Month: January 2018

Lesson Plans: The Crucible, A Scavenger Hunt through Salem

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I’ve been reading Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible with high school English students since I first began my teaching career in 2006. I’ve been teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for almost as long. A few years into my career, I went on a campaign to convince my family that we should spend part of our summer touring around Salem, Massachusetts. I wanted to experience first-hand the place I had been reading about since I myself sat in a high school English classroom studying these works, and I knew I could gather material that would enhance my teaching of the play, the two fascinating and terrifying time periods it explores (the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Era),  and the novel. For reasons I don’t remember, the trip didn’t happen, and years went by–but this past summer, my aunt and uncle moved to Cape Cod, and when I visited them in June, they were kind enough to help make my years-long dream of visiting Salem a reality (though it meant about as much time in the car as it did on the streets of Salem!).

Witch House Purple Flowers
The Witch House is one of the many sites my students “visit” on their scavenger hunt of Salem through the halls of our high school.

After visiting, reading about, and photographing The Nathaniel Hawthorne Birthplace, The House of the Seven Gables, The Custom House, The Salem Witch Trials Memorial, The Old Burial Ground, The Witch House, and several other points of interest, I felt exhausted, educated, intrigued–and a little like there was still so much to see, and so little time! Still, I had gathered tons of interesting information to share with my students and satisfy (or pique!) my own curiosity, and I had taken dozens upon dozens of photographs to share with my classes come September.

But what to do with this information and these photographs? Sure, I could throw the photographs up on the screen and give my students the “My Day in Salem” lecture. I could put the photographs and information into a Power Point, Prezi, or Google Slides presentation. I could print them off and pass them around the room.

But none of this was good enough. None of it even approximated the real thing.

Victims' Memorial
The Witch Trials Memorial in Salem, Massachusetts

 

About a month went by, the photos still on my phone, the information still in my head, before I realized that what I really wanted to do was, well, take my students to Salem…

This, of course, was not as realistic as a “My Day in Salem” Power Point. But it would be  so much more effective!

So what if I mimicked the experience to the best of my ability…by turning the halls of our high school into the sidewalks and streets of Salem, Massachusetts? I typed an e-mail to my principal, and with her approval and support, set about creating my Salem Scavenger Hunt. With the help of my colleagues, the plan went smoothly this fall. So smoothly, in fact, that two of my colleagues created their own subject-specific scavenger hunts for their classes. This spring, with the help of Erin Ford, our school’s resident technology genius, I’m confident it will go even better. Erin has helped me incorporate technology like augmented reality to enhance the experience and further engage my students. Using the app HP Reality, formerly Aurasma, our scavenger hunt is going to come to life–to approximate an actual visit to Salem as closely as possible.

 

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Throughout our reading of the play and the novel, my students were still referring back to things they had learned in the scavenger hunt. It was far more effective than a lecture, worksheet, or presentation would have been. As much as possible, it brought the places, the people, and the time period alive for my students. The plans are below. I hope you and your students will get as much out of this as my students and I do!

Below is the original, more “analog” version of the scavenger hunt, which uses photos I printed and laminated from my trip.

A Visit to Salem Scavenger Hunt.docx

Thanks to Erin, you can find the technology-enhanced version below. It will require you to download the HP Reality app and set up your own augmented reality. You will still use the photos available in the analog version above, but when students use the app and hold their phone over specific photographs at each site, they will see videos, articles, etc. relevant to that site (once you have created your specific Aurasma).

Scavenger Hunt Rules

Following the technology-enhanced scavenger hunt, students are then asked to create a presentation using what they learned. They could also do this in the less technologically involved version, as well. Find a template here:

Travel Log

Regardless of whether you opt for the more analog version or the more technological version, you will need:

  • enough copies of the rules/worksheet packet for each student
  • colleagues willing to chaperone your students in the hallways
  • photographs of the sites, placed ahead of time at various locations around the school
  • enough copies of a map of your school, marked with the locations of the sites, for each student or each group of students.

My execution of this technology-enhanced version is slated for February, and I can hardly wait to see how it goes!

Witch House IV
The kitchen of the Witch House, where the trials initiated.

Social Media and the Write Life

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“Comparison is the death of joy,” according to Mark Twain, and there’s something to that. You might be familiar with a more contemporary term for the truth Twain describes: FOMO. The acronym stands for “Fear Of Missing Out,” and refers to the phenomenon caused in part by social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, which occurs when a social media user is exposed to, for example, the seemingly stellar Saturday night plans of his Fill-in-the-Social-Media-Platform friends, and compares those to his own evening plans–which inevitably seem lackluster by–you guessed it–comparison.

Today, more and more people experience FOMO–our own summer vacation at the beach paling in comparison to our colleague’s two-week trip to the Galapagos Islands, the long-stem rose our husband gave us for our birthday seeming somehow inadequate beside the two-dozen roses our neighbor’s husband gave her “just because,” our own career achievements seeming suddenly insignificant compared to our former college roommate’s successful medical practice or quick promotion.

“Comparison is the death of joy.”

–Mark Twain

I agree that comparing our own lives to the lives we see posted on social media–which are only the slices of life people want to display, usually the highlights–is both socially and societally problematic. I also agree that a pervasive use of social media is causing social degradation, as it decreases face-to-face communication and replaces precise, specific language capable of communicating complex emotions with (albeit cute and clever) emojis.

Recently, however, despite my tendency to see the downside of social media, I have come to believe that, if used deliberately, social media can produce positive effects, too, and in fact has yielded immediate positive impacts on my actual life–and this has been particularly true of my writing life.

Social media, used deliberately, has yielded positive impacts on my writing life.

This summer, I was invited to join the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association, and, shortly after I accepted, was asked to chair the VOWA Collegiate Undergraduate Writing and Photography Competition. One of my responsibilities within this role is to secure a new sponsor for the photography portion of the contest, a task on which I have been working since July or August. Recently, it occurred to me to put a call for a sponsor out on Instagram and Facebook–and within an hour, a fledgling photography company responded, interested in pursuing the sponsorship. Whether this pans out remains to be seen, but things are looking up.

 

In addition, several of the authors whose interviews have appeared on this blog, such as Luke P. Narlee, Brandi Kennedy, and Jill Breugem, I met via Instagram. I know that at least in the case of Narlee, the use of social media benefitted him, as well: One reader of this blog purchased and read his book as a direct result of having read our interview.

Some of my writing has even been published as a direct result of social media. My articles in writeHackr Magazine (unfortunately now defunct) were a direct result of social media. I found the magazine and its call for pitches and submissions on Instagram.

The good folks at My Trending Stories also found and contacted me through Instagram, having noticed my account. The same holds true for American Wordsmiths (though in that case, I found them).

My essays on sweatpantsandcoffee.com are also an excellent example. One of my colleagues follows the sweatpantsandcoffee Instagram account, and noticed a post advertising a call for submissions. She immediately shared the post with my account, and I pounced on the opportunity.

 

And, as strongly as I feel social media does anything but foster actual social interaction, my experience with Sweatpants and Coffee led to a real-life meeting with the website’s Operations Director, who happens to live less than hour away from me. We met up at a Starbucks (naturally–Sweatpants and Coffee) in downtown Richmond and spent a lovely couple of hours in the shade on the patio–having a real, face-to-face chat.

I had a similar experience with social media leading to actual socializing last fall at the James River Writers Annual Conference. A few fellow writers I had never met in person recognized me simply because we follow each other on Instagram. I got a little thrill of meeting the people behind the profiles, and our social media accounts gave us a sort of jumping off point as we got acquainted. In one case, I already knew she liked plants and painting; she already knew I was obsessed with my dogs.

It was thrilling to meet the people behind the profiles.

Finally, this blog, in its own right a form of social media, has provided a platform for people who read my work elsewhere, and want to reach out. On several occasions, people who have read my work in the Richmond Times-Dispatch have commented on this blog in response to what they’ve read–and each time, their personal, thoughtful comments have warmed my heart, and encouraged me to keep on keepin’ on. If I did not maintain this blog, these kind readers would have had no means of contacting me.

So, as I celebrate the fact that this weekend, my Instagram account reached over 500 followers (which, compared to the 5k followers some others might have could seem–oh, never mind…), and this post marks the 101st post on this blog, I acknowledge that social media, while it does pose its problems, can also prove a powerful and effective tool.

 

 

Writing Goals: Reflecting on 2017 and the “Write” Now

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At the end of 2016, I composed a post detailing my 2017 Writing Resolutions. Now that 2017 has given way to 2018, and I have had a little time to reflect on the literary accomplishments of the last year, I admit it seems last year’s goals may have been a bit ambitious for me. But, I mean, that’s sort of the point, right? That whole shoot for the moon and land among the stars thing? Anyway… Here they are, the resolutions and the realities, side by side:

2017 Writing Resolutions

2017 Writing Realities

Write a diary entry at least once a week.

I came close here, writing almost every Friday when my students wrote in their journals, and every other Wednesday when Creative Writing Club wrote. I probably averaged once a week.

Compose and publish a blog post at least twice a month (preferably, once a week).

That was clearly too ambitious…

Read at least one book on craft per quarter.

I failed pretty miserably at this. It’s hard for me to find time to read during the school year (unless the material is student papers), and I traveled a lot this summer. I read the first chapter or so of Mary Karr’s The Art of Memoir, and I’ll finish it eventually.

Submit writing to various publications at least once a month.

I did submit writing to lots of publications—but not once a month; instead, my submission habits were pretty sporadic.

Make a concerted effort to find representation for Goodbye for Now.

I queried about one agent per week from January through March and pitched to someone I thought was an agent, but who turned out to be an editor, at the James River Writers Annual Conference in October.

Research self-publishing.

I didn’t really do this, short of some cursory internet grazing.

Attend conferences, talks, and workshops as schedule allows.

I succeeded here, attending all three days of the James River Writers Annual Conference and two, six-week Life in 10 Minutes workshops.

So, as the chart makes plain, some of my resolutions were very successful, some…not as much–but I wouldn’t call any of them complete failures. Plus, a lot of support for my writing cropped up unexpectedly in 2017, and I was pretty darn good about jumping on those opportunities as they arose. In fact, taking advantage of those unexpected opportunities was sometimes the reason my resolutions went by the wayside.

2017’s Unexpected Writing Adventures and Successes

  1. A deluge of freelance writing jobs, some short-term, some still in effect today.
  2. A surprisingly large amount of work accepted for publication in magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, as well as on websites.
  3. An invitation to become a member of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association (VOWA).
  4. An invitation to attend the VOWA summer celebration.
  5. Becoming the new chairperson for the VOWA Collegiate Undergraduate Writing/Photo Competition.
  6. Acceptance into Vitality Float Spa‘s Writing Program.

2018: What I’m Doing “Write” Now

The last week or so, I’ve been a little disappointed in myself for not having set any writing goals for 2018, but it occurs to me now that, without necessarily planning on it, I’ve already begun to nurture my writing for this year. Earlier this week, I submitted three short stories to two different literary magazines, wrote a diary entry, and renewed my James River Writers membership. Today, I entered six pieces of my writing in three different categories of the VOWA Excellence-in-Craft Contest and composed this blog post. Next week, I start a year-long novel-writing class at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond. That’s right–every Wednesday for an entire year, I will stay up way past my bedtime, all in the name of writing. Now, if that’s not dedication (you don’t know me after 9:00 pm…), I don’t know what is. In addition, I’m currently judging student writing for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, an experience I enjoy every year. I’ve even already spent some time looking for some fresh freelance projects.

My husband and I spent December 31, in part, walking the frigid beach at the Northern Neck.
We spent New Year’s Eve at our River House. After a nice dinner out, we drank too much hot chocolate and watched movies with our dogs before falling asleep.

Looking Ahead

While I don’t have any specific, measurable goals laid out for my writing in 2018, I do know my novel-writing class begins next week. And I do know I will continue to write at least four articles per month for ScoutKnows.com. I also plan to continue–dare I say finish?–revising Goodbye For Now; write in my diary somewhat regularly; submit my writing to various publications; and attend the 2018 James River Writers Annual Conference. Oh, and I’ll take advantage of any unexpected opportunities that come my way, too!

Happy New Year!