Over the summer, my students were asked to read the novel The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar as well as some short critical pieces by David Wyatt and Wallace Stegner. They also were able to pick a "California" film to watch (including LA Confidential, The Maltese Falcon, Milk, and LA Story). We then spent the first week of school discussing these texts and setting thematic goals for ourselves as we work out what the definition we currently have for "California" is and how that might evolve as the year progresses.
This week, students were asked to create a visual metaphor that represents their current definition of California and the results were really fascinating, everything from collage to sculpture to an animated flip-book.
In addition to our ongoing reading, I will be asking students to regularly write a weekly blog, in which we will discuss and explore some of the ideas that we talk about in class in more depth. You will soon be able to see a list of all of my students' blogs here on my blog homepage and I encourage folks to come back and check out some of the great work my students are doing.
For this week's blog post, I want to riff on the idea that "one picture is worth a thousand words". I want my students to choose a picture (either a personal photo or one they find on their own) that they feels captures their "California". They will upload the picture and then not only introduce themselves to their readers, but also explain why this picture best captures their ideas about the State we live in.
Here is my picture:
This is a picture of me taken at Newport Beach sometime when I was around five or six years old (so likely around 1982 or 1983). I chose this picture to represent "my California" because it captures every really great memory I have from growing up in California. I lived about forty-five minutes from the coast but we went there often as a family and usually rented a house in Newport every summer for a week or two. I've always felt particularly drawn to the ocean and I think that is mostly because I spent so many happy times there as a child. To me, California is a place of freedom and endless possibility- which is captured in the perspective of this photo as the ocean seems to seamlessly blur into the blue-gray skies behind me. It is also a place of warmth and carefree attitudes; it is a state that values individuality and creativity. It is my home.
