolutely. But it was so brilliantly and honestly written and the characters were so real and so thoughtfully created that it never descended into hopelessness or violence for the sake of violence. For me, this one's up there with To Kill a Mockingbird in terms of its power, relevance, and characters. If I could make everyone in the US read one book this year, it honestly might be this one.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1011270075">Bad Feminist</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3360355.Roxane_Gay">Roxane Gay</a>. (2014, 320 pages) 5 stars. Another book that's long been on my 'to-read' list but that I kept putting off because I just had this feeling it was going to be super serious and depressing and just leave me feeling kind of hopeless. I could not have been more wrong! I mean, yes. A lot of the subject matter is serious stuff, as Gay's essays cover topics like sexism, sizeism, racism, rape, etc., but she handles them all in such a brilliant, multi-faceted way that things are never soul-crushingly dark for too long. You might cry a bit, but you'll also laugh a lot, and above all you'll probably have to think really, really hard. The title comes from Gay's own conflicted relationship with gender and feminism--the way that she often feels like hell yeah, she's bona fide, card carrying feminist, but not a very good one, because does a good feminist enjoy shaving her legs and getting pedicures and dancing to music with hair-raisingly misogynist lyrics? Probably not, Gay sighs. Which sets the tone for the rest of the book. Yes, she discusses serious issues, but she's also clearly a pop culture guru, so a lot of the discussion of those serious topics are hilariously situated within, say, commentary on the Sweet Valley High books that Gay was obsessed with as a girl, or her uncomfortable fascination with the Twilight series. Yes, I felt sick at her description of being gang raped as a young girl, but at other points in the book I laughed so hard my side hurt. So if you want some really smart, really entertaining, really real talk about feminism and other "serious" social topics, you could do a lot worse than Bad Feminist. Recommended for: Basically, everyone. (Okay, maybe not children.)
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<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31868167-by-the-smoke-and-the-smell">By the Smoke and the Smell</a></i>, by Thad Vogler
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34128219-la-belle-sauvage">La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1)</a></i>, by Philip Pullman
<p><b><i>Up Next:</i></b>
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28110852-the-girl-who-drank-the-moon">The Girl Who Drank the Moon</a></i>, by Kelly Barnhill
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34114362-what-happened">What Happened</a></i>, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13438524-flight-behavior">Flight Behavior</a></i>, by Barbara Kingsolver
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27246122-red-queen">The Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice, #2)</a></i>, by Christina Henry
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/91661.The_Beekeeper_s_Apprentice">The Beekeeper's Apprentice</a></i>, by Laurie R. King
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31463.Far_from_the_Madding_Crowd">Far From The Madding Crowd</a></i>, by Thomas Hardy
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653853-the-upside-of-unrequited">The Upside of Unrequited</a></i>, by Becky Albartelli
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23341578-broken-monsters">Broken Monsters</a></i>, by Lauren Beukes
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31372242-chalk">Chalk</a></i>, by Paul Cornell
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4406.East_of_Eden">East of Eden</a></i>, by John Steinbeck
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20575425-wolf-in-white-van">Wolf in White Van</a></i>, by John Darnielle
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30780283-white-tears">White Tears</a></i>, by Hari Kunzru
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653843-radio-silence">Radio Silence</a></i>, by Alice Oseman
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow">Gravity's Rainbow</a></i>, by Thomas Pynchon
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10394348-doors-of-stone"><i>The Doors of Stone</a></i>, by Patrick Rothfuss (One of these years.....)</ul>
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<p>And who knows, whatever else tickles my fancy. (Taking future suggestions as always!)Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-8801685704492344502017-10-04T02:00:00.000-07:002017-10-30T13:48:47.284-07:00SMPs for Parents and Other Civilians: MP 1 (Part 2)<img align="baseline" src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-WhsFN2V/0/59ebed31/O/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-21%20at%203.19.37%20PM.png" style="margin-bottom: 5px;" width="700" />
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<i>This is the second follow-up post to a previous one aimed at parents and other non-math teachers, </i><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-real-power-of-studying-mathematics.html">The Real Power of Studying Mathematics</a><i>, about the significance of the Standards for Mathematical practice.
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<i>For the first follow-up post, see <b><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">MP 1, Part 1: Making Sense of Problems</a></b>.</i>
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In our last post, we talked about the first chunk of MP 1--what it means to make sense of a mathematics problem. Today, we'll continue with the second chunk of Practice 1: Persevering in solving problems. What does it mean to persevere in the context of a mathematics problem? What does perseverance look like? What does it <i>not</i> look like? And what can parents do to support students?
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At the most literal level, perseverance just means to keep going and not give up. Sounds simple, right? Alas, for many students, especially as they begin to experience rich, challenging mathematics for the first time, it's not always so simple.
<P><a name='more'></a>We almost don't even really need to talk about perseverance in the context of problems that students find easy. Not quitting is easy when you know what to do (or, at worst, a matter of self-discipline). No, the significance of perseverance in the math classroom lies almost entirely in problems where students do <i>not</i> immediately know what to do, or problems that are unfamiliar, or confusing, or where students get stuck. This is where perseverance comes into play.<br />
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<b>Students who are well-versed in Math Practice 1 are able to struggle through a challenging problem. </b>They might find it confusing. They might get discouraged. They might have to read it over and over again. It may take them a while to make sense of the problem and find an entry point. The problem may look different from others they've seen before. They might get stuck. They might get stuck over and over again. But gosh darn it, they don't quit. (Or, at least, their bar for quitting is a whole lot higher.)<br />
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But why not? What is perseverance, <i>really?</i> Let us dig a little deeper into what it means and looks like in the context of doing hard math problems.
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<p><b><i><u><span style="font-size: medium;">Don't Give Up: Who, What, Why?</span></u></i></b>
<p>Students who persist in working on challenging problems aren't just innately smarter or better at math than those who give up easily. More likely, it's that they have a kind of tool kit they can draw on when they get stuck or confused, which might include things like:
<ul>
<li>Strategies for making sense of a problem and finding an entry point;</li>
<li>Strategies for organizing and keeping track of their thinking, even if they don't fully understand the problem yet;</li>
<li>Strategies for what to do when they think they've made a mistake;</li>
<li>Strategies for walking back through their process when they're stuck or unsure;</li>
<li>A belief that math is <i>supposed</i> to make sense and that problems are solvable;</li>
<li>A belief that the ability to solve hard math problems is something you can get better at through practice and effort.</li>
</ul>
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(You might think of others; these are just a few off the top of my head.)<br />
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Some might be consciously aware of these ideas and habits; others may bring them to bear on a problem without even realizing they're doing it. How did they get this tool kit, though? Are some people just born with it?<br />
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Well; sort of.<br />
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As with many other personality traits, there is certainly evidence that our genes play a role in determining how persistent we are in the face of struggle<sup>1</sup>. There's also evidence that we're way better at persevering when we're intrinsically interested<sup>2</sup> (a kid may persevere spectacularly at fixing her penalty kicks but give up on a boring school assignment in five minutes) or when the stakes are high<sup>3</sup> (I am a master procrastinator of hard things but become a wizard of perseverance when there's a hard deadline).
<p>But we also know that humans have a huge capacity for learning and adapting to our environments, and that includes things like learning how to keep at something even when it's super tough and we're not facing immediate dire consequences. We might start in different places, but we can all improve.<br />
<p>As I suspect is true in a wide range of pursuits, this "perseverance toolkit" consists mainly of
<ul>1) <b>Skills</b> that can be <b>explicitly taught and practiced</b> (How do I make sense of a confusing problem? How do I keep track of what I'm doing and thinking? What do I do when I get stuck?), and
<p>2) <b>Beliefs about mathematics and our own abilities</b> that, again, can be <b>explicitly taught</b> and reinforced.</ul>
<p>Let's stick our heads a bit deeper into each of these buckets, shall we?
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<p><b><u><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Skills:</span></i></u></b>
<p>If most people want to get good at playing the piano, they're going to need some explicit instruction and many, many hours of practice. It works the same way with challenging math problems. No one is <i>just born</i> knowing how to do it; it involves skills you have to learn.
<p>I am not here to give a definitive, exhaustive list of these skills, but plenty of folks who should know have shared their personal favorites. The legendary George Polya, for example, laid out <a href="chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://math.berkeley.edu/~gmelvin/polya.pdf">his opinions on the matter</a> in his enduring classic, <i>How To Solve It.</i> I've also recently become a big fan of Grace Kelemanik and Amy Lucenta's <i><a href="fosteringmathpractices.com">Routines for Reasoning</a></i>. My point here is not necessarily that there is One True Set of perfect, infallible problem solving skills that will work for every person and every problem all the time; just that there <i>are</i> in fact skills that can be explicitly taught, learned, and practiced. And having a solid toolkit of reliable problem solving skills to deploy makes it a lot easier to keep moving forward when things get tough.<br />
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"Ah, but some people are really good self-taught pianists!" I hear you saying. "Not everyone <i>needs</i> to be explicitly taught. Why can't it work like that with math?"<br />
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Certainly, it can! Indeed, some people do become so fascinated with messing about on the piano from a young age that they figure some things out and get pretty good at it without any formal instruction; others become entranced with exploring number puzzles when they're small and likewise develop some skills for sticking with a hard problem on their own.<br />
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But not everyone. Not even most people. And I hope we can all agree that it isn't equitable to say to the kids who <i>do</i> become fascinated with math or number puzzles early-on, "Good for you!" while telling the others, "Sorry, kid, you're on your own."<br />
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(And quite honestly, speaking as a self-taught pianist, even a pretty good self-taught [whatever] can almost always still learn quite a lot from a good [whatever] teacher.)
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<p><b><u><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Beliefs:</span></i></u></b>
<p>If you've spent any time whatsoever in the education world in the last decade, you are almost certainly familiar with the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck on fixed and growth mindsets. <a href="https://mindsetonline.com/whatisit/about/">Her book site</a> is a great place to get started if you want to learn more, but here's the briefest of excerpts from that page, just to give a sense of the idea:
<ul><i>In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success——without effort. They’re wrong.
<p>In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work——brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment. Virtually all great people have had these qualities.</i></ul>
<p><center><a href="https://www.mindsetworks.com/Science/Default"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-KcWwhGH/0/6173dccf/O/motivation.png" align="baseline" width="600"></a><br><i><font color="2187bb">When students understand they can get smarter, they exert more effort in their studies.<br>Source: <a href="https://www.mindsetworks.com">mindsetworks.com</font></i></a></center>
<p>For a long time, the conventional wisdom that giving positive feedback to kids by saying things like, "You're so smart!" or "Wow, you're really good at math (or whatever)!" would encourage them to continue to work hard and be successful. We now know this isn't the case. Instead, this kind of praise actually causes kids to develop a "fixed mindset"--i.e., They come to believe that if you're "smart" or successful in math, it's just because you were born that way, like having green eyes or a pointy chin (and those who aren't, weren't).
<p>Overwhelmingly, the current research from Dweck and others tells us that rather than encouraging kids to push themselves to try new and harder things, this kind of "fixed trait" praise instead puts kids in a place where they feel they have to defend and justify their innate intelligence or math abilities. They tend to be more worried and nervous about failing or appearing to struggle, and as a result are often less willing to tackle challenges or other kinds of tasks where they risk failing and being "exposed" as not <i>actually</i> smart or good at math. Which makes a lot of sense; if you've been told your success is due to the fact that you were just <i>born</i> smart or innately talented at something, it's easy to conclude that struggle or failure means maybe you <i>weren't</i> all that smart or talented to begin with. (See also: <a href="http://blog.mindsetworks.com/entry/mindsets-and-gifted-education-transformation-in-progress">The dangers of labeling kids 'gifted'</a>.)
<p>Instead, we can praise students for their efforts, strong work ethic, and perseverance--"Wow, you must have worked really hard at that!" or "You did a great job sticking with it when you got stuck!" etc. This communicates to students that being successful or good at something is a flexible trait, something we can grow and improve at through hard work and practice. Students who develop this "growth mindset" tend to be the ones who enjoy learning for its own sake rather than for outside validation like good grades. They choose to take on more challenges, risk failure, work longer on hard problems before giving up, and worry less about whether people see them struggling. And the more kids are willing to struggle and push themselves, the more they learn.
<p><center><a href="https://www.mindsetworks.com/Science/Default"><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-6LxwkMD/0/5a683a1d/O/impact%20of%20praise.png" align="baseline" width="600"></a><br><i><font color="2187bb">Students who were praised for effort outperformed students who were told they were smart.<br>Source: <a href="https://www.mindsetworks.com">mindsetworks.com</font></i></a></center>
<p>I do want to quickly debunk a couple of common misconceptions about growth mindset because they tend to pop up a lot:
<ul><b>1) "Growth mindset tells us that if we all believe in ourselves and try hard enough, we can all reach equal levels of performance/achievement."
<p>FALSE.</b> There will always be variation among students in academic achievement in any subject, due to a whole host of factors that are beyond the scope of this blog post. What growth mindset <i>does</i> tell us is that we are all capable of <i>improving</i> our skill and understanding and achievement if we are willing to work hard, practice, and learn from our mistakes.
<p><b>2) "Growth mindset tells us that if we simply praise students for effort no matter what or how they do, they will improve."</b>
<p>Also <b>FALSE</b>. What it tells us is that effort <i>is</i> an enormous piece of the puzzle in terms of getting better at math and other cognitive activities, but that effort has to be directed toward meaningful practice. It's directing effort into <i>meaningful practice</i> that results in improvement, not the act of <i>praising</i> the effort. We praise the effort to communicate to kids that it's valuable and to encourage them to do it, but we still need to do things like provide feedback and instruction and other opportunities for learning and growth.</ul>
<p>A growth mindset about learning mathematics goes a long, long way towards helping kids learn to persevere. Alas, although there are lots of fantastic teachers, teacher educators, and researchers out there doing the monumental work of trying to change things, the reality is that our current system is not super set up to foster a growth mindset when it comes to mathematics. Here are just a few of the damaging myths that prop up that "fixed mindset" system:
<p><b>Myth #1: Bottom line, the most important thing in mathematics is getting the answers right.</b>
<ul><b>Reality:</b> Bottom line, the most important thing in mathematics is to understand and make sense of things. Do we want kids to find correct answers? Of course we do. But finding answers without cultivating deep conceptual understanding of <i>the mathematics that lies behind those answers</i> is worse than useless. (See: <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">Making sense of problems</a>.) We should never fetishize correct answers at the expense of sense-making and real understanding.
<p>And naturally, the flip side of that is...</ul>
<p><b>Myth #2: Mistakes are undesirable and should be avoided at all costs.</b>
<ul><b>Reality:</b> You literally <i>cannot</i> learn to do something new--if that something is in any way complex--without making mistakes! And yet, we've long had a math culture that demonizes mistakes and wrong turns. The best, most persistent problem solvers know that mistakes are not only inevitable but valuable gifts; not only do they help us to eliminate unproductive strategies or ways of thinking, but they often provide key insights into the very thing we're trying to understand. The fact is, we <i>only</i> learn deeply from making mistakes, and we've now got <a href="https://www.youcubed.org/evidence/mistakes-grow-brain/">the brain science to prove it.</a></ul>
<p><b>Myth #3: Being good at math means knowing what to do first/next.</b>
<ul><b>Reality:</b> Interesting problems often require "tinkering." I first heard this term applied to mathematical problem solving by Cathy Humphreys <a href="http://www.insidemathematics.org/common-core-resources/mentors-of-mathematical-practice/cathy-humphreys-9th-10th-grade">in this video</a>. A heuristic a lot of us grew up with in math is 1) memorize a bunch of processes for a bunch of different types of problem, 2) determine what kind of problem you've got, 3) do the right process. And that's just not always possible. Sometimes you don't really <i>know</i> what kind of problem you've got, so you've got to tinker for a while. This is uncomfortable for a lot of kids because (say it with me now) our system fetishizes finding the answer as quickly as possible with as little effort as possible.</ul>
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-hrHKdjK/0/ad401b34/O/investigative-process.jpg" align="baseline" width="350"><br><i>Source: <a href="http://www.insidemathematics.org/assets/common-core-resources/mentors-of-mathematical-practice/cathy-humphreys-9th-10th-grade/investigative-process.jpg">Inside Mathematics</a></i></center>
<p><b>Myth #4: Finding answers quickly means you're good at math and vice versa.</b>
<ul><b>Reality:</b> Deep understanding takes time. Do we want kids to learn to work efficiently? Ultimately, yes. But worrying about the most efficient way to solve a problem before you've done the cognitive work of making sense is worrying about the upholstery before you've built the engine. Being able to regurgitate memorized facts or plow through an algorithm quickly is a neat party trick but doesn't say much at all about how well someone understands mathematics or how effectively they'll be able to solve a complex problem. You might be shocked to learn how many Fields Medalists (think the Nobel Prize of math) have described themselves as "slow at math"! (See <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/maryam-mirzakhani-is-first-woman-fields-medalist-20140812/">Maryam Mirzakhani</a> and <a href="https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Laurent_Schwartz">Laurent Schwartz</a> for starters.) In fact, there is a lot of evidence that <a href="chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/https://bhi61nm2cr3mkdgk1dtaov18-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FluencyWithoutFear-2015-1.pdf">emphasizing speed is actively bad for learning math</a>.</ul>
<p><b>Myth #5: Struggling to solve a problem indicates that you are not good at that topic/type of problem/math in general.</b>
<ul><b>Reality:</b> If you're not struggling, you're not learning. I love the phrase "<a href="chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/239103/McCoy_-_Productive_Struggle_NCTM_2015.pdf?t=1435206422051">productive struggle</a>" that has become popular in math circles in recent years. Understanding and getting good at something complex <i>always</i> involves struggle. In fact, struggling with something is an excellent sign that you're about to learn something! (<i>Quick note:</i> Navigating the fine line between <i>productive</i> struggle and <i>unproductive</i> struggle is part of the art and skill of teaching. Another post for another time!)</ul>
<p>Stomping out these misconceptions and others like them would move us leaps and bounds forward in terms of helping kids learn to persevere in the face of challenging mathematics (and potentially in other areas as well).
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<p><b><i><u><font size="4">"Part of the Process..."</b></i></u></font>
<p>By total coincidence, a math teacher blog that I follow (Math With Bad Drawings) published <a href="https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017/09/20/the-state-of-being-stuck/">a post on getting stuck</a> just a few days after I started writing this post. In it the author relates a conversation with legendary mathematician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Wiles">Andrew Wiles</a> about what he tries to emphasize when he talks to the general public with math. While I don't agree 100% with everything in it, I found it hilarious and extremely relevant to a discussion of MP 1, in particular the following excerpt:
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<ul><i>“What you have to handle when you start doing mathematics as an older child or as an adult is accepting the state of being stuck,” Wiles said. “People don’t get used to that. They find it very stressful.”
<p>He used another word, too: “afraid.” “Even people who are very good at mathematics sometimes find this hard to get used to. They feel they’re failing.”
<p>But being stuck, Wiles said, isn’t failure. “It’s part of the process. It’s not something to be frightened of.”
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<center>
<img align="baseline" src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-Z2jDx53/0/81345c68/O/a%20hard%20problem.jpg" width="600" /><br /><i>Source: <a href="https://mathwithbaddrawings.com/2017/09/20/the-state-of-being-stuck/">Math With Bad Drawings</a></i></center>
</i></ul>
. . .
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When it comes to math, Wiles said, people tend to believe “that there is something you’re born with, and either you have it or you don’t. But that’s not really the experience of mathematicians. We all find it difficult. It’s not that we’re any different from someone who struggles with maths problems in third grade…. We’re just prepared to handle that struggle on a much larger scale. We’ve built up resistance to those setbacks.”<br />
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Which I think beautifully illustrates an important point about perseverance in the face of being stuck: Kids sometime think that when we give them a problem where a solution strategy isn't immediately obvious that we're tormenting them on purpose, or else just being infernally lazy ("Aren't you the teacher? WHY AREN'T YOU TEACHING US??"), but in fact, what we're really teaching them to do is to think like mathematicians.
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Mathematicians, or scientists, or doctors, or lawyers, or HR professionals, or mechanics, or anyone else who ever had to figure out how to solve a problem that wasn't 100% clear and/or exactly like some other problem they'd solved before.
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And that's a huge part of the value of MP 1, not just because kids need the skills and mindsets that help them persevere in solving math problems, but because odds are good they're going to have to persevere through challenging, ill-formed problems in other, perhaps more utilitarian areas of their lives at some point, and for better or worse, those habits and ways of thinking transfer more than you might think.
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<p><font size="4"><b><u>What Can Parents Do?</font></u></b>
<p><i>(<b>**Caveat**:</b> It's always a little tricky to make suggestions to parents because a) not all parents have the luxury of being available regularly to support their kids with homework; b) even for those who do, or can shuffle things around to make the time, it often comes at great opportunity costs; c) parents have a limited amount of control over what and how much work kids are being assigned, how it's being presented at school, etc.; and d) when kids are struggling with school work, emotions between parents & kids can run high & parents trying to help can start to feel like torture for both parties.
<p>So I don't want to come across as if I'm suggesting you're responsible for doing your kid's homework, or teaching them what they didn't learn in class for whatever reason, or even sitting patiently next to them night after night until they're done. But if you do have interactions with your kids around their math work, particularly if they're struggling with something, here are a few things to keep in mind that help support students' ability to persevere in solving math problems.)</i>
<ul><li><b>Emphasize growth mindset.</b> Explicitly fight the attitude that some people are "just good at math" and other people aren't and that's that. Remind them that struggling through tough problems is a) the only way we really learn anything, and b) takes practice to get good at just like anything else. Exterminate the idea of being a "math person" or "not a math person" with extreme prejudice.
<p><li><b>Encourage them to revisit sense-making.</b> Sometimes kids struggle to persevere because they don't have any strategies for what to do when they get stuck. A good one is to step back and say, "Let me remind myself of the big picture. What am I trying to figure out? What do I know? What have I done so far? Can I retrace my steps?" (A comprehensive discussion of strategies for getting un-stuck is probably its own separate blog post.)</li>
<p><li><b>De-emphasize speed.</b> Remind your student that most math problems--and some might even say the <i>best</i> math problems--can't be solved quickly using some recipe or trick. Instead emphasize effort and patience, and yes, even, "Why don't you go do something else for a while & come back to it later." (I think this is especially important if kids get super emotional and/or stressed and/or agitated about a problem.) If it helps you can even remind them that a lot of the best mathematicians describe themselves as "slow at math."</li>
<p><li><b>Celebrate--rather than demonize--mistakes.</b> I know, this is really, <i>really</i> hard! If you're still working toward being able to celebrate mistakes as invaluable gems of insight, you might try starting with trying to communicate to your student that mistakes are an inevitable and necessary part of learning something new and getting good at it. (Remember, your brain grows when you make a mistake, not when you get something right.) Being terrified of making a mistake, especially in front of others, is a fixed mindset worry.
<p><li><b>Don't be afraid to contact the teacher.</b> If a kid has really, really tried and they're still stuck and you're not sure how to help them and it's becoming a nightmare for everyone involved, don't be afraid to get in touch with your kid's teacher and/or encourage them to contact the teacher themselves (depending on the age and the kid) & say in a very very kind and collaborative and non-blaming way, "Listen, s/he worked super hard on it, s/he can turn in what s/he was able to do and/or can s/he have more time/a bit of extra support" and if it's becoming an every day- or every week-kind of issue, "Maybe can we sit down and chat about this sometime and come up with some sort of different plan." Teachers want kids to succeed and they generally hate the thought that the work they're asking kids to do may be contributing to a deep and abiding hatred of their subject. None of them want you and your kid up at midnight madly googling the internet or calling any math nerd you can think of in fear of a bad grade/homework shaming. Trust.</ul>
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<p><b>Next time:</b> We dive head-first into Practice #2, "Reason abstractly and quantitatively"!
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<p><i>(Thank you for reading this far! I consider these posts to be living works in progress, so please do feel free to share any thoughts, suggestions, or questions. I want to make them as accurate and useful as possible!
<p><sup>1, 2, 3</sup> Related, I've been looking for civilian-friendly, non-super-technical references for these three little factoids, so I'd love to add them if anyone has a good suggestion.)</i>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-4450817541812839582017-09-27T02:00:00.000-07:002017-10-30T13:49:17.766-07:00SMPs for Parents and Other Civilians: MP 1 (Part 1)<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-WhsFN2V/0/59ebed31/O/Screen%20Shot%202017-09-21%20at%203.19.37%20PM.png" align="baseline" width="700" style="margin-bottom:5px;">
<p><i>This is the first follow-up post to a previous one aimed at parents and other non-math teachers, </i><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-real-power-of-studying-mathematics.html">The Real Power of Studying Mathematics</a><i>, about the significance of the Standards for Mathematical practice.</i>
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<p>I was talking to someone once about this practice (MP 1, "Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them") and she asked me, "Isn't that just, like, doing math?"
<p>Well, yes and no.
<p><b>Yes</b>, in that if you can't make sense of a problem, you're probably not going to get very far toward solving it. And if you can't persevere, you probably won't get to a solution even if you <i>can</i> make sense of the problem. In some ways, MP 1 is a kind of "Gateway Practice"; if you struggle to make sense and persevere, it's difficult to get much of any math done at all.
<p><b>No</b>, in that MP 1 is more of a starting point, a 'necessary' condition for doing powerful mathematics, but it is far from sufficient. You made sense of a problem enough to get started? Great! You're hanging in there and persevering? Also great! But there is a lot more to be said regarding <i>how</i> students are able to make sense of problems, and a lot to be said about how effective and efficient our perseverance is, and more yet to be said about what we do once we <i>have</i> solved a problem. All of that is what we get from the other seven practices.
<p>Let us break MP 1 down into its two constituent parts:
<ul><b>1)</b> Make sense of problems.
<p><b>2)</b> Persevere in solving problems.</ul>
<p>Today we'll focus on what it means to make sense of problems; in the next post we'll come back to what it means to persevere in solving them.
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<p><font size="3"><b><u><i>So...what does it mean to make sense of a problem?</i></u></b></font>
<p>Ask any math teacher; if s/he had a nickel for every time a kid read a problem and threw up their hand to proclaim "I don't get it!," s/he'd have a whole lot of nickels.
<p>To make sense of a problem means to read or look at a problem, comprehend the information that's being communicated, and be able to ask yourself, "What <i>mathematics</i> is involved in solving this problem? How will I know when I have an answer, and what will the answer mean?"
<p><P><a name='more'></a>Essentially, <b>making sense of a math problem means finding a meaningful way into working on it.</b> A student might make complete sense of a problem right away and know exactly how they are going to approach it, or they may only understand a small part of it at first and need to "tinker" their way around it for a while, making sense here and there as they go.
<p><b><u>Example.</u></b> Here is a problem I used to give 9th graders at the beginning of the year. It appeared in our current-at-the-time IMP Year 1 textbook, but it's a classic problem that's been around in one form or another since antiquity.
<ul><b><i><center>The Broken Eggs</center>
<p>A farmer has packed up her eggs to take to market to sell, but on the way there, another farmer accidentally tips her cart over, and all her eggs are broken. The other farmer offers to pay for the eggs and asks her how many she had. She doesn't remember exactly, but remembers some things from when she tried packing them in different ways.
<p>She knows that when she packed them two at a time, there was one egg left over. The same thing happened when she tried packing them in threes, fours, fives, and sixes. But when she tried packing them in sevens, there were no leftover eggs. Can you figure out how many eggs the farmer had?</b></i></ul>
<p>I'm sure you can imagine some 9th graders reading this problem and immediately thrusting a hand up to declare, "Miss(ter), I need help! I don't get it!" These students are not currently <b>making sense</b> of the problem.
<p>When kids say, "I don't get it," what they're saying is, "I don't see a way into this problem" and/or "I don't know what I'm supposed to figure out." Instead of bits of information that each pack a chunk of mathematical meaning, they're instead seeing something closer to "information soup"--a bunch of homogeneous facts they can't parse.
<p>(At this point you might be asking questions like, "Why does that happen to some kids and not others?" or "What can teachers do when kids have that experience?" Which are both great questions! Alas, they're beyond the scope of this particular post, but perhaps we'll tackle them another day. Our focus today is mostly on understanding what MP 1 means, what it looks like when kids are doing it, and why it is an important skill to teach.)
<p>If we could listen in on the brain of a student who IS making sense of this problem, we might hear something like the following:
<p>"Okay, what I need to do here is figure out how many eggs the farmer had. And it tells me some things about how she packed them, so that must be how I'm going to figure it out. Let's see....If she had one left over when she packed them in two's, that means that she must have had an odd number. So 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, etc. If she had one left over when she packed them in three's, that means she couldn't have had three eggs, but she could have had four, because four is one group of three and one left over. She couldn't have five, because that would be <i>two</i> left over. And she couldn't have six because that would be none left over. But seven would be two groups of three with one left over. Okay, I see a pattern here...My answer has to be an odd number that's one more than a multiple of three. So I can write out all the odd numbers and then circle the ones that are one more than multiples of three. But then we also know that she had one left over when she packed them in groups of four..." etc. etc. etc.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-5LrDz4z/0/4e533e74/X4/IMAG8002-X4.jpg" align="baseline" width="700"></center>
<p>Or:
<p>"All right, this problem is about the number of eggs a farmer had. We also know the size of the groups she tried packing them in and the number of leftover eggs when she packed them in two's, three's, four's, all the way up to sevens. The part about the other farmer paying her doesn't matter. The main connection between the number of eggs the farmer started with and the leftovers when she packed them in different ways is that there was always one left over, except when she packed them in sevens. So that tells me that the answer has to be a multiple of 7. So it could be 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, etc. Let me write a bunch of those out. If there was always one leftover when she tried the other ways, that means that the number <i>can't</i> be a multiple of two, three, four, five, or six, so I'll cross those out..." etc. etc. etc.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-FHC7KFZ/0/50779d18/X4/IMAG8003-X4.jpg" align="baseline" width="700"></center>
<p>Or:
<p>"Let's see, I want to know how many eggs the farmer started with. We know a bunch of stuff about how she packed the eggs, so that might tell me something about the number. Okay, when she packed the eggs in pairs, there was one left over. That means the number could be written as 2x + 1. But I also know that there was one left over when she packed them in threes, so it also has to be able to be written as 3x + 1. Actually, it looks like that's true for all the different size groups up to six. So whatever the number is, I have to be able to write it as 2x + 1, and 3x + 1, and 4x + 1, etc. Except when I get to seven. She could divide the eggs into groups of seven evenly, so the number also has to look like 7x. But all the x's are going to be different numbers, I guess, so let me write it as 7x = 6x<sub>1</sub> + 1 = 5x<sub>2</sub> + 1 = 4x<sub>3</sub> + 1 = 3x<sub>4</sub> + 1 = 2x<sub>5</sub> + 1..." etc. etc. etc.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-xsFz8J4/0/486da3ff/X4/IMAG8004-X4.jpg" align="baseline" width="700"></center>
<p>Or they might start by drawing pictures. Or they might start by taking a bunch of coins and putting them in different size groups to see how many are left over. Honestly, there are tons of different ways a student might start to make sense of this problem, a ton of ways that they might "get into" the problem, or, as many math teachers are fond of saying, a ton of different "entry points." And all of them are completely valid, logical ways to get started with it.
<p><b><u>Example.</u></b> How about at the early elementary level? What does it mean to "make sense" of a problem like "Tony had 18 Pokemon cards and gave 6 to his friend Carlos. Now how many does Tony have?"
<p>It is easy for an adult--or even, ahem, a secondary math teacher--to look at such a problem and think, "Well, what is there to make sense of, really? You have some and then you subtract the amount that's taken away." Ask any first grade teacher, though; at some point, for all children, this problem is non-trivial. Before they can even get to the point of subtracting 6 from 18, at the very least they need to make sense of (1) what it means to have 18 Pokemon cards, (2) what the mathematical significance of giving some away is, (3) what does that mean I should do with the 18 and the 6. (And who knows, I am not an elementary specialist, there may be even more pieces involved than that! <sub>Elementary math gurus please chime in plzthnx</sub>.)
<p>A first grader who is <b>making sense</b> of this problem might act it out with a partner, or draw pictures, or use a number line. Even if they draw the wrong number at first, or do the wrong operation at first, or have to think for a bit about what to do with a number line, these are all strategies for "getting into" the problem; they are all valid entry points.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-hZ8k8dR/0/69199fc4/X4/IMAG8005-X4.jpg" align="baseline" width="600"></center>
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-xMp5z2z/0/e03e02a5/X4/IMAG8006-X4.jpg" align="baseline" width="600"></center>
<p><b><u>Example.</u></b> It works the same for older students.
<ul><b><i>The Soccer Team is selling charm bracelets to raise money to go to the State Tournament. They need to raise at least $500. Fancy bracelets cost $3, and simple bracelets cost $2. They have enough materials to make up to 180 bracelets. How many of each type of bracelet do you think they should they make? What are the options?</b></i></ul>
<p>A student who is <b>making sense</b> of this problem might think, "Okay, they need to make at least $500. So the amount they need has to be <i>greater than</i> $500. Innnnnteresting, this is starting to sound like an inequality problem. So [amount needed] > 500. Oh, but it would be okay if they made exactly $500 too, so [amount needed] ≥ 500. Fancy bracelets cost $3 and simple ones cost $2, so they could make only 250 simple bracelets and then they'd make enough money. But even more than that would be okay. Or, they could sell....Let's see, $500 divided by 3 is 166.666 repeating, so they could also just sell 167 fancy bracelets. But they only have enough materials to make 180 bracelets, so they can't sell only simple bracelets. With inequality problems with more than one variable, sometimes graphs help me see better, so let me call the number of simple bracelets x and the number of fancy bracelets y..." etc. etc. etc.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-6cKg2Ww/0/64a6dc6f/X3/IMAG8008-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="600"></center>
<p>(You may be thinking, "Some of these methods seem really inefficient. Shouldn't we teach kids the quickest, cleanest way to do problems, instead of slogging around the long way or just trying a bunch of things until they find something that works?"
<p>Yes and no; efficiency is certainly a goal in mathematics, and ultimately we DO want kids to be able to look at certain type of problems and say "Ah, this is a _____ type of problem and that means that I can solve it quickly using _____ strategy." BUT
<ul>a) that is not <i>all</i> we want them to be able to do, because there is no way we could ever pigeon hole every possible type of problem that exists into a category for which there is a quick and straightforward strategy;
<p>b) they still need to be able to make sense of a problem in order to <i>recognize</i> that "Oh, this is a _____ type of problem"; and
<p>c) clean, efficient strategies only make sense when you first approach them the long way 'round and spend a little time grappling and tinkering.</ul>
<p>The road to "I don't get it" is paved with the absolute best intentions of teachers who said "Let me just show you the easy way to do this, memorize it," and whose students, because they didn't have the opportunity to really make sense what they were being told, sooner or later forgot the easy way or skipped a step or confused it with some other strategy for a different type of problem and ended up having to go the long way 'round anyway. Trust.)
<p>And now, since we've come this far, what does it look like <i>not</i> to make sense of a problem?
<p><b><u>Example.</u></b>
<ul><b><i>There are 125 sheep and 5 dogs in a flock. How old is the shepherd?</b></i></ul>
<p>I dare you to guess how many eighth graders read this problem and got straight to work calculating an answer.
<p>(Answer: <a href="https://robertkaplinsky.com/how-old-is-the-shepherd/">Too many to not horrify you</a>.)
<p>These students didn't start by asking themselves, "What do I need to figure out? What information am I given? How are those pieces of information related?" They just pulled some numbers out and started calculating.
<p>See also:
<ul><li>"'In all,' 'all together,' or 'sum' means add; 'many more,' 'left,' or 'difference' means subtract."
<p>Oh really.
<p><b><i>At Madison Elementary, fourth grade students play either soccer or baseball. There are two fourth grade teachers. In Ms. Lassen's class, there are 30 students and 12 of them play baseball. In Mr. Ruiz's class, there are 28 students and 9 play baseball. The principal is ordering soccer shirts, so she wants to know how many students play soccer all together.
<p>Hot dogs come in packages of 10 and Tania bought 7 packages. How many hot dogs does she have in all?
<p>John had 14 marbles in his left pocket. He had 37 marbles in his right pocket. How many marbles did John have? (source: <a href="http://www.nctm.org/Publications/Teaching-Children-Mathematics/2014/Vol21/Issue1/13-Rules-That-Expire/">13 Rules That Expire</a>, NCTM 2014)</i></b>
<p>When students approach word problems by looking for key words to clue them in to what operation to use, they aren't making sense of mathematics; they're actively <i>avoiding</i> the mathematics via shortcuts. And guess what, the shortcut isn't even reliable. Looking for key words in word problems is not a math strategy, it's a strategy for avoiding the work necessary for getting good at MP 1.
<li>"A negative and a negative makes a positive."
<p>Then what about...
<p><b><i>Find the sum of -9 and -12.</i></b>
<p>Approaching calculation problems using memorized rules is fraught with peril. Again, giving students rules or shortcuts to memorize can seem like a kindness at the time, because the cognitive work of, say, extending one's entire body of knowledge of arithmetic to an entirely new system of numbers is long and subtle and complex and will almost certainly involve a good bit of struggle and frustration. But again, tips and tricks like this do students no favors in the long run. Yes, they will get some answers right along the way, but ultimately, relying on rules without really understanding what they mean, why they work, and the circumstances under which they do and do not apply only robs students of the opportunity to work on MP 1 and instead lets them do an end-run around the actual mathematics.
<li>"'Is' over 'of' equals percent over 100."
<p>As in, "15 is what percent of 75?" 15 is near "is" and 75 is near "of," so kids knew to write 15/75 = x/100. Or, "What is 35% of 120?" 'What' (the unknown) is near "is" and 120 is near "of," so write x/120 = 35/100.
<p>I heard this one from students my first year of teaching 9th grade Algebra Support (ie, students who had failed Algebra I at least once already). Except guess what, even if the clue words worked out in a particular problem and they were able to write a correct proportion, most students would <i>still</i> go on to do something like multiply the two sides of the equation, or divide out common factors from places that they can't be divided out of (because something something cross cancelling), or lord help them, <i>invert and multiply</i> the two ratios. (Yours is not to reason why, indeed.)
<p>Say it with me: Someone somewhere with the absolute best of intentions thought, "Trying to really understand fractions and ratios and percents is going to be really hard for these kids, let me help them out by giving them an easy way to remember how to do it," or maybe even, "No one ever taught me a really good way to teach this, but here is a good shortcut that will help them pass the test." It happens! But the result was that instead of learning to really grapple with what the problem is asking and make mathematical sense of it, these kids learned a trick for getting an answer. A trick that a) doesn't even always work, b) most of them couldn't execute reliably anyway, and c) got them no closer to understanding ratios and percents than they were before.</ul>
<p>Which is all to say, tricks and mnemonics like this are not harmless. Is it okay to use a memory trick or a shortcut once you've made sense of the underlying mathematics and fully understood it? Absolutely, because you have the understanding to recognize when such a shortcut does and does not apply or is or is not the most efficient way or when you need to adjust it a bit for some mathematical reason.
<p><b>That is learning mathematics. Memorizing tricks for getting answers is not.</b>
<p>And this is Part 1 of why we need MP 1. Solving problems in a way that helps kids mature mathematically and develop skill and confidence around approaching both familiar and unfamiliar types of problems requires <b>making sense</b>, not memorizing shortcuts or procedures for every kind of problem imaginable.
<p><b><u>What Can Parents Do?</b></u>
<p><i>(<b>**Caveat**:</b> It's always a little tricky to make suggestions to parents because a) not all parents have the luxury of being available regularly to support their kids with homework; b) even for those who do, or can shuffle things around to make the time, it often comes at great opportunity costs; c) parents have a limited amount of control over what and how much work kids are being assigned, how it's being presented at school, etc.; and d) when kids are struggling with school work, emotions between parents & kids can run high & parents trying to help can start to feel like torture for both parties.
<p>So I don't want to come across as if I'm suggesting you're responsible for doing your kid's homework, or teaching them what they didn't learn in class for whatever reason, or even sitting patiently next to them night after night until they're done. But if you do have interactions with your kids around their math work, particularly if they're struggling with something, here are a few things to keep in mind that help support students' ability to focus on first making sense of a problem.)</i>
<ul><li><b>Emphasize sense- and meaning-making,</b> not what rule to use or trying to determine what "type" of problem this or that one is. (There is a time and place for that kind of thinking but if a kid is still in the "I don't get it!" phase of solving a problem, they need to do the sense-making first and worry about efficiency and categorizing types of problems later.) A good question is, "Can you tell me in your own words what's going on in this problem? What's it about? What are you trying to find out?"
<li><b>Get comfortable with the idea of productive struggle,</b> then frame working on challenging math problems that way for your student. Remind them that the point is to understand mathematics more deeply, which mostly comes from grappling with problems we're not necessarily sure what to do with first. Good mathematicians tinker with hard problems at first without getting too caught up in "how do I do this one."
<li><b>Forget about speed.</b> Time pressure is the enemy of deep, careful sense-making. Remind your student that being "good" or "successful" at math is not about how fast they can solve a problem but about the effort they put into understanding it at deep level.
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<p><b>Next time:</b> What does it mean to persevere in solving a problem?
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<p><i>(Thank you for reading this far! I consider these posts to be living works in progress, so please do feel free to share any thoughts, suggestions, or questions. I want to make them as accurate and useful as possible!)</i>
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-63561575565142754192017-09-20T02:00:00.000-07:002017-10-30T13:50:09.961-07:00The Real Power of Studying Mathematics<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Math-Stock-Photos/i-5JNMnbd/0/a14847f4/S/brain-math-picture-4-405x405-S.jpg" align="left" width="250" style="margin-right:10px;"><i>Hint: It's not knowing 17 different ways to solve a quadratic equation.</i>
<p>As the wee progeny of many of my friends and family began to wind their way through elementary (and middle???) school, I've had a number of conversations lately with adults who work outside of education about what it means to have a "good" math education and/or a "good" math teacher and in particular what should they look for in a school or classroom to know that their child is going to get a decent mathematical education.
<p>It's a very tricky, very loaded question that I always struggle to answer in any helpful way. I mean, I can certainly list any number of elements I would hope to see in any math classroom my child were going to spend time in. For example:
<ul><li>A <a href="http://www.corestandards.org/other-resources/key-shifts-in-mathematics/">focused, coherent, and rigorous</a> curriculum that aligns at least pretty well with the Common Core
<li>A balance of procedural, conceptual, and problem solving/application elements
<li>A focus on making sense of mathematics rather than on <a href="https://vimeo.com/79916037">"answer-getting"</a>
<li>Rich, open-ended opportunities for tinkering, discovery, and general "mathematical play"
<li><a href="https://www.youcubed.org/evidence/fluency-without-fear/">Procedural fluency</a> that is built on conceptual understanding and robust number sense rather than rote memorization
<li>De-emphasizing speed, but without altogether abandoning the idea of "mathematical efficiency"
<li>Explicit discussion of the myriad ways of accessing and making sense of mathematics (multiple representations, multiple solutions, etc.)
<li>Explicit discussion of the brain science that underlies fixed vs. growth mindsets
<li>Celebration of mistakes as a necessary part of the learning process that enriches and enhances our understanding
<li>Opportunities for collaboration with diverse peers (and I mean diverse in every sense of the word)
</ul>
<p>...Etc.
<p>...Etc.
<p>...Etc.
<p><P><a name='more'></a>As long as we're making wish lists, I'd also want a teacher with <a href="http://www.cpre.org/content-knowledge-teaching-what-makes-it-special">solid content knowledge</a>, including <a href="https://uni.edu/ctlm/content/mathematical-knowledge-teaching">MKT</a>, <a href="http://sites.soe.umich.edu/mkt/faq/#SCKanchor">SCK</a>, and all the rest. I'd want a teacher who's well-versed in how to encourage a growth mindset, who believes that all students can learn mathematics at a high level, and who has spent some serious time wrestling with questions of mathematical access and equity. I'd want a teacher who actively strives to improve his or her practice and has opportunities to develop professionally, who has the enthusiastic support of his or her department and administrators in doing so, including the time and resources to do it. Unrealistic, you say? Hey, it's my wish list!
<p>The trouble with this sort of wish list is that it doesn't translate very well into something a parent with no training in mathematics education can walk into a classroom for an hour and determine. Heck, it's not even something someone with LOTS of mathematical training can determine in your typical, say, one-hour (or less?) classroom visit on one day. We do studies where we agonize over the best ways to characterize the quality of mathematics instruction that is taking place in a particular classroom and/or school and/or districts, run by experts with decades and decades of experience between them as teachers and administrators and coaches and teacher educators and researchers, and it is still very, very non-trivial.
<p>Which is all to say, being a parent is hard enough without suddenly having to become an expert in every academic subject that is taught in school. And I feel bad that I don't have a whole lot to share, a lot of the time, that makes it much easier. In a way, it's a little like the philosophical discussion my doctor friends have sometimes about whether someone who is not themselves a doctor can ever truly give informed consent.
<p>In these conversations, though, the Common Core comes up a lot (as you might imagine), including lots of questions about what it even is and how it's different from "regular math" and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnjbwJdcPjE">why the heck is this happening anyway</a>. And that inevitably leads to the Standards for Mathematical Practice, the part of the Common Core that seems to get the least air time outside of mathematical circles. And interestingly, these discussions seem to often be the ones parents find most useful.
<p>At some point I promised someone I'd try to explain them in civilian adult-friendly terms, along with why exactly they are such a big deal and why it is so, so important that we have them and are teaching them well, so here we are.
<p><font size="3"><u><b>Content Standards vs. Practice Standards</b></u></font>
<p>The first thing to know about the Common Core math standards (which, these days, we just refer to in California as 'The California Math Standards') is that they have two parts.
<p>The first part is what we refer to as the <b>Content Standards</b>. I am not going to get much into the structure of the Content Standards because that's a whole other post and about a million people have already written beautifully about it. (Who knows, I might even update this post with links to them!)
<p>For the purposes of this post, let us just say that the content standards are what people usually think of when they think about math standards; the content standards are where you'll find the parts that say "You have to know how to multiply fractions" and "You have to know how to solve equations" and "You have to know scientific notation" etc. etc. etc.
<p>"But wait a moment," I hear you non-math teachers asking. "What else do we even need in the math standards?"
<p>Friends, I am glad you asked.
<p><font size="3"><u><b>What's All This About Practice Standards?</b></u></font>
<p>What are the practices? Well, to quote the CCSSM...
<ul><i>"The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe ways in which developing student practitioners of the discipline of mathematics increasingly ought to engage with the subject matter as they grow in mathematical maturity and expertise throughout the elementary, middle and high school years." (p. 8)</i></ul>
<p>Essentially, as in many fields, people who do math in really productive, effective ways have some particular "habits of mind" that serve them well when they try to solve mathematical problems or even just make sense of mathematical ideas. The idea of the Practices was to try to take all those habits and ways of working and distill them down to a manageable number of "practices" that teachers could try to foster in their students in order to help them be successful in mathematics (where "success," at least in my opinion, means not only "able to solve lots of hard problems efficiently" but also "appreciates the power and elegance of mathematics and at least kinda-sorta enjoys it at least some of the time").
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Math-Stock-Photos/i-wBmKJRg/0/631c35bb/S/Mathematical-Practices1-S.jpg" align="baseline" width="400"><br><i><a href="http://www.mathcoachscorner.com/2013/07/embedding-the-ccss-mathematical-practices-into-math-instruction/">Source: Math Coach's Corner</a></i></center>
<p>I feel like for years math teachers have had these sort of "underground" conversations about the concept of mathematical practices, whether we called them "mathematical habits of mind" or "habits of powerful math learners" or whatever. The point being that, it's all very well to teach kids scientific notation or the quadratic formula or how to divide fractions, but the content knowledge alone only really goes so far in terms of helping them extend their learning to an unfamiliar context or gnaw their way into a novel type of problem or see deep connections between what they learned in 3rd grade and 6th grade and Algebra II.
<p>Frankly, it's not enough to know how to plug numbers into the quadratic formula and memorize what the type of answer means. It's not even enough to know how to derive it and <i>why</i> the type of answer means what it means. The question is, <i>how</i> did I derive it? What skills did I use to reason about this question, based on what I already knew? How did I think about this problem? How did I communicate about it? How did I relate it to problems I've solved in the past or mathematics I already understand? What questions did I ask myself to move forward? What did I do when I got stuck?
<p>The Practices are the <i>real</i> answer to the age-old question, "When am I ever going to use this, and don't say if I become a math teacher or rocket scientist." With some exceptions (and excepting obvious professions like math teacher and rocket scientist), <b>the real value of studying mathematics is less being able to solve a quadratic equation and declare how many solutions it has and of what type and more being able to reason, strategize, persevere, and communicate effectively in a quantitative situation.</b>
<p>As a math teacher, I <i>do</i> care that you can solve a multi-step algebraic equation and tell me something about the solution and its different representations and the different meanings it could have, because you need to be able to do that to be successful in your next math course and graduate with decent marks and choose your best, most satisfying path forward in life, etc. etc. But other than that, I don't <i>really</i> care about you being able to solve the equation.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Animated-GIFs/i-md8zS2n/0/6fda3d5c/Th/giphy%20%281%29-Th.gif" align="baseline" width="400"><br><i><font color="2187bb">That's right; I said it.</font></i></center>
<p>The thing is, if you <i>can't</i> solve it, you might be struggling with quantitative reasoning, or with thinking about problems in different ways, or with considering the structure of a problem, or with thinking back to how you've solved related problems in the past, and those are struggles that may close doors for you later in life. That's what I care about.
<p>What I care about is that you can reason your way through the process, that you can take what you understand about numbers and operations and see how they apply in a particular type of problem, that you can communicate all of it effectively (in words, equations, graphs, tables, whatever), that you can see how the meaning of the answer changes depending on the question that's asked.
<p>I care that you're in the habit of asking yourself, "Is this the most efficient way? Is there a cleaner way?," and of thinking, "Usually I'd do this, but because of this particular aspect of this particular problem, this other way makes more sense" and "Hm, I'm not sure about that answer, let me think back through my process and see where it doesn't make sense."
<p>I want you think, "This worked in all <i>these</i> situations, I wonder if it always work? Why might it not work?" and "This problem seems a lot like this other one where I did ____, I wonder if that might work here" and "Wow, s/he's working mighty hard to convince me his/her solution is right, but does it really make sense to me?"
<p>That's the real value of studying mathematics, in my opinion. That's the power of the Practices.
<p>So what are these much-vaunted math-doing habits?
<p>For those of you who don't quite have them tatooed on your brain yet (non-math teachers, you are forgiven):
<br><br>
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Math-Stock-Photos/i-PgFMxXh/0/5785f306/X2/SMPs-X2.jpg" align="baseline" width="800"></center>
<br>
<p>(Non-teachers and teachers alike -- It's okay if you don't yet totally understand what they mean. We'll get to that.)
<p>As you can imagine, much <strike>blood</strike> ink was spilled and many garments rent in the process of determining exactly how to slice and dice really effective mathematical ways of thinking and working into a finite number of coherent practices. (This is what I've been told, anyway.) How to characterize exactly how the best math thinkers think?? And how to make them general enough that they apply universally to the entire discipline, while also being concrete enough to see how they might apply in a particular grade level?? And how to word them juuuust right, and are these two too similar, and should this one actually be split into two <i>separate</i> practices?? etc. etc. etc.
<p>You can certainly make the argument that they're not perfect (and people do), but personally, I think they're a pretty darn functional place to start and we could do much, much worse in terms of a framework for teaching kids not just the content but <i>how to engage with it</i> most effectively.
<p><b>Next:</b> Let's tackle these Practices one at a time in non-math teacher-friendly ways.
<br><br><i><b><font size="3"><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/09/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">SMPs for Parents and Other Civilians: MP 1 (Part 1)</a>
<p><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/10/smps-for-parents-and-other-civilians-mp.html">SMPs for Parents and Other Civilians: MP 1 (Part 2)</a></i></b></font>
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-53332309123656283992017-07-12T13:46:00.000-07:002017-10-30T13:47:01.095-07:00Books 2017: Quarter 2<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTd5mzAVmuMUfPLFKnEOE4a5-qny8ZPvwDchcNqbB7bDIAh8GgW7QySLk6AWXAoGpOPTDPiLDICWfhkVhJ7UzVUZqyWC3j4M08ZjfGA3TO47ex06VkTFjkUISW4-F2pEcH5S30LQekEA/w2048-h1158-no/" align="left" width="450" style="margin-right:10px;">Guys. Where is the year going. July?? Crazy pants.
<p>As you probably already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore. You can find my past reviews by clicking on the "books" tag at the end of this post, or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/126714-angela">be my friend on Goodreads</a>. (You can also just go to the site & hunt down my review feed without being my friend, if that's more your speed.)
<p>ICYMI, the classics I selected to read in 2017 are <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/01/books-2017-classics.html">here</a>.
<p>On to the reviews!
<P><a name='more'></a><b><font size="3">THE CLASSICS:</font></b>
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2017/i-x8ZjqNB/0/73c7079c/XL/IMAG7522-XL.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200"><b>April: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2058399005">The Remains of the Day</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4280.Kazuo_Ishiguro">Kazuo Ishiguro</a> (1956, 258 pages). 4 stars. A post-World War II English butler getting towards the end of his career borrows his employer's car to take a road trip around the country and visit a (female) former colleague with whom he has had a complicated relationship. The book alternates between descriptions of his exploits and flashbacks to his career as a butler. The theme of the book as best as I can describe it centers around questions of loyalty, grace, and what it means to be a good/great man, particularly as the country and its culture is changing in the aftermath of the war. Beautifully written and worth reading, but didn't change my life exactly..
<p><b>May: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1954342655">The Joy Luck Club</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5246.Amy_Tan">Amy Tan</a> (1989, 288 pages). 5 stars. Four women immigrate from China to the US in the mid-20th century and start a small social group together with their husbands, the "Joy Luck Club." The chapters alternate between telling the various stories of the four women as well as those of their daughters. The effect is a bit like a prism, with the reader getting a slightly different view of some of the same events depending on who is telling the story. Really gorgeously written and kind of a beautiful reflection on the relationships between friends, mothers, daughters, and what it means to be an immigrant, an American, and/or a bit of both. Not the kind of book I normally think of as my cup of tea but I really enjoyed it..
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2017/i-ZXrS78L/0/d6cd0df0/XL/IMAG7521-XL.jpg" align="right" style="margin-left:10px;" width="200"><b>June: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2058406823">The Brothers Karamazov</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3137322.Fyodor_Dostoyevsky">Fyodor Dostoyevsky</a> (1879, 796 pages). 3 stars. Guyssssss, I tried. In the past I've been pleasantly surprised at how much I've enjoyed various Russian classics, but man. I just got so bored with this book waiting for something, <i>anything</i>, to happen. I made it about halfway through before I gave up & moved on to something else. I might go back to it at some point but oh. My. God. Just. WHAT. Is this even about.
<br /><br />
<p><font size="3"><b>OTHER RECENT READS:</b></font>
<p>I've read a lot of stuff this quarter but have not done a great job with keeping up with all of it. So here's what we've got.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2017/i-CghBFWT/0/85b9bac2/O/0399574638.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1978501614">The Wanderers</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4228949.Meg_Howrey">Meg Howrey</a>. (2017, 370) 5 stars. One of the best books I've read in a long, long time. In the not-too-distant future, a private company called Prime Space is preparing to send a manned space mission to Mars. Three astronauts have been selected: American Helen (fifty-something ex-NASA astronaut, widow, awkward mother), Japanese Yoshi (brilliant philosopher-engineer, passionate yet awkward husband), and Russian Sergei (national hero cosmonaut & recently divorced father of two). In preparation, they will spend 17 months in a simulation of their mission. Specifically designed to simulate the trio's Mars trip with unheard-of levels of realism, the three will be tested as no space explorers have ever been before. You would think this is a science story, and there is some discussion of the science-y parts involved in a Mars mission, but at its heart, this is more of a dramatic character study. The narration alternates between the three astronauts and their respective family members. We see how navigating those relationships--and their relationships with each other--is at least as complicated as getting to Mars, and there are a few other surprises in store as well. Just a remarkably written book with some of the most three-dimensional and compelling character writing that I can remember.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1374502928">Tell the Wolves I'm Home</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5274234.Carol_Rifka_Brunt">Carol Rifka Brunt</a>. (2012, 360 pages) 5 stars. One of the best, most authentic and raw YA books I've read in quite a while. June is a somewhat eccentric 14 year old growing up in the early 80s who has recently lost her beloved Uncle Finn to AIDS. One of his last acts was to paint a portrait of June and her older sister over several months of Sunday afternoons entitled "Tell The Wolves I'm Home," which he leaves to his sister (June's mother)'s family. The story follows June as she deals with Finn's death in the weeks and months that follow, and the interplay between that and the rest of the turmoil going on in her family and their somewhat troubled past. Fantastically written, with such pitch-perfect voice, and so raw and haunting in places it's gut wrenching. I kept waiting for things to veer to dark, disturbing melodrama, but thankfully they never did. There's enough chaos and heartbreak and beauty to be found in a young person's first real encounter with grief and loss (not to mention negotiating friendships and family life in the process) and the author squeezes every last drop out of it.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2017/i-dXpFTft/0/1947667a/XL/IMAG7519-XL.jpg" align="right" style="margin-left:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2029668301">Penpal</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6082338.Dathan_Auerbach">Dathan Auerbach</a>. (2012, 252 pages) 5 stars. So, every time I try to explain that I like horror, I feel like I have to clarify that I mean GOOD horror, as in smart, clever, primal horror with good writing as opposed to graphic blood-and-guts crap. And I think this book fits that, or at least, it's kind of a hybrid between good horror and a psychological thriller. The story is told in the first person by a man who has gone back and pieced together a number of strange and disturbing moments of his life to try to understand the pattern that emerges. Each chapter functions like a bit of a puzzle piece, and since the pieces are not always presented chronologically, sometimes we get echoes or foreshadowing of other pieces. We also get brief flashes of conversations with his (single) mother about some of these moments, and her words and reactions add to the puzzle. Almost nothing is made explicit, but the puzzle pieces themselves are creepy enough that sometimes I didn't want to read it alone at night (rare) and as the book and chapters go on and the larger implicit story began to take shape, I was like "OH SHIIIIT I do not want to read the end of this book alone." Creepy, clever perfection. Will DEF be seeking out more by this author because check plus plus.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1750473842">Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3960446.Irin_Carmon">Irin Carmon</a>. (2015, 227 pages) 5 stars. If you're a die hard fan of the Notorious RBG, this is a must-read. If you don't really know all that much about the Notorious RBG, it is also a must-read. Seriously. You think you're impressed with her now? Wait til you get the full story. Just a great read.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2029679945">The Kind Worth Killing</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7142445.Peter_Swanson">Peter Swanson</a>. (2015, 312 pages) 4 stars. A man who has just figured out that his wife is cheating on him with the contractor who is building their new house kills time with a strange woman in an airport bar before the flight they're both on. He makes an off-hand comment about "I could just kill her" or something and then, totally straight-faced, the woman's like, "You should, she sounds like a terrible person, and I'll totally help you." And after that we're off to the races. So, yeah. Completely improbable premise, and that's not even the most improbable moment in the book. On the other hand, I expected to be a total guilty-pleasure trashy thriller, but it was actually really well written and engrossing! The other thing that pushes it to four stars for me was the lack of predictability. There were a number of twists and turns that kept the plot from feeling canned or like just another variation on the age-old adultery-revenge-murder trope. Perfect plan/beach/etc. read.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31443398-the-perfect-stranger">The Perfect Stranger</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4417749.Megan_Miranda">Megan Miranda</a>. (2017, 337 pages) 4 stars. Ie, Megan Miranda of <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1701939329">All the Missing Girls</a></i> acclaim. Leah Stevens is an early-30s ex-journalist who has left Boston and her profession in disgrace to move to a western Pennsylvania backwater and teach high school English. Luckily she runs into her former roommate Emmy right around that time, who, as it happens, is also looking for a fresh start somewhere new. But then one day Emmy disappears without a trace, and a girl who looks eerily like Leah turns up badly assaulted at a lake close to the house she and Emmy shared. Creepy mystery thrills ensue. I enjoyed this book--Megan Miranda is an excellent writer and does a great job of bringing both characters and settings to life. It didn't quite live up to <i>All The Missing Girls</i>, but that's quite a high bar and it was still a fun read.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/SF-Road-Warrior-2017/i-KrcHkT8/0/d1586868/XL/IMAG7520-XL.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200"><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2029664007">Hag-Seed</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3472.Margaret_Atwood">Margaret Atwood</a>. (2016, 301 pages) 4 stars. A fantastic and clever read (as one would expect), but also on the lighter side compared to what she normally writes, which I think is probably a consequence of being part of this "Hogarth Shakespeare" series. In it Atwood takes on The Tempest, wherein an eccentric Shakespearean director & actor, grief stricken by the death of his 3 year old daughter Miranda, is ousted from his position as the director of a small town Shakespeare festival on the verge of staging The Tempest. Years later, though, he has the opportunity to perform it with a band of white collar felons as part of a prison literacy program, and mmmmmm things get a bit crazy after that. File under #metatheater. Amusing and smart, but not as weighty as many of her books.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1682079103">The Shining Girls</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/426034.Lauren_Beukes">Lauren Beukes</a>. (2013, 375 pages) 4 stars. Just when you thought I'd read every thriller with "Girl(s)" in the title! In this one, Harper, a Depression-era psychopath stumbles across a house inside which the names of 34 "shining girls" have been scrawled. Harper finds that between the house and sheer will, he is able to travel through time to locate (and brutally murder) each of the shining girls in turn, a task that must be completed carefully and methodically, because psychopath. Meanwhile, twenty-year-old Kirby becomes obsessed with tracking down the asshole who tried and failed to brutally murder her in the late 1980s, eventually throwing in with the hard-boiled sports-writer-nee-crime-reporter who originally covered her assault. Chapter by chapter, their stories circle each other, gradually threading together to give us the full story. Not life-changing and I had a few mild complaints, but certainly enjoyable and pretty well written.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1464792733">Everything I Never Told You</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/164692.Celeste_Ng">Celeste Ng</a>. (2014, 304 pages) 4 stars. File under "really fantastic books that are just not my cup of tea." We begin the story knowing that 16 year old Lydia is dead, but her family, gathered round the breakfast table waiting for her, do not yet know. The story unfolds in pieces, cutting back and forth between the present--the aftermath of Lydia's death & how her family makes sense of & deals with it--and the decades of events in the lives of herself, her siblings, and her parents that ultimately led up to her death. Really, really brilliantly and beautifully written, but DAMN, it's utterly and relentlessly depressing, without a hint of humor or levity anywhere.
<br />
<br />
<center>* * *</center>
<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2247142.The_Talented_Mr_Ripley">The Talented Mr. Ripley</a></i>, by Patricia Highsmith
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31170723-behave">Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst</a></i>, by Robert M. Sapolsky
<p><b><i>Up Next:</i></b>
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6867.Atonement">Atonement</a></i>, by Ian McEwan
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1885.Pride_and_Prejudice">Pride and Prejudice</a></i>, by Jane Austen
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32049.Lady_Chatterley_s_Lover">Lady Chatterly's Lover</a></i>, by D.H. Lawrence
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27246122-red-queen">The Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice, #2)</a></i>, by Christina Henry
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/112537.Rendezvous_with_Rama">Rendezvous with Rama</a></i>, by Arthur C. Clarke
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22181034-mort-e">Mort(e)</a></i>, by Robert Repino
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653853-the-upside-of-unrequited">The Upside of Unrequited</a></i>, by Becky Albartelli
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23341578-broken-monsters">Broken Monsters</a></i>, by Lauren Beukes
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31372242-chalk">Chalk</a></i>, by Paul Cornell
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32075671-the-hate-u-give">The Hate U Give</a></i>, by Angie Thomas
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20575425-wolf-in-white-van">Wolf in White Van</a></i>, by John Darnielle
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30780283-white-tears">White Tears</a></i>, by Hari Kunzru
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653843-radio-silence">Radio Silence</a></i>, by Alice Oseman
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow">Gravity's Rainbow</a></i>, by Thomas Pynchon
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10394348-doors-of-stone"><i>The Doors of Stone</a></i>, by Patrick Rothfuss (Come on, Rothfuss. You can do it. I believe in you.)</ul>
<br>
<p>And who knows, whatever else tickles my fancy. (Taking future suggestions as always!)Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-32277139439234549272017-05-05T02:00:00.000-07:002017-06-22T14:22:33.953-07:00Dividing small by big (fraction division & pattern blocks, part 2)Last time, I <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/05/that-time-cathy-humphreys-taught-me-to.html">related the tale</a> of how, with a single fifth grade arithmetic problem, Cathy Humphreys shook my confidence in my math abilities to the core and then rebuilt it again from the rubble, better, faster, stronger, because that's how she rolls.
<p><i>(Do you know why 1 ÷ 2/3 = 3/2? Are you sure?
<p>Are you?
<p>ARE
<p>YOU
<p>?)</i>
<p>1 ÷ 2/3 is tricky because, unlike, for example, 3/2 ÷ 1/4, the divisor does not fit evenly into the dividend. But once you understand the nature of the problem--what fraction <i>of the unit in question</i> comprises the leftover bit?--you can probably more or less make your way through most problems where the divisor is at least <i>smaller</i> than the dividend.
<p>So hold onto your pantaloons, mateys; we're about to go off the map a bit. Here there be dragons, ie, problems where we are asked to divide a SMALL fraction by a BIGGER fraction.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/Animated-GIFs/i-FDRJ8Dn/0/4427197c/Th/idk-Th.gif" align="baseline" width="300"><br><i>CRAZY TALK.</i></center>
<p><a name='more'></a>(It's worth noting the phenomenon that happens, sometimes, when you start really digging into your securely-held math as part of professional learning. Yes, you have two math degrees and a teaching certificate and it's been many, MANY years since you would answer a question about whether it is possible to divide small numbers by bigger ones with anything other than "Of course you can, you silly so and so," but now Cathy Humphreys has been making you really think about it for a while and suddenly YOU JUST DON'T KNOW. Like, you're *pretty* sure, but maybe you're not so willing to put money on it.)
<p>I did such a problem with some pre-service teachers a few years back to try to give them an opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of students who have some understanding of a topic but lack the <i>robust, flexible</i> conceptual understanding we want for them. (It also gave us lots of opportunities to talk about the dynamics of doing hard math together with a group. And yes, as I found <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/05/that-time-cathy-humphreys-taught-me-to.html">the day Cathy Humphreys came to class</a> when I was a teacher candidate, it turns out that sometimes 5th grade math counts as hard.)
<p>So consider with me, mateys, if you will, 2/3 ÷ 5/3.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-CMRR5wJ/0/7dc98880/X3/IMAG6792-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p><i>***(<b>NOTE</b>: I don't actually remember what problem we did, and I don't actually remember the conversation verbatim. So I've tried to reconstruct it in *the spirit* of said conversation as much as possible, with a problem that totally *could have* been the problem we actually did. Knowing that what follows is partly a work of fiction, I hope you still find it interesting and/or useful.)***</i>
<p>We used pattern blocks, and of course we all knew going in that the answer was 2/5. The point was to really see <i>why</i>, from a concrete point of view, that had to be the case.
<p>We had already done some problems with the blocks like the one in my previous post, and the teachers had gotten around to realizing that when we divide fractions we need to pay careful attention to our units and especially to when the unit changes. We had also had some conversations about how sometimes the way you model the problem in your head and how you express it in words can have a huge impact on how easy or difficult it is to make sense of. For example, for most people, asking "How many 2/3'rds fit into 1 whole?" is a lot more useful than asking, "How many equal groups of 2/3 can I fit into 1 whole?" Although mathematically the meaning of the two questions is the same, one is easier to make sense of when you're working with a concrete model.
<p>Trying to represent the problem verbally had been a useful approach for several people, so they immediately started trying to frame the problem in words. A popular starting point was, "How many 5/3'rds can I fit into 2/3?" Alas, most did not find this framing as helpful with this problem as they had with problems like 1 ÷ 2/3. How many 5/3 <i>can</i> I fit into 2/3?
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-bm6WKDd/0/9b018a3a/X3/IMAG6796-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i>WHO EVEN KNOWS IT IS PROBABLY JUST UNKNOWABLE.</i></center>
<p>But these guys and gals were future math teachers and not easily deterred. We work hard to establish a culture of "Half baked ideas are welcome ideas" and "Observations help us make sense even if they don't give us the answer," so when one teacher said sheepishly, "I think I figured something out but I don't know how it helps," we all paid attention.
<p>"I don't know how to see 2/3 ÷ 5/3, but I can see that there's 2 and 1/2 two-thirds that can fit into 5/3." We agreed and wrote it down. Someone else remarked, "I think you found 5/3 ÷ 2/3, so maybe that will help later."
<p>Then someone remarked, "I think it helps if you say...
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-JrwJ9x6/0/ced416ed/X3/IMAG6797-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>Another refined this statement further:
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-GsWw9VD/0/5272650f/X2/IMAG6798-X2.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>Most agreed that this question was more helpful, but they still weren't sure how to apply it. What fraction of 5/3 <i>does</i> fit into 2/3?
<p>"Well it's less than 1/2," said someone, "because you can fit two 2/3's, and there's still 1/3 leftover." We noted how that tied into the observation that 5/3 ÷ 2/3 = 2 1/2.
<p>Someone else remarked, "Okay, I just thought of something. It takes 4 one-halfs to make up two, so you know that two divided by 1/2 is four, and also that 1/2 divided by 2 is 1/4, because 1/2 is 1/4 of two."
<p>(Seriously. Read that sentence over again carefully three or four times. If you're like me, it will start to make sense about then.)
<p>(Also, we believe in visual aids here:)
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-gzwGNHR/0/830f7def/X3/IMAG6799-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-GDLGzqv/0/1bc356db/X3/IMAG6800-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>What fraction of 2 is 1/2?
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-pBSgps8/0/56bdd13d/X3/IMAG6801-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>He continued: "So it's kind of the same -- it takes 2 1/2 two-thirds to make up 5/3, so 2/3 ÷ 5/3 has to be one two-and-a-halfths." He wrote a fraction on his paper, with 1 as the numerator and "2 1/2" as the denominator.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-hGkCPKM/0/f5f204a5/X3/IMAG6804-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i>#analogies</i></center>
<p>We chuckled at the notation a bit but agreed that, logically, it made sense.
<p>"Which is 1 over 5/2," said someone else, "which is 2/5."
<p>We made note of this observation but kept searching for a way to really see the 2/5 in the manipulatives. After a few more minutes, one woman exclaimed, "Oh my god. How did I not see this?"
<p>She switched out the yellow hexagon for three blue trapezoids. "So 5/3, right? The question is 'What fraction of 5/3 is 2/3?' Well, 5/3 is five 1/3 pieces."
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-VQ5MTMR/0/28141279/X2/IMAG6805-X2.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>"When you're talking about 5/3, a 1/3 piece is your fifth. A 1/3 piece is 1/5 of 5/3."
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-zRScpQh/0/f42f141b/X3/IMAG6807-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>"Which means that <i>two</i> 1/3 pieces makes <i>2/5</i> of 5/3..."
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-P649VRm/0/614bf5a8/X2/IMAG6811-X2.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>"...which means that <i>2/5 of 5/3 fits into 2/3!</i>"
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-SZ7Vtkw/0/a233bd6b/X3/IMAG6816-X3.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"><br><i></i></center>
<p>And, just as had happened in<a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/05/that-time-cathy-humphreys-taught-me-to.html"> my first experiences doing fraction division with pattern blocks</a>, once someone had pointed it out, the other teachers couldn't <i>not</i> see it.
<p>"Seriously, how did we not see that for see long?" one asked. "It's so obvious!"
<p>And the answer, of course, is that a lot of things are obvious in retrospect. You don't see it til you see it. It doesn't make sense until you stare at the pieces for long enough and think of just the right way to look at things.
<p>Of course, having this conversation with secondary teacher candidates with undergraduate math degrees (or similar) is very very different from having it with elementary students whose understanding of what a fraction even <i>is</i> is still somewhat fragile. Whereas once these teachers saw it, they couldn't <i>un</i>-see it, we know that elementary students will need many, many opportunities to "see it" and think about it and represent it with words and manipulatives and whatever else before their understanding is solid. But for a moment, at least, our secondary candidates had a chance to look at something "simple" and appreciate just how much real, deep, sophisticated mathematics there was to unpack, and just what was required of them--even as content "experts"--to really, truly make sense of it.
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-29975785840295973002017-05-02T02:00:00.000-07:002017-06-22T14:23:17.733-07:00That time Cathy Humphreys taught me to divide fractionsDespite my background as a high school teacher, I've gotten deeply interested in grade 3-5 math in the past few years, particularly all the bits related to number, operations, & algebraic thinking and how they weave together to create the ramp that ultimately gives kids access to formal algebra.
<p>But it was not always this way! As a college math major filling out applications to masters & secondary credential programs, I definitely saw myself as a high school teacher, much more interested in the complexity and rich structure of Algebra II and trigonometry and calculus than in the usual middle school topics. And I *certainly* had never gone back to closely examine my own conceptual understanding of the foundational mathematics we learn in elementary school. Who wants to teach fractions and decimals when you could be initiating kids into the wonders of trigonometric functions??
<p>BO.
<p>RING.
<p>So, I got into a secondary program, started student teaching Algebra I, & learning all the magical things they teach you in Curriculum & Instruction (ie, "methods") class about how kids make sense of ideas like variables and functions and data analysis over time and what it really means to understand all these things anyway. It was mystifying and terrifying and amazing, and in addition to learning how to teach, those experiences also unlocked for me an entirely new dimension of understanding. It was exhilarating ("Who knew math could be even MORE AMAZING??) but also a bit panic-inducing ("How the HECK am I supposed to get kids to understand it THIS way?!?"). All in all, though, I was starting to feel pretty darn good about my content knowledge.
<p>And then, one day, Cathy Humphreys came to class.
<p>She came to teach us about fractions.
<p><a name='more'></a>I still remember a bunch of us thinking it was a bit odd; I mean, as secondary math teacher candidates, nearly all of us had undergraduate degrees in math, and we were certainly all quite strong in the subject by any reasonable measure. Shouldn't we be learning how to teach kids about systems of equations or rate of change? Still, we were also reasonably open minded and willing to try just about anything, and mostly approached the session with an attitude of, "What the heck, let's see what Cathy Humphreys has to teach us about fractions."
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-4P9B8vm/0/a158891e/XL/IMAG6768-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>She brought pattern blocks, and one of the first things she told us was that as we thought about fraction problems today, we were not to use any procedures or algorithms that we knew for performing calculations with fractions; instead, we were to <i>reason</i> our way through the problems, performing only operations that we could explain in the context of the problem. (For example, "There's 1/3 of each pizza leftover and 6 pizzas, so to find out how much is left, we can multiply 6 pizzas times 1/3 of a pizza, ie, add six 1/3 's together" = OK; "We need to divide 6 5/8 meters of ribbon into strips of 1/4 meters, so invert the 1/4 and multiply straight across" = not OK unless you can explain why on earth that makes sense.)
<p>Well, we were all of course believers in deep conceptual understanding, and we weren't sure why people like us who were obviously very good at math would <i>need</i> to fall back on memorized procedures, but we were happy to oblige.
<p>I wish I could remember more about the specifics of the session--which operations and problems we did, and in which order, and what the conversations around them were. I do remember talking about and modeling problems like 3 ÷ 1/4, where the divisor fits evenly into the dividend, which didn't trouble any of us too much, and we were even fine with problems like 1/2 ÷ 1/4 or 6/8 ÷ 1/4. (In fact, I might go so far as to say we were actually pretty proud of our ability to explain the solutions in a completely conceptual way and even illustrate our methods using the pattern blocks.)
<p>But something I remember very clearly was how the mood in the room shifted when we began working on a fraction division problem using the pattern blocks where the divisor did <i>not</i> fit so neatly. I think that most (or all?) of us had thought we'd breeze through it, but it quickly became obvious that that wasn't the case.
<p>Since I don't remember the first real stumper Cathy asked us to think about, let's pretend it was 1 ÷ 2/3 (partly because <a href="https://www.youcubed.org/encourage-visual-mathematics/">this video</a> exists as an illustration). It was easy enough to take my 1 (the yellow hexagon) and find two of the 1/3 blocks (the blue trapezoids) and place them on top; what I was having trouble with was completing the mapping of the equation in my mind, 1 ÷ 2/3 = x, onto the concrete representation.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-MxkwKBt/0/8fbb590b/XL/IMAG6771-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>Like my classmates, I remember staring blankly at my pattern blocks, completely paralyzed, unexpectedly humbled by elementary school math that for years I'd considered too boring to even consider beyond its procedural, symbolic role in formal algebra. I knew 101 ways to integrate a function and could rattle off epsilon-delta proofs with the best of them, but somehow couldn't solve a fifth grade arithmetic problem without falling back on a memorized procedure.
<p>I could see the 1 and I could see the 2/3, but when I thought about division, my brain yelled "Equal parts!!" and I could not knock into place a) the leftover 1/3 or b) where in the representation the division was happening. When I tried to think concretely about 1 ÷ 2/3, what I came up with was, "Split 1 into equal groups of 2/3," which was just clearly not possible. Abstractly, I knew the answer was 3/2 or 1 1/2, but I could not for the life of me see <i>where</i> that 1 1/2 was, or make sense of that "equal groups" construct.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-xfdxKgQ/0/0a81c02f/XL/IMAG6775-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="400"></center>
<p>There was quite a lot of tentative murmuring and later full-on discussion about this among our group of secondary candidates. We shared our representations, made observations, and explained the thoughts and questions that were tripping us up. The light bulb came on for a lot of us, I think, when someone asked, "What if instead of interpreting 1 ÷ 2/3 as "Divide 1 into 2/3 equal groups," we thought about it as, "How many 2/3 fit into 1?"
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-CQnxCDx/0/a95a1c32/XL/IMAG6776-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>And with that observation, suddenly a switch in my thinking flipped. I looked at my model, at the 2/3 of the yellow hexagon covered with the two blue trapezoids, and at the troublesome 1/3 that was left, and suddenly there it was, plain as day, 1 1/2, right in front of my face.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-PXvxDpJ/0/1499888f/XL/IMAG6778-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>Of course, putting it into words was something else all together. "There it is!" we squealed, pointing wildly to our blocks. "There's 3/2!"
<p>"Where's what?"
<p>"IT!"
<p>"What?"
<p>"The 3/2!"
<p>"Where?"
<p>"THERE!" More exuberant pointing.
<p>But Cathy didn't only want us to <i>see</i> the 3/2; she wanted us to put it into words, to explain it, mathematically and precisely. She pressed on our burgeoning understanding with questions like, "But if we said the yellow hexagon is 1, how can we have an answer that's <i>more</i> than 1?" and "Wouldn't 1 1/2 be a yellow hexagon and half of another one?" and "If the answer is 1 1/2, but not 1 1/2 hexagons, then 1 1/2 <i>what</i>?"
<p>(This was 12 years ago, but I can't think back on the discussion now without MP 3 and MP 6--and realistically, a whole host of others--jumping out at me.)
<p>It was through these questions that we finally got to the idea of the changing unit. The answer was not 1 1/2 "ones" (yellow hexagons); it was 1 1/2 <i>two-thirds</i>. Inside our "one" (the yellow hexagon), we could fit one <i>complete</i> 2/3 (two blue trapezoids), plus another 1/3 (one blue trapezoid)--ie, another <i>half</i> of a 2/3.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-7KkMLjx/0/1256760c/XL/IMAG6780-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-hG59b32/0/d22dd5d1/XL/IMAG6782-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>So if we thought about the problem as, "How many 2/3 fit into 1?," it was easier to see that the answer was, "One (complete 2/3), plus another half (of a 2/3), or 1 1/2 (two-thirds)."
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-43qxr89/0/cfbc6bde/XL/IMAG6786-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>Friends, I don't know about you, but I was *definitely* not taught fraction division this way; mine was definitely, <i>definitely</i> not to reason why. Flip it and multiply straight across you say? DONE AND DONE. It never occurred to me that there <i>could</i> be a reason; it was just the rule.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-rVpHwxC/0/d8a04d09/XL/IMAG6789-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="650"></center>
<p>I know for a fact that this was a huge part of why I hated and struggled with math so much in school. I don't memorize well, <i>at all</i>. If there's some procedure I need to carry out, even as an adult, I need to understand <i>why</i>, to completely make sense of each step, if it's going to be any good to me. And when the focus is on getting an answer, quickly and consistently and at all costs, true understanding--understanding that can be enriched and expanded and built on over time--falls by the wayside. Teaching procedures without helping students <i>make sense</i> of them in the context of the mathematics they already know is a mathematical dead-end.
<p>Next time, how I made sense of even CRAZIER problems, ie, ones where the we must divide a SMALL fraction by a BIGGER fraction. (Crazy talk, I know.)
<p>***(P.S., Cathy, if you ever read this and have a better memory of this day than I do--or if I've totally bolloxed what actually happened--please let me know so that I can make update this post! And, thank you again for teaching me how to divide fractions. :) )***Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-51881395455002304802017-04-12T02:00:00.000-07:002017-06-22T14:24:04.839-07:00My NCSM & NCTM 2017 Highlights<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-gNsm7bb/0/O/NCTM%20%26%20NCSM%20Logos.png" align="left" style="margin-right:10px; margin-bottom:10px;" width="400">Hi friends,
<p>I spent this past week in San Antonio attending the annual conferences of the <a href="https://www.mathedleadership.org/">National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics</a> and the <a href="http://www.nctm.org/">National Council of Teachers of Mathematics</a> as I do most years, and as always, I had a fantastic time and learned a ton.
<p>Just a quick overview of some of the highlights:
<p><font size="3"><b><i>Learning, Planning, and Teaching Together: Facilitating Job-Embedded Professional Development</i></b></font>, Kendra Lomax and Becca Lewis (University of Washington). I feel incredibly strongly about practice-based PD, and since I also happened to know that Kendra got rave reviews from a group of K-2 teachers she'd recently been doing some practice-based/job-embedded PD with, I was excited to hear what she and her colleague had to say on the topic. We heard about how they've been exploring the idea of rehearsal as a way of teachers preparing to teach a lesson, where the rehearsing involves very focused and thoughtful real-time coaching from a teacher educator. They shared some interesting videos, and I look forward to exploring more of their work on on the <a href="http://tedd.org/">TEDD (Teacher Education by Design) website</a>.
<p><a name='more'></a><font size="3"><b><i>Using Identity and Agency to Frame Access and Equity</i></b></font>, NCTM President Elect Robert Q. Berry III. Some colleagues and I recently presented a couple of seminars with this year's WestEd/SVMI Network cohort on the topics of Mathematical Agency and Authority as well as Access and Equity; it's an incredibly important topic, and one around which I feel I am continually deepening my own understanding. I appreciated Dr. Berry sharing some excellent concrete examples of how it's possible to leverage what students bring with them to the classroom to
<p><font size="3"><b><i>Coaching Teachers on the Topics of Fractions, Ratios, and Rates</i></b></font>, Vanessa Cerrahoglu & Jody Guarino (Illustrative Mathematics). Part of my interested in upper elementary mathematics has to do with how those ideas progress towards key middle school topics like proportional reasoning and rates of change. In this session, the facilitators asked us to think carefully about fractions, ratios, and rates, particularly how they are the same/related and how they are different. I actually think that a lot of teachers are often a bit unclear on some of those final points (I recently attended a scorer training where a number of high school teachers argued vehemently that the ratio 1:3 has the same meaning as the fraction 1/3), and the structure they had us engage in felt like a great way to get kids (or PD participants) thinking carefully about those finer points without feeling "dumb" or defensive. It also seemed easily adaptable to other topics where you might want to get students or PD participants talking about at fine distinctions between related ideas.
<p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-VktZXxR/0/O/Screen%20Shot%202017-04-11%20at%202.47.38%20PM.png" width="400" align="right" style="margin-left:10px;"><font size="3"><b><i>Routines for Reasoning: Ensuring All Students Are Mathematical Thinkers;</i></b> <b><i>Using Routine Rehearsals to Transform Teaching Practices;</i></b>, and <b><i>Meeting the Needs of ALL Students through Instructional Routines</i></b></font>, Grace Kelemanik, Amy Lucenta, & Claire Nuchtern (Fostering Math Practices). Our WestEd/SVMI team is hard at work putting together our 2017 Summer Institute, and a couple of months back we decided to use Grace and Amy (along with co-author Susan Janssen Creighton)'s fantastic book <i><a href="http://www.heinemann.com/products/E07815.aspx">Routines for Reasoning: Fostering the Mathematical Practices in All Students</a></i> as one of our primary resources. We are always looking for ways that our teachers can support their students with the Standards for Mathematical Practice, and the instructional routines outlined in the book are very accessible and approachable for a wide range of practitioners. Since we're still fleshing out our Summer Institute, there was no way I was going to pass up a chance to hear the authors talk more about the ideas presented in the book and their implications. I enjoyed seeing a number of routines modeled in person (Calculate and Contemplate, ...). I also loved all the slides and additional resources available on their site, <a href="www.fosteringmathpractices.com">www.fosteringmathpractices.com</a>.
<p><font size="3"><b><i>Expanding mathematical knowledge as number domains change from whole to rational: An example in the context of division</i></b> and <b><i>Mathematical Argument in the Elementary Classroom</i></b></font>, Deborah Schifter, Susan Jo Russell, Reva Kasman, and Virginia Bastable. What with my ongoing quest to deepen my understanding of upper elementary mathematics, how to teach it, and how to coach it, I'm always on the lookout for interesting sessions on topics like fractions and division as well as what working on the Standards for Mathematical Practice can look like in those grade levels. In the first session I attended with Virginia, she took the group through an abbreviated version of a PD activity that invited teachers to think about division problems like 32 divided by 5 and what the answer might be (6 2/5? 6.40? 6? 7? 6 OR 7?) depending on why we're dividing 32 by 5. (Thinking about 5 divided by 8 was even more interesting!)
<p>In the second session I attended with all four, they discussed their recent work on representation-based arguments, i.e., getting elementary students to use concrete models (diagrams, manipulatives, story situations, number lines, etc.) to start think about how they can generalize properties of operations. For example, students might look at pairs of equations like 5 + 8 = 13 and 6 + 8 = 14, and 22 + 7 = 29 and 25 + 7 = 32 and work on describing and articulating the pattern they see. Eventually the teacher has the students work on trying to generalize the pattern using some concrete representation like snap cubes or drawings. Helping younger students begin to move from the concrete and specific towards generalizations is a tough job, so I look forward to sharing these ideas with some of the elementary teachers we work with at WestEd. Also can't wait to check out their new book, <i><a href="http://www.heinemann.com/products/E08114.aspx">But Why Does It Work? Mathematical Argument in the Elementary Classroom</a></i>.
<p><center><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/A-Unified-Theory-2017/i-WHQDrwH/0/XL/IMAG6612-XL.jpg" align="baseline" width="400"></center>
<p><font size="3"><b><i>6 x 2/3 or 2/3 x 6: Using Structure and Precision to Build Understanding of Fraction Multiplication</i></b></font>, Ryan Casey (Boston Public Schools). Yet more fun with fractions! In this session, Casey pushed the group to think more deeply about multiplying rational numbers -- ie, problems that look like A x B where A and B are both rational. Each factor can be a whole number, a unit fraction, a non-unit fraction, an improper fraction, or a mixed number, giving us 25 different "types" of problems! But developmentally, how should we proceed through these problem types with students? It may seem intuitively that the multiplication problems 20 x 1/4 and 1/4 x 20 are the same, but in terms of how students think about and make sense of them, they're very different. Casey went on to illustrate how students can use mathematical structure and the properties of operations to make sense of different types of rational multiplication problems, then build on their understanding to conceptually tackle more and more sophisticated problem types, all without being formally shown a single algorithm.
<p><font size="3"><b><i>Fractions: Too Important to Teach ½ Way</i></b></font>, Lynne Nielsen (Louisiana Tech). But seriously, I cannot get enough about fractions and division. Dr. Nielsen had us all work a fraction division problem, then selected a variety of solution strategies to share, organizing them from most concrete to most abstract and illustrating the natural progression along which most students' understanding of the topic proceeds. She also guided the group towards a conceptual answer of the age old question, "But why invert and multiply?" She also shared a resource she's found to be particularly useful when coaching pre-service teachers on this topic, <i><a href="http://www.heinemann.com/products/E03053.aspx">Extending Children's Mathematics: Fractions & Decimals</a></i>, by Susan B. Empson and Linda Levi.
<p>My colleague Katie Salguero and I presented at NCTM on Friday, which I'll post more about sometime soon!
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<p><font size="3"><i><b>Did you attend NCSM or NCTM this year? What were your favorite sessions?</i></b></font>
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-23261325456913555582017-04-04T14:27:00.002-07:002017-06-22T14:26:03.297-07:00Books: 2017 Quarter 1<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBTd5mzAVmuMUfPLFKnEOE4a5-qny8ZPvwDchcNqbB7bDIAh8GgW7QySLk6AWXAoGpOPTDPiLDICWfhkVhJ7UzVUZqyWC3j4M08ZjfGA3TO47ex06VkTFjkUISW4-F2pEcH5S30LQekEA/w2048-h1158-no/" align="left" width="350" style="margin-right:10px;">As you probably already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore. You can find my past reviews by clicking on the "books" tag at the end of this post, or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/126714-angela">be my friend on Goodreads</a>. (You can also just go to the site & hunt down my review feed without being my friend, if that's more your speed.)
<p>ICYMI, the classics I selected to read in 2017 are <a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2017/01/books-2017-classics.html">here</a>.
<p>On to the reviews!
<P><a name='more'></a><b><font size="3">THE CLASSICS:</font></b>
<p><b>January: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/179368882">The Forever War</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12476.Joe_Haldeman">Joe Haldeman</a> (1974, 278 pages). 4 stars. Towards the end of the 20th century, humans are engaged in an interstellar battle with a mysterious alien race known as the Taurans; the book follows the military career of Private William Mandella, who enlists to help fight the mysterious enemy. Both races have light speed travel, though, which makes the logistics of planning and fighting a war extremely interesting if you think all of it through to its logical conclusion. For example, Mandella and his fellows may travel weeks to fight a particular conflict, only to find when they arrive that many years have passed and not only are their knowledge, skills, and equipment potentially outdated and useless, but the very situation itself may have changed as well. As a result, Mandella's years fighting Taurans in space equate to centuries passing back on Earth. I'm not usually much of a hard sci fi fan, but I really enjoyed how well thought out the story was, particularly the issues around light speed travel. It was also decently well written. Some spots felt a bit dated 43 years later, but it actually surprised me how much of it didn't. Worth reading.
<p><b>February: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1954342655">Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4952.John_Berendt">John Berendt</a> (1994, 386 pages). 4 stars. This book was worth a read for the sheer entertainment value. It's less of a story and more of a brilliant, hilarious--and mostly true, as I understand it--character portrait of a collection of Savannah residents between roughly the mid-70's and mid-80s. In it we meet an eccentric lawyer, a glamorous drag queen, a voodoo witch, a dodgy socialite-cum-antique dealer, & many others. At the heart of the book lies the mystery of what really happened to Danny Hansford, a young man with a rough reputation who ends up with a bullet in his chest. Definitely one of the most unique books I've ever read, and extremely entertaining. I'm not usually much for character studies but I enjoyed this one & I can see why it's become a classic.
<p><b>March: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1907133971">The Lovely Bones</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/316.Alice_Sebold">Alice Sebold</a> (2002, 328 pages). 4 stars. I'm not really sure what took me so long to read this, but it was an enjoyable and lovely read, in spite of the fact that it begins with a (somewhat graphic) depiction of the rape and murder of a fourteen-year-old girl. The story is told from the perspective of the dead girl, watching her friends and family from her own personal heaven as their lives go on and they attempt to deal with her death, each other, and everything else. Sweet, heartbreaking, and beautifully written.
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<p><font size="3"><b>OTHER RECENT READS:</b></font>
<p>It has not been a terrible quarter for good reads. Also, as I reread this, it's clearly the quarter of "Mmmmm that's all I can say without getting into spoilers," so if you like those sorts of books, oh man. Go to town.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1904170934">Universal Harvester</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1029937.John_Darnielle">John Darnielle</a>. (2017, 214 pages) 5 stars. In a rural town in Iowa, circa 2000, a woman returns a video to the clerk at Video Hut. "There's something on this one," she tells him uneasily. "You might want to take a look at it." So he does. And finds some bizarre, mildly disturbing footage spliced into the middle of the film. A few other videos with similar scenes show up as well. The clerk informs the store manager, who starts looking into it. And that is just about all I can tell you without spoilers, and I would highly recommend that if you're going to read this one, you avoid learning anything else about the story. (And no, it's not like The Ring.) At barely over 200 pages, it's a short read, but the writing itself is utterly masterful, wringing out every last drop of meaning from every sentence, without a wasted word anywhere; taking my time over the poetry of the writing was as much a treat as the story itself. That said, it's definitely not for everyone. Some people will finish it & go "I don't get it," & others will outright hate it. But if you like cerebral, hazy, edge-of-your seat, what-is-going-on fiction in the vein of Paul Aster, Haruki Murakami, and David Mitchell, it might be for you.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1686909992">Underground Airlines</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/735413.Ben_H_Winters">Ben H. Winters</a>. (2016, 327) 5 stars. The premise of Underground Airlines asks, What if instead of becoming our 16th President, Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated soon after his election? As the story opens in the early 21st century, we learn that four states known as the "Hard Four" still have legal slavery, and we get a vision of what legalized Black slavery could have looked like in the modern age. The protagonist was born a slave on a livestock farm but is now a free man--a free man who works for the US Marshals as a bounty hunter, using his considerable talents to locate "Persons Bound" (or P.B.s) who attempt to escape slavery via the Underground Airlines, because {reasons which are spoiler-ey}. But something about his current case feels off, and suddenly our protagonist is in deeper than he bargained for. This was just an amazing, brilliant book on so many levels. The writing is excellent, the characters rich and three-dimensional, the logical conclusions of the Crittenden Compromise so deftly and methodically thought out. Yes, it is dark and horrifying on a number of levels, but I raced through it anyway, unable to put it down. Highly, highly recommend as long as you're not going through a beach read/escapism kind of phase at the moment (because it is definitely, definitely not that).
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1814074989">The New Jim Crow</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3051490.Michelle_Alexander">Michelle Alexander</a>. (2010, 290 pages) 5 stars. And hey! As long as you're eschewing beach reads in favor of socially conscious reads, you might as well move right along to <i>The New Jim Crow</i>, which is just as dark and disturbing, except real. Personally, I put this one up there with "books you should have to read in order to stay a citizen of this country." This is one of those subjects where I knew a lot of the facts (though certainly not all), but having someone place all those facts in a historical and sociological context and spell it all out for you is utterly horrifying. If you're one of those people who thinks racism is over, or that "sure, we still have racism, but it's WAY better than it used to be," this book is probably for you. Do your civic duty & read it (or listen to the audio book like I did).
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1796585423">The Last Days of Jack Sparks</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/349456.Jason_Arnopp">Jason Arnopp</a>. (2016, 336 pages) 5 stars. Guys, you're going to love this one or hate it. Basically this book is like if David Mitchell and Paul Tremblay had a creepy and amazing book baby. The book is presented as the last work of (kinda-sorta) journalist and (kinda-sorta) author Jack Sparks before his mysterious and troubling death at the age of 36, with a foreword, epilogue, and annotations by his (skeptical and defensive) older brother. After writing several stunt books like <i>Jack Sparks on Drugs</i> and <i>Jack Sparks on Gangs</i>, he'd begun working on <i>Jack Sparks on the Supernatural</i>, openly approaching the subject as a non-believer. (Indeed, the book opens with our narrator basically chortling his way through an exorcism in rural Italy.) And then...Things get weird. Like. Really, really weird. But in the way I find chilling and entertaining and creepy but also *incredibly* clever and imaginative and well-written. But like I said, it will definitely NOT be to everyone's taste, particularly if you have issues around the religious/supernatural/paranormal. (But if you do enjoy it, may I humbly recommend Paul Tremblay and Grady Hendrix.)
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1870436839">Use of Weapons (Culture #3)</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807106.Iain_M_Banks">Iain M. Banks</a>. (1990, 411 pages) 4 stars. The Culture are looking for a particular man to stabilize a dangerous political situation, and that man has as his price the location of a particular woman. While extraordinarily gifted in some ways, he's also much, much older than he seems, and much more broken, with a back story that's anything but straightforward. In the universe of Culture novels, for me this one fell in between <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/637202649">Consider Phlebas</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1633803064">The Player of Games</a></i>. Brilliant writing and character development as always, a bit more abstract and less strictly plot-driven than PoG, but not quite as bleak and WTF as CP. The structure was cool (though I didn't notice exactly how it was laid out until more than halfway through, and that would have clarified some things), and I absolutely 100% did not see the "big reveal" coming until, like, less than a page before. Not giving up on the Culture yet!
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1868082097">The Girl Before</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14719991.J_P_Delaney">JP Delaney</a>. (2017, 320 pages) 4 stars. My quest to read all psychological thrillers with the word 'Girl' in the title continues. This book follows the story of two women, woven together chapter-by-chapter although the events of each woman's story occurred a year apart. Both are similar in age and appearance, and both have suffered a personal trauma, and as a result both have moved into the shockingly minimalist, smart-house architectural wonder at One Folgate Street. In both cases, the women are only able to afford the house because the sober, austere architect rents it cheaply to those who are willing to open it to the public occasionally and live by its 200+ draconian rules ("No personal effects," "Wash, dry, & put away dishes immediately after using," "Wipe the shower dry immediately after every use," "No pets/children," etc.). Erie similarities emerge as both women find themselves enmeshed in trying to make sense of what is happening and who they can trust. The use of symmetry is interesting, and I have to admit that I did not see the vast majority of the twists and turns coming. The end felt a bit sappy, but it was still an entertaining and well written read. (And yes, if you liked <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1076744666"><i>Gone Girl</i></a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1235344780"><i>The Girl on the Train</i></a>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1701939329"><i>All the Missing Girls</i></a>, etc., you'll probably enjoy this one as well.)
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1603823818">The Girl Who Fell From The Sky</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2921547.Heidi_W_Durrow">Heidi W. Durrow</a>. (2016, 264 pages) 4 stars. (While we're on the subject of girls.) Not exactly my usual cup of tea, but still a really excellent, well-written debut. After a horrific (and mysterious) accident, Rachel--the daughter of a Black GI father and Danish mother--comes to live with her (rather strict) paternal grandmother and aunt. Having mostly grown up in Europe, Rachel has never particularly thought of herself of as Black, but in 1980s Chicago, she is quickly forced to confront her racial identity while also dealing with the emotional fallout of the accident. Short, insightful, & beautifully written. To me this reads a lot like older, literary young adult; file in the same mental bucket as <i>Number the Stars</i> and <i>A Yellow Raft in Blue Water</i>.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1948373784">Dreams and Shadows</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3969859.C_Robert_Cargill">C. Robert Cargill</a>. (2013, 448 pages) 4 stars. I don't know how to explain the premise of this book without writing paragraphs and paragraphs, so I'll just say that it's what the kids I think call "urban fantasy," set in present-day Austin which hides a secret world of faeries and monsters and what have you, including cigar-smoking, leather jacket-wearing genies and whiskey-drinking fallen angels and returned-from-the-dead changelings that live off the pain and anguish of their unsuspecting foster parents. This type of book isn't really my bag but it was well written and sort of imaginatively brilliant in terms of weaving together the modern world and a bunch of old folklore, and I agree with the reviewers who said that it might be just the thing for fans of <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/71085342">The Magicians</a></i> or Neil Gaiman's more adult works.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1776124768">Dear Mr. M</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1245772.Herman_Koch">Herman Koch</a>. (2014, 400 pages) 4 stars. I didn't LUUUURRRV everything about this book, but I thought it was extremely well-written and cleverly structured. The story revolves around a Dutch novelist (Mr. M) and is mostly written from the perspective of his downstairs neighbor, a younger man with shall we say strong-ish opinions about M's work. As the book unfolds we learn more about M and the downstairs neighbor, their pasts, and mmmmmmm to say more would really just spoil everything. There is a bit of a twist at the end and I did NOT see it coming until maybe that same page. If you like long-game, character-driven mysteries with subtle bits of cleverness, you might enjoy. If you like more heavily plot-driven books where Things are always Happening and the story proceeds in a clear, chronological fashion, it may not be exactly your bag.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1439356025">Alice (The Chronicles of Alice, #1)</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3409936.Christina_Henry">Christina Henry</a>. (2015, 291 pages) 4 stars. This was a good, if not earth-shattering, read. The story begins with early-2os-perhaps Alice locked in a mental hospital, with disturbing, fragmented memories of a rabbit and a tea party and a missing friend. "She and Dor went into the Old City for Dor's birthday.... Two weeks later came Alice, covered in blood, babbling about tea and a rabbit, wearing a dress that wasn't hers." I'm a fan of sinister re-imaginings of classic fairy tales, and this one was well written and entertaining. My only real complaint was that it felt a bit rushed and the conflicts too easily resolved (especially given how dark and graphic it is, definitely DEFINITELY not for children). I was glad to see it's actually the first in a series, which may give the story and characters more room to play out. Fans of Gregory McGuire should enjoy.
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/893560325">Annihilation (Southern Reach Trilogy #1)</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/33919.Jeff_VanderMeer">Jeff VanderMeer</a>. (2014, 195 pages) 4 stars. It's hard to really say anything about this book without getting into spoilers, but let's see. #1) There is a place called Area X, which is top secret or highly restricted, or something. #2) It's kind of in a coastal area, with a swampy, jungly sort of vibe. #3) An agency called the Southern Reach is in charge of periodically sending small teams of scientists on "expeditions" into Area X to...investigate? #4) Strange and/or concerning things happen when people go there. It is the twelfth expedition, a team of four nameless women: a psychologist (the leader), a surveyor, an anthropologist, and a biologist (the narrator). Essentially the book tells the story of the twelfth expedition, which gets really, really weird. But the writing is excellent, and the suspense and intrigue made me desperate to learn what happened and get the whole story.
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<center>* * *</center>
<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12875258-tell-the-wolves-i-m-home">Tell The Wolves I'm Home</a></i>, by Carol Rifka Brunt
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29966530-the-wanderers">The Wanderers</a></i>, by Meg Howrey
<p><b><i>Up Next:</i></b>
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7763.The_Joy_Luck_Club">The Joy Luck Club</a></i>, by Amy Tan
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28921.The_Remains_of_the_Day">The Remains of the Day</a></i>, by Kazuo Ishiguro
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4934.The_Brothers_Karamazov">The Brothers Karamazov</a></i>, by Fyodor Dostoyevski
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27246122-red-queen">The Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice, #2)</a></i>, by Christina Henry
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28588073-hag-seed">Hag-Seed</a></i>, by Margaret Atwood
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22181034-mort-e">Mort(e)</a></i>, by Robert Repino
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28090846-into-the-light">Into the Light (The Light, #1)</a></i>, by Alethea Romig
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653853-the-upside-of-unrequited">The Upside of Unrequited</a></i>, by Becky Albartelli
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/33151805-into-the-water">Into the Water</a></i>, by Paula Hawkins
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23341578-broken-monsters">Broken Monsters</a></i>, by Lauren Beukes
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/31372242-chalk">Chalk</a></i>, by Paul Cornell
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32075671-the-hate-u-give">The Hate U Give</a></i>, by Angie Thomas
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20575425-wolf-in-white-van">Wolf in White Van</a></i>, by John Darnielle
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30780283-white-tears">White Tears</a></i>, by Hari Kunzru
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30653843-radio-silence">Radio Silence</a></i>, by Alice Oseman
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32571395-one-of-us-is-lying">One of Us is Lying</a></i>, by Karen M. McManus
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow">Gravity's Rainbow</a></i>, by Thomas Pynchon
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10394348-doors-of-stone"><i>The Doors of Stone</a></i>, by Patrick Rothfuss (Come on, Rothfuss. You can do it. I believe in you.)</ul>
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<p>And who knows, whatever else tickles my fancy. (Taking future suggestions as always!)Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-91537422563822341682017-01-10T15:00:00.000-08:002017-06-22T14:26:20.066-07:00Books: The 2017 Classics<p>BEHOLD! The classic novels I'll be reading in 2017:
<p><font size="3"><b>JANUARY: <i>The Forever War</i></b></font>, by Joe Haldeman. "The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand, despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy that they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away. Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties without rancor and even rise up through military ranks. He's willing to do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home. But 'home' may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries." I like to do one true sci fi classic each year & this one got a lot of votes.
<p><font size="3"><b>FEBRUARY: <i>Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil</i></b></font>, by John Berendt. "Voodoo. Decadent socialites packing Lugars. Cotillions. With towns like Savannah, Georgia, who needs Fellini? Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil takes two narrative strands--each worthy of its own book--and weaves them together to make a single fascinating tale. The first is author John Berendt's loving depiction of the characters and rascals that prowled Savannah in the eight years it was his home-away-from-home. Then, on May 2, 1981, the book's second story line commences, when Jim Williams, a wealthy antique dealer and Savannah's host with the most, kills his "friend" Danny Hansford. (If those quotes make you suspect something, you should.) Was it self-defense, as Williams claimed--or murder? The book sketches four separate trials, during which the dark side of this genteel party town is well and truly plumbed."
<p><a name='more'></a><font size="3"><b>MARCH (Women's History Month): <i>The Lovely Bones</i></b></font>, by Alice Sebold. "The Lovely Bones is the story of a family devastated by a gruesome murder -- a murder recounted by the teenage victim. Upsetting, you say? Remarkably, first-time novelist Alice Sebold takes this difficult material and delivers a compelling and accomplished exploration of a fractured family's need for peace and closure. The details of the crime are laid out in the first few pages: from her vantage point in heaven, Susie Salmon describes how she was confronted by the murderer one December afternoon on her way home from school. Lured into an underground hiding place, she was raped and killed. But what the reader knows, her family does not. Anxiously, we keep vigil with Susie, aching for her grieving family, desperate for the killer to be found and punished."
<p><font size="3"><b>APRIL: <i>The Remains of the Day</i></b></font>, by Kazuo Ishiguro. "In 1956, Stevens, a long-serving butler at Darlington Hall, decides to take a motoring trip through the West Country. The six-day excursion becomes a journey into the past of Stevens and England, a past that takes in fascism, two world wars, and an unrealised love between the butler and his housekeeper. Ishiguro's dazzling novel is a sad and humorous love story, a meditation on the condition of modern man, and an elegy for England at a time of acute change."
<p><font size="3"><b>MAY (Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month): <i>The Joy Luck Club</i></b></font>, by Amy Tan. "In 1949 four Chinese women, recent immigrants to San Francisco, begin meeting to eat dim sum, play mahjong, and talk. United in shared loss and hope, they call themselves the Joy Luck Club. With wit and wisdom, Amy Tan examines the sometimes painful, often tender, and always deep connection between these four women and their American-born daughters. As each reveals her secrets, trying to unravel the truth about her life, the strings become more tangled, more entwined."
<p><font size="3"><b>JUNE (Russian Heritage Month): <i>The Brothers Karamazov</i></b></font>, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. "The Brothers Karamazov is a passionate philosophical novel set in 19th century Russia, that enters deeply into the ethical debates of God, free will, and morality. It is a spiritual drama of moral struggles concerning faith, doubt, and reason, set against a modernizing Russia."
<p><font size="3"><b>JULY: <i>Atonement</i></b></font>, by Ian McEwan. "Ian McEwan’s symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from this master of English prose. On a hot summer day in 1934, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives. As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece."
<p><font size="3"><b>AUGUST: <i>Pride and Prejudice</i></b></font>, by Jane Austen. " 'It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.' So begins Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s witty comedy of manners—one of the most popular novels of all time—that features splendidly civilized sparring between the proud Mr. Darcy and the prejudiced Elizabeth Bennet as they play out their spirited courtship in a series of eighteenth-century drawing-room intrigues. Renowned literary critic and historian George Saintsbury in 1894 declared it the 'most perfect, the most characteristic, the most eminently quintessential of its author’s works,' and Eudora Welty in the twentieth century described it as 'irresistible and as nearly flawless as any fiction could be.' "
<p><font size="3"><b>SEPTEMBER (Banned Books Week): <i>Lady Chatterly's Lover</i></b></font>, by D.H. Lawrence. "Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of the central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960."
<p><font size="3"><b>OCTOBER: <i>The Big Sleep</i></b></font>, by Raymond Chandler. "When a dying millionaire hires Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in." I dunno, I want to read an old detective novel.
<p><font size="3"><b>NOVEMBER: <i>Far From The Madding Crowd</i></b></font>, by Thomas Hardy. (Leftover from 2016, womp womp) "Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community." Overflow from last year that I didn't get to since I was busy re-reading the entire Lightbringer series. A lot of people have recommended this and I have never read Thomas Hardy.
<p><font size="3"><b>DECEMBER: <i>East of Eden</i></b></font>, by John Steinbeck. (Again, leftover from 2016. :-/ )"Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel. Here Steinbeck created some of his most memorable characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity; the inexplicability of love; and the murderous consequences of love’s absence." Ditto. I haven't read Steinbeck since high school, so it's only fair to give him another shot.
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-87026755563958128622015-12-30T12:08:00.001-08:002017-06-22T14:30:01.614-07:00Books Update: Quarter 4<img align="left" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-41K9XvyI6D0/VKOeRhrV9HI/AAAAAAAAJyI/nYSZw3YT68k/s512/classic%2520books%25202.jpg" style="margin-right: 10px;" width="300">Congrats on making it through another year, you crazy diamond, you! This year I read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2015/126714">80 books & over 32,000 pages</a>. We're now at the tail-end of quarter 4, so let's talk about what I've been reading over the last three months.
<p>As you may or may not already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore.
<ul><i><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2015/04/classics-update.html"><i>January through April</i></a>
<p><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2015/07/books-update.html">May & June</a>
<p><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8576247921509925121">July through September</a></i></ul>
<p>These were my last three classics of the year:
<p><b>October: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/981272440">The Picture of Dorian Gray</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3565.Oscar_Wilde">Oliver Wilde</a> (1890, 166 pages). 4 stars. This was my spooooky Halloween read! Young, beautiful, innocent, naive Dorian Gray sits for a portrait for an artist friend, who proclaims the painting his best work. Dorian is suddenly struck by the horrible thought that he will age and lose his beauty while his portrait will remain beautiful and youthful forever. In a fit of panic he desperately prays that his and the painting's roles should be reversed, so that the painting ages while he stays young and beautiful. Not only does his wish come true, but the portrait also begins to reflect the condition of his soul. Creepiness and philosophy ensue. The writing is clever and gorgeous, and Wilde is a master of dry wit & witty repartee, plus it's less than 200 pages so pretty easy to knock out on a plane ride or similar. But, it is worth mentioning that it's still not a light read. Some parts of it are quite dense and heavily philosophical (I found myself carefully re-reading many sections because I didn't catch or process it all the first or second time around), so definitely something to save for when you are fully alert and not distracted.
<p><a name='more'></a><b>November: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1446866576">Great Expectations</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/239579.Charles_Dickens">Charles Dickens</a> (1861, 505 pages). 4 stars. This book could almost be a companion to <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1376459862">Jane Eyre</a></i>, and after reading it, I understand why John Irving featured those two books together the way he did in <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1212248156">The Cider House Rules</a>.</i> I was surprised by how much I actually enjoyed it. Yes, there's still the barrier of it was written in the 19th century, so not every little detail makes sense all the time (what was the deal with the green gloves at the wedding?), but it was still a really well-written story and a cleverly plotted mystery with a bigger point to it. Worth reading.
<p><b>December: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1468294396">One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7285.Ken_Kesey">Ken Kesey</a> (1962, 325 pages). 3 stars. This was definitely a very clever, well-written book & I can see why it's become a classic. I'm also glad I read it because it's so iconic and now references to the story and characters make more sense. On the other hand, it dealt with subject matter that is not my favorite (mental institutions, physical mistreatment/abuse of people by those with power over them) and just was generally not really up my alley.
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<p><font size="3"><b>OTHER RECENT READS:</b></font>
<p>I have read a lot of stuff lately but here are the titles I most highly recommend:
<p><i><b><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1375847868">Fates and Furies</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/690619.Lauren_Groff">Lauren Groff</a>. (2015, 392 pages) 5 stars. Amazing. I actually think the marketing copy included a pretty decent summation: Every relationship has two perspectives, and sometimes the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. The relationship in question is that of Lotto & Mathilde, madly in love and married at the tender age of twenty-two after knowing each other for all of two weeks. The first half of the book tells the story of their marriage from Lotto's point of view, and though the writing is utterly gorgeous and the characters dynamic and multi-dimensional, it's on the darker side, without much in the way of comic relief. The second half, though, is Mathilde's story, which fills in a lot of blanks in sometimes jaw-dropping ways. (Fans of <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1076744666">Gone Girl</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1235344780">The Girl on the Train</a></i>, this is why you'll love it.)
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13531802-man-in-the-empty-suit">The Man in the Empty Suit</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3100221.Sean_Ferrell">Sean Farrell</a>. (2013, 306 pages) 5 stars. Sean Farrell is one of my favorite new-to-me authors. In this book, an unnamed protagonist time traveler decides after inventing his time machine around age 18 to throw a birthday party for himself at an abandoned hotel on a certain day in 2071, where the only guest is himself. Every 365 days (according to his local experience of time), he travels back to that particular time and place, the result being a party with dozens of guests, all the same man, just at different ages. All is well and good until at age 38, he learns that another version of himself, just slightly older than he currently is, has been shot and killed at the party. Of course, eyeing his much-older selves, the 38-year-old protagonist's first response is, "This is impossible." And theirs is, "Which is why you have to figure out how to stop it from happening." A fascinating story that I couldn't put down because I HAD to figure out what happened.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1417214908">Challenger Deep</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/19564.Neal_Shusterman">Neal Shusterman</a>. (2015, 320 pages) 5 stars. National Book Award short list. OMG, I don't really know what I can say about this book without revealing huge spoilers. The story alternates between two different aspects of 15-year-old Caden Bosch's life: His normal, 15-year-old-kid life wherein he attends school, builds video games with friends, and vacations with his family, and a more mysterious one where he is part of the crew of a sailing ship run by a stereotypical pirate captain and spends his days using his drawing skills to guide the ship's mission to the Marianas Trench. We get no explanation about the relationship between Caden's two lives for many, many creepy and intriguing pages. I was engrossed in this book from the first page and kind of wanted to scream every time I had to put it down. Also the most brilliant depiction of [key social issue/spoiler] that I've ever read.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1404991985">Slade House</a></i></b>, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6538289.David_Mitchell">by David Mitchell</a>. (2015, 238 pages) 4 stars. All of David Mitchell's books are entwined to a certain extent with many characters reappearing or at least making cameo appearances, but Slade House has a little more of a direct connection with <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1037099644">The Bone Clocks</a></i>, which is probably my favorite David Mitchell book. The book has five chapters, each of which details a particular person's experience stumbling upon the mysterious, eponymous Slade House & its eerie inhabitants. Short, quick, & gorgeously written (though maybe not quite up to his usual standard), & a must if you enjoyed <i>Bone Clocks</i>.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1457294932">We Have Always Lived in the Castle</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/13388.Shirley_Jackson">Shirley Jackson</a>. (2006, 146 pages) 4 stars. Shirley Jackson! I am absolutely obsessed with her right now, thanks to <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89717.The_Haunting_of_Hill_House">The Haunting of Hill House</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1390858158">Head Full of Ghosts</a></i>. After <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i> (which I was inspired by <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1390858158">A Head Full of Ghosts</a></i> to read), I am on a major Shirley Jackson kick. (And if you do read <i>A Head Full of Ghosts</i>, you MUST read this one before or after. Sisters Constance and Mary Katherine Blackwood live in their family's remote ancestral home with their sickly Uncle Julian after the rest of the family died from arsenic poisoning. The poisoning (via the sugar bowl, with berries) was blamed on Constance, and although she was acquitted, the entire town now loathes the family. Although Constance and Uncle Julian are housebound, Mary Katherine still ventures into town for supplies (thereby suffering the wrath of the townspeople). All is more or less well until the day that Cousin Charles comes to visit and changes life for everyone.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1375847269">Dumplin'</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6433278.Julie_Murphy">Julie Murphy</a> (2015, 375 pages). 4 stars. Super cute YA wherein young, confident Texan woman of size and Dolly Parton aficionado Willowdean Dickson ("Dumplin'" to her mom) furiously navigates changing friendships, boys, work, body image, and her relationship with her mother. I love this book for just having a main character who is a) fat and b) does not hate her body. The author flipped the script in a few other ways too: There is a hot boy to crush on, but what sets the plot rolling is not WD pining after a dude who will obviously never like her back, but the fact that he pursues her. And, instead of the Hallelujah Chorus, Hot Crush's reciprocity incites voices of insecurity and body ambivalence in WD's head. And instead of the non-conventionally-hot girl desperately making herself over to catch a dude's eye, poor WD finds herself the object of TWO dudes' affections, which really freaks her out. Obviously, the solution to all this is for WD to enter the super-hyped-up beauty pageant for which her small town is known, and which (OF COURSE) is run by her high-strung, body-conscious mother. Hilarity and feels ensue; also bonus points for all the fun Texas details. (Except for the part about driving from somewhere in southern TX to Odessa in two hours. Just, no.)
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1417225311">The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/40593.Gabrielle_Zevin">Gabrielle Zevin</a> (2014, 272 pages). 4 stars. This short, lovely gem of a book follows the eponymous widower bookseller/book snob and sometimes-misanthrope as he meets and pursues a lady publishing rep, raises a mysterious orphan girl left in his store, brings literary culture to a multifaceted cast of characters in his tiny town, and generally negotiates the trials and mysteries of life. Reading the synopsis, I kind of went, "Oh, it's 'Up' with books," and there are maybe some parallels here & there. But, it's a lot less comedy/wacky character study (though there are moments of humor) and more a gorgeously written, beautifully crafted love letter to the world of books and reading and how they change our lives. Sad in places and a little tragic, but in the inspirational-and-uplifting kind of way, not the ugly-cry-wreck-you-for-a-day kind of way.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1340403750">A Night in the Lonesome October</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3619.Roger_Zelazny">Roger Zelazny</a> (1994, 280 pages). 4 stars. So the plan was to read one chapter a month each night in October (as is apparently the tradition), but the early chapters are maddeningly short, so it ended up only taking me a couple of weeks. In it, Jack the Ripper & his dog Snuff spend October preparing for some sort of mysterious, supernatural "Game" which is intended to come to fruition on Halloween night. Details are slowly revealed over the course of the story. Other participants/involved persons include Count Dracula, Frankenstein & his monster, Sherlock Holmes, & a werewolf. Snuff narrates. Short, cute, entertaining, & very Zelazny.
<p><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1362875686">The Accident Season</a></i></b>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9013537.Mo_ra_Fowley_Doyle">Moïra Fowley-Doyle</a>. (2015, 280 pages) 4 stars. Each October, an Irish family becomes incredibly accident prone, which can mean anything from a few bumps and bruises to grisly deaths. The "accident season" that Cara and her step-brother Sam are 17 & her sister Alice is 18, Cara's childhood friend Elsie suddenly begins appearing in all of her pictures. Spine-tingling creepiness ensues. A perfect October read--eerie and haunting, a mystery that grips you from the first page, and gorgeously (not to mention spookily) written all around. (THANK YOU JESUS, once again, for well-written teens.) I have a couple of quibbles with the wrap-up, but honestly, if I hadn't read so much excellent "literary YA" lately, I might have given it five stars. Curl up with this one on All Hallows' Eve if you're looking for something creepy & clever to devour for sheer entertainment.
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<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1474628.The_Monsters_of_Templeton">The Monsters of Templeton</a></i>, by Lauren Groff
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b>
<br><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10585.Insomnia">Insomnia</a></i>, by Stephen King
<p><b><i>Up Next:</i></b>
<p>We will see what monthly classics 2016 brings me, but in the mean time, I have the following stacked up on my nightstand and/or in my Audible queue:
<ul>
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13531066-the-fifty-year-sword">The Fifty Year Sword</a></i>, by Mark Z. Danielewski (who brought you the mind-blowing cult classic <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1911312">House of Leaves</a></i>)
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25663888-orphan-x">Orphan X</a></i>, by Gregg Hurwitz
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24388326-the-heart-goes-last">The Heart Goes Last</a></i>, by Margaret Atwood
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10394348-doors-of-stone"><i>The Doors of Stone</a></i>, by Patrick Rothfuss (PLEASE let it come out this year!)
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7728889-the-diviners">The Diviners</a></i>, by Libba Bray
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27003.The_Eyre_Affair">The Eyre Affair</a></i>, by Jasper Fforde
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8235178-across-the-universe">Across the Universe</a></i>, by Beth Revis
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18716296-the-killer-next-door">The Killer Next Door</a></i>, by Alex Marwood
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20734002-the-weight-of-feathers">The Weight of Feathers</a></i>, by Anna-Marie McLemore
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18465605-i-kill-the-mockingbird">I Kill The Mockingbird</a></i>, by Paul Acampora
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18630.The_Player_of_Games?from_search=true&search_version=service">The Player of Games</a></i>, by Ian M. Banks
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/415.Gravity_s_Rainbow">Gravity's Rainbow</a></i>, by Thomas Pynchon
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28676.American_Psycho"><i>American Psycho</i></a>, by Bret Easton Ellis
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7944987-sunset-park"><i>Sunset Park</i></a>, by Paul Auster
</ul>
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<b>Taking future suggestions as always. :)</b>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-87329505667973485982015-12-01T14:58:00.000-08:002015-12-15T15:33:06.852-08:00Slade House, by David Mitchell<p><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EY3mJVaArk4/Vl44WA0UrOI/AAAAAAAAM9M/ylZ_hLUdtZI/s576-Ic42/IMAG3624.jpg" style="margin-right:10px;" width="300" align="left">I really enjoyed this book but explaining why is complicated.
<p>First, I should say that before <i>Slade House</i>, I read every other David Mitchell book except for <i>The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet*</i>, I believe in this order:
<ul><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1037099644">The Bone Clocks</a> (2014)
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1132137677">Ghostwritten</a> (1999)
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1132137621">Cloud Atlas</a> (2004)
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1262798167">Number9Dream</a> (2001)
<p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1132137666">Black Swan Green</a> (2006)</i></ul>
<p>Though I was struck by the gorgeous and skillful language of all five, <i>Bone Clocks</i> was far and away my favorite. Soon after, I read a review in the NY Times where the critic wrote that it "felt like a misfire," with a plot that "felt soft and formulaic" and read "like second-rate fantasy fiction" (of course, I vehemently disagreed!), and that the recurring characters from Mitchell's previous books seemed “less like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoknapatawpha_County">Yoknapatawpha</a> and more like Marvel.” Not having read any of his other books at the time, this didn't mean much to me, but I did pick up on the fact it wasn't intended as a compliment.
<p>Over the last year, though, I've read everything except <i>Jacob</i>*, so now I see what he was getting at: Although the books are all self-contained, they do all seem to take place in the same universe, with the same characters or clans of characters appearing regularly (sometimes as central figures, sometimes as cameos), and taken as a whole, I could sort of see Mitchell weaving together a larger story, each book existing in its own little narrative eddy. So it was unsurprising to me to hear that <i>Slade House</i> was sort of a sequel to <i>Bone Clocks</i>.
<p>For better or worse, that was the effect of reading <i>Bone Clocks</i> first. It's definitely the most explicit, sprawling, lay-it-all-out, this-is-what's-going type of story of the six, and I can see how someone might not pick up all the connections if they started with <i>Ghostwritten</i> and read according to publication order. I also think maybe that explicitness was what some people didn't like about <i>Bone Clocks</i>, having become accustomed to the oblique nature of the books that came before. (Also, I'm a huge fan of what you might call "intellectual horror" or "literary horror" or whatever, which I think <i>Bone Clocks</i> has a lot in common with, and I can see maybe a subset of Mitchell's usual audience not really going for that.)
<p>So. I say all that to say that if you enjoyed <i>Bone Clocks</i>, you are more likely to enjoy <i>Slade House</i> than if you enjoyed Mitchell's other books more and <i>Bone Clocks</i> less. It's short, apparently an elaboration on a short story he wrote called <i>The Right Sort</i>. If <i>Bone Clocks</i> flirts with intellectual/literary horror, <i>Slade House</i> straight-up propositions it. The story is divided into three parts and revolves around a mysterious manor house (the eponymous Slade House), with each part following a character as they visit the house and its odd inhabitants. Not all of their fates are happy. If you've read <i>Bone Clocks</i>, by the second or third story you see the connection between the two books and will probably figure out sooner than other readers how it's going to end.
<p>I can see why readers who enjoyed <i>Cloud Atlas</i> and <i>Ghostwritten</i> more might not be as big on <i>Slade House</i>. It's short and fairly to the point, not quite as literary, and more focused on telling a grizzly tale than on patiently and artfully developing nine-dimensional characters and abstract, highly literary themes. Still, Mitchell's skill with language and story craft in general shines through, which made it (at least for me) a satisfying, undemanding, yet highly entertaining read.
<p><i><font size="1">* I started Jacob in December and abandoned it after 100 pages because I just could not get into it. (Sorry, David Mitchell; six out of seven still ain't bad!)</i></font>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-45448612583606088062015-09-29T15:49:00.002-07:002015-09-29T15:49:40.701-07:00Fates and Furies, by Lauren GroffOh, man. I don't even know where to begin with this book except that it was amazing. I actually think the marketing copy included a pretty decent summation: Every relationship has two perspectives, and sometimes the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets.
<p>The relationship in question is that of Lotto & Mathilde, madly in love and married at the tender age of twenty-two after knowing each other for all of two weeks. The first half of the book tells the story of their marriage from Lotto's point of view, and though the writing is utterly gorgeous and the characters dynamic and multi-dimensional, it's on the darker side, without much in the way of comic relief. The second half, though, is Mathilde's story, which fills in a lot of blanks in sometimes jaw-dropping ways. (Fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, this is why you'll love it.)
<p>The genius of this book lies in the juxtaposition of the two voices, addressing issues of destiny, creative potential, and the nature & meaning of marriage. Not a light read, but beautifully & poetically written without sacrificing the authentic voices of the characters, and the complexity and cleverness offers enough relief from the darker nature of the story to make it brilliant.Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-68094326785196251862015-09-23T12:14:00.000-07:002015-12-30T12:14:49.526-08:00Books Update: Quarter 3<img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-41K9XvyI6D0/VKOeRhrV9HI/AAAAAAAAJyI/nYSZw3YT68k/s512/classic%2520books%25202.jpg" align="left" width="300" style="margin-right:10px;">Fall is finally here, if only officially (did I mention it's been 80s & 90s in San Francisco for weeks? Not okay), and as we close the book on September, it is time once again to speak of, well, books.
<p>As you may already know, I've been reading a classic a month for the last two years. It started as a one-year project in 2014, but I've enjoyed it enough to keep going with it & will probably continue until it starts to feel like a chore.
<i><ul><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2015/04/classics-update.html">January through April</a>
<p><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2015/07/books-update.html">May & June</a></ul></i>
<p><font size="3"><b>July: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/53969240">A Prayer for Owen Meany</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3075.John_Irving">John Irving</a> (1990, 637 pages). Ahh, John Irving, you got me again! Sweet, depressing, hilarious, & raw. The story follows Johnny Weelwright (1st person narrator) & his best friend Owen Meany (tiny, brilliant, charismatic, & possessed of a bizarrely shrill voice) from their childhood together in a small town in 1950s New Hampshire through early adulthood, while periodically flashing forward to Johnny's middle age in Canada. The relationship between the two is weirdly cemented when uncoordinated, nonathletic Owen somehow manages to hit a baseball at the end of a Little League game that hits Johnny's mysterious mother in the head, killing her. After that, Owen is convinced he is "God's Instrument," with everything & every moment in his life leading to a single purpose. I think it's the sheer audacity & improbability of the whole thing that made it one of the best books I've read in a while.
<p><font size="3"><b>August: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1376459862">Jane Eyre</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1036615.Charlotte_Bront_">Charlotte Brontë</a> (1847, 507 pages). I think sometimes it's difficult to fully appreciate classics because the reason they are classics has mainly to do with the context in which they were written. Reading Jane Eyre for the first time in 2015, I have to admit that I spent most of it rolling my eyes & ready to chuck it across the room. Really? Really, Jane? It's so painfully clear that Mr. Rochester is a dire shitbird, and you are utterly pathetic for not realizing this almost immediately. (Though, I will also admit that she gets a little less pathetic as the book goes on, but he is still a shitbird, and their conversations are honestly kind of gross.) BUT, I do get that it was rather revolutionary and radical for 1847 and (kind of hilariously) was actually lambasted for being anti-God/Church (ie, a woman every once in a while having an original thought and maybe occasionally for half a second not doing exactly what some rando self-important dude tells her to do). Still, a part of me was screaming throughout, JANE, YOU IDIOT! DTMFA!
<p><font size="3"><b>September: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/825837025">The Jungle</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/23510.Upton_Sinclair">Upton Sinclair</a> (1905, 335 pages).
<p><center><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMrTqns86S6W6FeR5RKL1YZs_0A6V_pUx9N-e3qJvczver_Fmg0T0EWW4TPlG3PrC9rvO_WG0D-o4O8dwGk_UvhaABmwQz2UQmtSfxxAGR_-GRq34esDPSsytMGD-Ut50LnkJjATjw8CE/s480-Ic42/shockedface.gif" align="baseline" width="200"><br><i><font color="cc3300">Welp, I guess I'll go shoot myself in the face now.</i></font></center>
<p><i>The Jungle</i> is about the trials & tribulations of a Lithuanian family that settles in Chicago to pursue the vast riches and endless opportunity that they have heard are there for the taking in welcoming, democratic, class-blind America. Lololololol. No but really, it's one of the most depressing books I've ever read in my life. I get the historical significance of this book and that the fact that it's completely and utterly depressing as hell is the whole point, so three stars for that. But when you have only one color in your palette (shit-color, for instance), it loses its effect real fast & you stop expecting anything else. Most of the other books I've tagged as "depressing as hell" offered at least a <i>few</i> strokes of other colors occasionally, if for no other reason than to provide enough contrast for the horrible parts to maintain their effect (and presumably to stop you from pausing to kill yourself). Not so here. It's shit sandwich after shit sandwich, and any time things start to look maybe-kinda not so bad for the protagonist, you know that a shit sandwich with an extra-crispy cat litter crust is just around the corner.<br><br>
<p><b><font size="3">OTHER RECENT READS:</FONT></B>
<p>I have read a lot of stuff lately but here are the titles I most highly recommend:
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/636244344">The Ocean At the End of the Lane</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1221698.Neil_Gaiman">Neil Gaiman</a> (2013, 181 pages). 5 stars. Beautiful, creepy, imaginative, & sad. Essentially: All things Neil Gaiman. More along the lines of <i>Coraline</i> and <i>The Graveyard Book</i> than <i>Neverwhere / Stardust</i>. Hard to explain any more clearly than that.
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1247499320">Fight Club</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2546.Chuck_Palahniuk">Chuck Palahniuk</a> (1996, 218 pages). 5 stars. I picked this up in the airport because I wanted something short to read on a plane, & having only seen the movie & never read any Chuck Palahniuk, I was curious. Super entertaining & amazingly well-written & well crafted! My only regret is that I wish I'd read it before seeing the movie. I also enjoyed the afterword at the end about how the book began as a six-page short story no one paid any attention to & evolved into an international blockbuster. The question now is, which Palahniuk to read next?
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1340403750">The Blue Girl</a></i></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/225038.Laurie_Foos">Laurie Foos</a> (2015, 220 pages). 5 stars. A super quick, easy, fairly minimalist read, and at the same time amazingly, gorgeously, breathtakingly written. I'm not sure how you do both of those things at the same time, but somehow Foos pulled it off. A silent blue girl has appeared in an unnamed lake town; after one of their daughters saves the blue girl from drowning, three sad, middle-aged women with sad, middle-aged husbands, teenage daughters, and troubled sons sneak out at night to the cabin in the woods where the blue girl lives with an old woman to feed her the secrets they've baked into homemade moon pies. When the kids catch on, everything changes. Again, I don't understand how she did it, but these 220 dream-like pages weave together some of the most brilliant character development I've read in a while with profound narrative themes & symbolism. Not a wasted word anywhere. Heartbreakingly beautiful.
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1341212716">I'll Give You the Sun</i></a>,</b></font> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2982266.Jandy_Nelson">Jandy Nelson</a>. (2014, 371 pages) 5 stars. This may be the absolute best modern YA novel I've ever read in terms of teenage characters who are actually believable in terms of how they think, act, and (especially) talk. It's also just a lovely, if bittersweet, story about a set of artsy teenage twins trying to navigate their own & each other's tumultuous lives in the wake of their parents' own issues, and manages to strike a nice balance of humor, heartache, sweetness, and raw teenage emotion without veering too much into melodrama (or trying so hard to ape modern teenage lingo that it's painful). Still a *bit* too much schmoopy in places for my taste, but not so much as to make me want to vomit (which more or less seems to be the norm with YA). A great read for 12/13+, but there's plenty going on for adults to appreciate as well.
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1390858158">A Head Full of Ghosts</i></a></b></font>, by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/648612.Paul_Tremblay">Paul Tremblay</a>. (2015, 288 pages) The story follows the Barrett family (out-of-work, hyper-religious John, his cynical, frustrated wife Sarah, and their two daughters Marjorie and Merry, fourteen and eight respectively) as Marjorie descends into (severe mental illness? Demonic possession? A desperate bid to salvage the family's financial situation?). John gets the local minister involved, who in turn gets the family a reality TV deal ("The Possession"), which in turn leads to Complications, all of which is narrated by eight-year-old Merry. The real genius of this book, though, is that it's kind of meta-horror. Instead of telling the story purely from eight-year-old Merry's perspective, Tremblay ups the ante by framing it as told by twenty-three-year-old Merry to a bestselling author who is writing a book about the events, and then interspersing those interviews with blog posts about the reality series "The Possession" written by a quirky & mysterious horror junkie. Because of the reality show, a lot of what happened is on film, but a lot of it isn't; there is also the reliability of Merry's memory to take into account. This all adds up to an undercurrent of uncertainty about what did and did not actually happen and to what extent was the situation was medical, supernatural, or faked by Marjorie and/or the exploitative reality TV producers. Brilliantly written, start to finish.
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1393116634">The Longest Date: Life As a Wife</i></a>,</b></font> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/221560.Cindy_Chupack">Cindy Chupack</a>. (2014, 212 pages) 5 stars. I picked this one up after hearing a podcast interview with Chupack & finished it on a single plane ride. It's pretty short, and manages to be funny and entertaining even when she's writing about some pretty heavy stuff. Even so, she pulls absolutely no punches, laying bare just about every facet of her relationship with her husband, from their courtship as late-thirty-somethings to raising an adopted child at fifty. And I think it's that completely candid openness that makes it such a compelling read. It's not, "Marriage is hard work but if you pick the right person and really love each other and practice gratitude or whatever you'll make it through the tough times." It's more like "I'm the luckiest person alive!" on some days and on others "SWEET JESUS WHAT HAVE I DONE," and for her getting married was agreeing to stick it out, even on the SWEET JESUS days. (That, and coming to terms with the fact that she was a control freak & now had someone permanently in her life that she couldn't control.) If you've ever had a moment when you're like, "Oh god, why can't we be like all those nice, normal people who are super in love all the time & never have any horrible moments together???," this book is a great reminder that nobody is those people, because we are all real, live humans with strengths and flaws and history and baggage, and that's what you sign up for when you marry a real, live human.
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1341213114">Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda</i></a>,</b></font> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7579036.Becky_Albertalli">Becky Albertalli</a>. (2015, 303 pages) 5 stars. What a sweet, wonderful, (sadly) subversive book. The last twenty pages or so actually had me kind of weepy (in a good way), and if you know me at all you know how rare that is for a book. This and I'll Give You the Sun have reaffirmed my belief that yes, there IS, in fact, really excellent YA left in the world. Like all the best books (I'm discovering), the marketing copy just really does not capture what makes this one so great. Come down to it, it's basically about gay-but-not-out 16-year-old Simon negotiating all the usual sixteen-year-old orders of business (school, friends, family, extracurriculars, crushes, feeling generally awkward & out of place), but with the added wrinkle of an anonymous email penpal about whom he knows nothing except that said penpal is a fellow gay-but-not-out junior boy at his school. Hijinks, turmoil, laughs, and all the feels ensue. (Also, mad props to Albertalli for a) writing a gay protagonist (1st person) who is just a normal kid and b) handling the whole teen boy coming out / figuring out how to relationship in such an earnest, thoughtful, brilliant way, particularly for someone who, as far as I know, has never been a gay boy)..
<p><font size="3"><b><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1176867653">Fates and Furies</i></a>,</b></font> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/690619.Lauren_Groff">Lauren Groff</a>. (2015, 392 pages) 5 stars. Oh, man. I don't even know where to begin with this book except that it was amazing. I actually think the marketing copy included a pretty decent summation: Every relationship has two perspectives, and sometimes the key to a great marriage is not its truths but its secrets. The relationship in question is that of Lotto & Mathilde, madly in love and married at the tender age of twenty-two after knowing each other for all of two weeks. The first half of the book tells the story of their decades of marriage from Lotto's point of view, and though the writing is utterly gorgeous and the characters dynamic and multi-dimensional, it's on the darker side, without much in the way of comic relief. The second half, though, is Mathilde's story, which fills in a lot of blanks. The genius of this book lies in the juxtaposition of the two voices, addressing issues of destiny, creative potential, and the nature & meaning of marriage. Not a light read, but the complexity and cleverness offers enough relief from the darker nature of the story to make it brilliant.
<p><center>* * *</center>
<p><b><i>Currently Reading:</b></i><br><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13531066-the-fifty-year-sword?ac=1">The Fifty Year Sword</a></i>, by Mark Z. Danielewski
<p><b><i>Currently Listening To:</b></i><br><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2187.Middlesex?ac=1">Middlesex</a></i>, by Jeffrey Eugenides
<p><b><i>Up Next:</b></i>
<ul><li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5297.The_Picture_of_Dorian_Gray?ac=1">The Picture of Dorian Gray</a>, by Oscar Wilde
<li><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62005.A_Night_in_the_Lonesome_October">A Night in the Lonesome October</a></i>, by Roger Zelazny (because October)
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19103097-the-magician-s-land?ac=1">The Magician's Land</a></i>, by Lev Grossman (last in the trilogy)
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89724.We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle?ac=1">We Have Always Lived in the Castle</a></i>, by Shirley Jackson (feels like a perfect Halloween read)</i></ul>
<br>
<p><b>Taking future suggestions as always. :)</B>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-38436455485367547712015-09-22T09:41:00.000-07:002015-09-22T09:41:06.056-07:00Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, by Becky Albertalli<img src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51POxFOMEmL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200">What a sweet, wonderful, (sadly) subversive book. The last twenty pages or so actually had me kind of weepy (in a good way), and if you know me at all you know how rare that is for a book. This and I'll Give You the Sun have reaffirmed my belief that yes, there IS, in fact, really excellent YA left in the world.
<p>Like all the best books (I'm discovering), the marketing copy just really does not capture what makes this one so great. Come down to it, it's basically about gay-but-not-out 16-year-old Simon negotiating all the usual sixteen-year-old orders of business (school, friends, family, extracurriculars, crushes, feeling generally awkward & out of place), but with the added wrinkle of an anonymous email penpal about whom he knows nothing except that said penpal is a fellow gay-but-not-out junior boy at his school. Hijinks, turmoil, laughs, and all the feels ensue.
<p>Really, what makes this book so fantastic (besides the fact that it's just really well written overall) is the genuine, believable feel of all of it. The kids sound, act, and talk like real teenagers and, like real teenagers, can't be easily pigeon-holed into the stereotypes that plague so much YA media (the bully, the hot girl, the nerd, the jock, the theater geek, etc.). High school feels like an actual, run-of-the-mill suburban high school and not like college or Gossip Girl or Saved By the Bell, which I feel like is something that adults who have not spent massive amounts of time in ordinary high schools with ordinary teenagers seem to lose sight of sometimes.
<p>Also, mad props to Albertalli for a) writing a gay protagonist (1st person) who is just a normal kid and b) handling the whole teen boy coming out / figuring out how to relationship in such an earnest, thoughtful, brilliant way (particularly for someone who, as far as I know, has never been a gay boy). I basically want to give this book to everyone I know, so they can give it to everyone they know. All the stars.Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-24823937115161733992015-09-14T22:38:00.000-07:002015-12-15T15:33:19.873-08:00A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYoFvHnSrRcHGtQPskuyLxiyHt10hoN4fZVwAtLxbnbJycKpEwB58sGv_pMn-6Cmxcjb94y_mk8HbxXQhVAeEZWEILuHAgwD9P5CDl34Uz6tD99nup7i2phmqEkWGPGwRwDIaGFZxp76Y/s512-Ic42/ghosts.jpg" align="left" width="200" style="margin-right:10px;">Last Wednesday I read an article on LitReactor called <a href="https://litreactor.com/columns/6-reasons-everyone-should-read-a-head-full-of-ghosts-by-paul-tremblay">"6 Reasons Everyone Should Read "A Head Full of Ghosts" by Paul Tremblay"</a>. Apparently this book has been getting rave reviews by everyone and their mother since it came out in June, but this was the first I'd heard of it. I am not much of a horror fan so I suspected it wouldn't really be my thing, but LitReactor has often steered me very very right, so I read the article. And got the book the next day, and read it the day after that.
<p>Friends: I could not put it down. It is for sure one of the best books I've read this year, and yet <i>100% completely different</i> from anything else I've read this year.
<p>I owe the LitReactor article a lot, because the genius of this book is not really the kind of genius that is conveyed easily in a two-paragraph marketing blurb. The story follows the Barrett family (out-of-work, hyper-religious John, his cynical, frustrated wife Sarah, and their two daughters Marjorie and Merry, fourteen and eight respectively) as Marjorie descends into (severe mental illness? Demonic possession? A desperate bid to salvage the family's financial situation?). John gets the local minister involved, who in turn gets the family a reality TV deal ("The Possession"), which in turn leads to Complications, all of which is narrated by eight-year-old Merry.
<p>That's basically the setup you get from the marketing copy, and based on that alone I probably would have skipped it because a) not really into horror and b) sounds a bit cliché, to be honest. But the real genius of this books is that it's kind of meta-horror. Instead of telling the story purely from eight-year-old Merry's perspective, Tremblay ups the ante by framing it as told by twenty-three-year-old Merry to a bestselling author who is writing a book about the events, and then interspersing those interviews with blog posts about the reality series "The Possession" written by a quirky & mysterious horror junkie. Because of the reality show, a lot of what happened is on film, but a lot of it isn't; there is also the reliability of Merry's memory to take into account. This all adds up to an undercurrent of uncertainty about what did and did not actually happen and to what extent was the situation was medical, supernatural, or faked by Marjorie and/or the exploitative reality TV producers.
<p>In that context, the various horror clichés and tropes click into place. Rather than making the story predictable and derivative, they add layers of complexity to it and enrich the question of real/not real/supernatural/fake, and give the horror junkie blog posts lots to dig into in that obsessive-internetty-kind of way that the best bloggers have.
<p>Finally, the dang thing is just brilliantly written, start to finish. As the LitReactor article put it, there are no bit parts. The real conflict & tension in the book is created by the interplay between complex, three-dimensional characters with vastly different goals and desires and understandings of what's happening. (I was particularly impressed with how believably eight-year-old Merry was written.)
<p>All that said, <i>A Head Full of Ghosts</i> will not be for everyone. There are some disturbing scenes that, while they make complete sense in context and are not played for shock value, will be deal breakers for the squeamish (and possibly hyper-religious). But if you're more concerned with a smart, tense, well-written story that hooks you from the first page, you might give it a shot.
<p>Books with which [book:A Head Full of Ghosts|23019294] has things in common, <i>but is completely different than</i>:
<ul><li><i><a href="http://angelasunifiedtheory.blogspot.com/2009/04/house-of-leaves-by-mark-z-danielewski.html">House of Leaves,</a></i> by Mark Z. Danielewski
<li><i><a href="http://marishapessl.com/night-film/">Night Film,</a></i> by Marisha Pessl
<li><i><a href="http://stephenking.com/library/novel/shining_the.html">The Shining,</a></i> by Stephen King
<li><i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/89717.The_Haunting_of_Hill_House">The Haunting of Hill House,</a></i> by Shirley Jackson</ul>Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-71590538069807093152015-08-28T20:17:00.004-07:002015-08-30T12:33:09.288-07:00Jane Eyre, by Charlotte, Brontë<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyvyzMDbbnNIMY28zkQjeEDiZXgAdCtcs4Lfe6OxALCoLLYizddjsOaMNV6dq7goQZYyi1fxcy3soSOy9R_NvpgZ7gTBzcxNwAMXWfp7Bye7uLdc8aijB4HMk4KpDRAgXoNgRdvKqjvOw/s346-Ic42/janeeyre.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200">August's 2015 Classic Read was <i>Jane Eyre</i>, by Charlotte Brontë!
<p>I think sometimes it's difficult to fully appreciate classics because the reason they are classics has mainly to do with the context in which they were written. Reading Jane Eyre for the first time in 2015, I have to admit that I spent most of it rolling my eyes & ready to chuck it across the room. Really, Jane? <i>Really?</i> It's so painfully clear that Mr. Rochester is a dire shitbird, and you are utterly pathetic for not realizing this almost immediately. (Though, I will also admit that she gets a little less pathetic as the book goes on, but he is still a shitbird, and their conversations are honestly kind of gross.)
<p>BUT, I do get that it was rather revolutionary and radical for 1847 and (kind of hilariously) was actually lambasted for being anti-God/Church (ie, a woman every once in a while having an original thought and maybe occasionally for half a second not doing exactly what some rando self-important dude tells her to do). Still, a part of me was screaming throughout, JANE, YOU IDIOT! DTMFA!Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-55010437287522848552015-08-27T10:36:00.003-07:002015-08-27T10:36:52.623-07:00The BBC's "The Big Read"The BBC's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Read">top 200 literary works</a>, based on a survey of over 750,000 UK readers! I literally just found out about this & am now compelled to mark up the list with ones I've read (bold) & which are on my imminent 'to read' list.
<br></br>
<p><b>The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien</b> - Junior year of college (too late; I never really got into it & the whole thing was sort of a slog.)
<p>Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - I'm ambivalent about this book but I feel like I should read it just, y'know, to do it.
<p><b>His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman</b> - grad school
<p><b>The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - Summer between freshman & sophomore years of college
<p>Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling - Junior year of college
<p>To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee - summer 2014
<p>Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne - Oh god. No idea. Middle school?
<p>Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - freshman year of high school, mostly under the desk in biology
<p>The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis - grad school
<p><b>Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë</b> - just finished!
<p>Catch-22 by Joseph Heller</b> - summer 2014
<p>Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë - again...just never been able to muster the enthusiasm
<p>Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
<p><b>Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier</b> - 9th grade, for school
<p><b>The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger</b> - 2011ish I think?
<p>The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
<p>Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
<p><b>Little Women by Louisa May Alcott</b> - 7th grade, for school
<p>Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
<p>War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
<p>Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
<p><b>Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling</b> - junior year of college
<p><b>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling</b> - junior year of college
<p><b>Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling</b> - junior year of college
<p><b>The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien</b> - junior year of high school maybe?
<p>Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy - on the list!
<p>Middlemarch by George Eliot - on the list!
<p><b>A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving</b> - just a month or so ago
<p><b>The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck</b> - 11th grade, for school
<p><b>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll</b> - middle school, I think?
<p>The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson
<p><b>One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez</b> early 2014?
<p>The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
<p>David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
<p>Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
<p>Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
<p>A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute
<p>Persuasion by Jane Austen
<p><b>Dune by Frank Herbert</b> - 2010?
<p>Emma by Jane Austen
<p>Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery
<p><b>Watership Down by Richard Adams</b> - over Christmas 2013
<p><b>The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald</b> - 11th grade, for school
<p>The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
<p>Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
<p><b>Animal Farm by George Orwell</b> - 9th grade, for school
<p><b>A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens</b> - just last Christmas
<p>Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy - on the list!
<p>Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian
<p>The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher
<p><b>The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett</b> - 6th or 7th grade? Not sure.
<p><b>Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck</b> summer between 9th & 10th grade
<p>The Stand by Stephen King
<p><b>Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy</b> - summer 2014
<p>A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
<p><b>The BFG by Roald Dahl</b> - elementary school, not sure
<p>Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
<p><b>Black Beauty by Anna Sewell</b> - 2nd or 3rd grade, I think?
<p>Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
<p><b>Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky</b> - earlier this summer
<p>Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman
<p>Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
<p><b>A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens</b> - 12th grade, for school
<p>The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough
<p>Mort by Terry Pratchett
<p>The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton
<p>The Magus by John Fowles
<p><b>Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett</b> - 2008?
<p>Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
<p>Lord of the Flies by William Golding
<p>Perfume by Patrick Süskind
<p>The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell
<p>Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
<p>Matilda by Roald Dahl
<p><b>Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding</b> - early 2014
<p><b>The Secret History by Donna Tartt</b> - 2005 or 2006 I think
<p>The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
<p>Ulysses by James Joyce
<p>Bleak House by Charles Dickens
<p>Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>The Twits by Roald Dahl
<p>I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
<p>Holes by Louis Sachar
<p>Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
<p><b>The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy</b> - just a couple of months ago
<p>Vicky Angel by Jacqueline Wilson
<p><b>Brave New World by Aldous Huxley</b> - 9th grade, for school
<p>Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
<p>Magician by Raymond E. Feist
<p>On the Road by Jack Kerouac
<p>The Godfather by Mario Puzo
<p>The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
<p>The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett - on the list!
<p>The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - been on the list for quite sometime actually...
<p>Katherine by Anya Seton
<p>Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer
<p>Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
<p>Girls in Love by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
<p>Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - will read at some point for sure because Salman Rushdie
<p>Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome - After reading Connie Willis's <i>To Say Nothing of the Dog</i>, I have to admit I'm curious.
<p>Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - I started reading this in college & would like to go back & finish it!
<p>The Beach by Alex Garland
<p><b>Dracula by Bram Stoker</b> - 2005. LOVE.
<p>Point Blanc by Anthony Horowitz
<p>The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
<p>Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
<p>The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
<p>The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
<p>The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
<p>The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend
<p>The Cruel Sea by Nicholas Monsarrat
<p>Les Misérables by Victor Hugo - I seriously doubt I will ever read this one
<p>The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
<p>The Dare Game by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Bad Girls by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde - this year!
<p>Shōgun by James Clavell
<p>The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham - on the list!
<p>Lola Rose by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
<p>The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy
<p><b>House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski</b> - 2008 or '09 I think?
<p>The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - People keep recommending this to me so I suppose I should just read it.
<p>Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett
<p>Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
<p>The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
<p>Possession: A Romance by A. S. Byatt
<p>The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov - A friend loves this one so I may give it a shot.
<p><b>The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood</b> - In one sitting, junior year of college
<p>Danny, the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
<p>East of Eden by John Steinbeck
<p>George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl
<p>Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
<p>The Color Purple by Alice Walker
<p>Hogfather by Terry Pratchett
<p>The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
<p>Girls in Tears by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Sleepovers by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
<p>Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
<p>High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
<p>It by Stephen King
<p>James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
<p>The Green Mile by Stephen King
<p>Papillon by Henri Charrière
<p>Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett
<p>Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian
<p>Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz
<p>Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
<p>Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
<p>The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett
<p>Atonement by Ian McEwan
<p>Secrets by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>The Silver Sword by Ian Serraillier
<p>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey - this year!
<p><b>Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad</b> - 12th grade, for school
<p>Kim by Rudyard Kipling - After <i>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</i> and <i>Declare</i>, I'm curious to read this one.
<p>Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon
<p>Moby-Dick by Herman Melville - Let's be real, it ain't happening.
<p>River God by Wilbur Smith
<p>Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon
<p>The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
<p>The World According to Garp by John Irving - on the list!
<p>Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore
<p>Girls Out Late by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye
<p>The Witches by Roald Dahl
<p><b>Charlotte's Web by E. B. White</b> - 4th grade maybe?
<p><b>Frankenstein by Mary Shelley</b> - 12th grade, for school
<p>They Used to Play on Grass by Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
<p>The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway - on the list!
<p><b>The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco</b> - 2007, I think?
<p>Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder
<p>Dustbin Baby by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Fantastic Mr Fox by Roald Dahl
<p>Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - I'll admit I'm morbidly curious.
<p>Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
<p>The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - meant to read this one last year & got sidetracked, so definitely on the list
<p>The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson
<p>Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
<p>The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay - on the list
<p>Silas Marner by George Eliot
<p>American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis - DEF on the list
<p>The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
<p>Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh
<p>Goosebumps by R. L. Stine
<p>Heidi by Johanna Spyri
<p>Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
<p>The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera - on the list
<p>Man and Boy by Tony Parsons
<p>The Truth by Terry Pratchett
<p>The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
<p>The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans
<p>A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
<p>Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett
<p>The Once and Future King by T. H. White - on the list
<p><b>The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle</b> - Oh god. 1st grade? Kindergarten? Lord knows.
<p>Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Andrews
Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-3379554601109283492015-08-08T15:17:00.000-07:002015-12-15T15:33:30.015-08:00I'll Give You The Sun, by Jandy Nelson<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8EguKHSFF6MAYbCtEKADo_dElZlQTbD40LMxwVG-Zj5J5kh1LO_CmSShZlvoOwvv28snwNOCdWGf6pRqV_n92yPnZU3hAdAG48bW1do2EfPP7pFuuBivRQ_kO8GcGpiVj3uCVAyt6wGQ/s302-Ic42/igyts.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200">This may be the absolute best modern YA novel I've ever read in terms of teenage characters who are actually believable in terms of how they think, act, and (especially) talk.
<p>It's also just a lovely, if bittersweet, story about a set of artsy teenage twins trying to navigate their own & each other's tumultuous lives in the wake of their parents' own issues, and manages to strike a nice balance of humor, heartache, sweetness, and raw teenage emotion without veering too much into melodrama (or trying so hard to ape modern teenage lingo that it's painful).
<p>Still a *bit* too much schmoopy in places for my taste, but not so much as to make me want to vomit (which more or less seems to be the norm with YA). A great read for 12/13+, but there's plenty going on for adults to appreciate as well.Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-88504714553057367372015-08-07T14:16:00.000-07:002015-08-12T17:17:06.360-07:00The Blue Girl, by Laurie Foos<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuwDJb6gp-W5LVYwcUpcbuHUcDpzJpzgfdRphDBeOGyKkYsA2yYlVqaFWZfKXOfbfQGDojqZ4AvaA9Gapg3td0KB5kbIZ4Yq-gBVXA4CujtU8s37Q4_77BIumKsiyI9KznJ5rT6QEnPLs/s512-Ic42/IMAG3138_BURST001.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="200">A super quick, easy, fairly minimalist read, and at the same time amazingly, gorgeously, breathtakingly written. I'm not sure how you do both of those things at the same time, but somehow Foos pulled it off.
<p>A silent blue girl has appeared in an unnamed lake town; after one of their daughters saves the blue girl from drowning, three sad, middle-aged women with sad, middle-aged husbands, teenage daughters, and troubled sons sneak out at night to the cabin in the woods where the blue girl lives with an old woman to feed her the secrets they've baked into homemade moon pies. When the kids catch on, everything changes.
<p>Again, I don't understand how she did it, but these 220 dream-like pages weave together some of the most brilliant character development I've read in a while with profound narrative themes & symbolism. Not a wasted word anywhere. Heartbreakingly beautiful.Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-27101786132793368182015-08-01T10:02:00.000-07:002015-08-14T10:03:12.156-07:00Fight Club, by Chuck PalahniukLate to the party on this one! I picked it up in the airport because I wanted something short to read on a plane (it's ~200 pages or so), & having only seen the movie & never read any Palahniuk Chuck, I was curious.
Super entertaining & amazingly well-written & well crafted. My only regret is that I wish I'd read it before seeing the movie. I also enjoyed the afterword at the end about how the book began as a six-page short story no one paid any attention to & evolved into an international blockbuster. The question now is, which Palahniuk to read next?Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84358363802830082.post-59891869228839629722015-07-28T15:22:00.000-07:002015-08-30T12:44:47.542-07:00Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline<img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMKpM4TqDF-AyKBPK-9eNRR1gA30bTZLmDpsPqjSdclZzd0rNt-XrzpT4PwlYjHDQGodrFxj6pP6JUeoMQPPfn1mhmVndnaqajr8NSfJt0cx-U1aVlY0RsGxWEZC-AAvSkXjAldJ5uYvk/s512-Ic42/IMAG3228.jpg" align="left" style="margin-right:10px;" width="220">This book had all kinds of features that normally make me crazy (whiney awkward young white male protagonist; teen inner monologue/dialogue that is trying so hard to be 'with it' & happenin' that it's painful; main character spending a lot of time not interacting with people so that everything that's happening has to be described through narration/inner monologue; lack of much dramatic tension). And yet, I was engrossed all the way through & just had to find out what happened next.
<p>Somebody somewhere described this book as a cross between <i>The Matrix</i> and <i>Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory</i>, which is absolutely spot-on. (Late eccentric billionaire creator of the world's now-pervasive virtual reality "second life"-style video game creates a wacky contest wherein the winner must prove his/her worth by solving a series of riddles & tasks in order to inherit said billionaire's fortune, including the game.) I didn't rush to read it when it came out because I knew the riddles/tasks were all based on kind of 70s/80s geek/nerd/gamer/whatever-you-want-to-call-it culture, which I've had a decent amount of exposure to but haven't really lived, & I was afraid a lot of it wouldn't make sense to me because of that. But, it turned out my passing exposure was plenty. I feel like I got 90%+ of the references & jokes, & any I missed clearly weren't crucial to the story. Still, I can absolutely see how people who are/were really into all that stuff & have much deeper knowledge of the culture would find it even MORE entertaining & amusing because they've actually lived it & probably catch a bunch of stuff I didn't.
<p>So yeah. It was super entertaining, & complex & clever in terms of all the riddles/tasks/challenges, & it's clear that the author put a TON of time & effort into getting all that right & making it work out. The story, characters, etc., though, are not super deep or complex (predictable plot points, fairly tension-free, ending never in doubt), which probably makes it kind of perfect as a "beach read for geeks." I enjoyed it & was glad I finally gave it a shot.Angela Knottshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01596658700954456205noreply@blogger.com0