Monday, September 26, 2011
Pirating Personal Publishing
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/books/paul-coelho-discusses-aleph-his-new-novel.xml
I will read him if only for his personal philosophy on publishing. Article says he posts links to sites for his books on twitter. Good place to start.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Ngrams Bibliotherapy
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=bibliotherapy&year_start=1910&year_end=2010&corpus=0&smoothing=3
Height of published interest in the 1980's. Click on date range at bottom for link to listing of books.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
from Carl Jung's THE SPIRIT IN MAN, ART, AND LITERATURE "Psychology and Literature"
p.85
The psychologist should constantly bear in mind that his hypothesis is no more at first than the expression of his own subjective premise and can therefore never lay immediate claim to general validity.
The phenomenology of the psyche is so colourful, so variegated in form and meaning, that we cannot possibly reflect all its riches in one mirror.
p.87...the psychologist must content himself with widely ranging descriptions of psychic processes, and with portraying as vividly as he can the warp and woof of the mind in all its amazing intricacy.
p.88
...the more unconscious the author is of (psychological assumptions), the more (psychological intentions) background reveals itself in unalloyed purity.
p.94
a true symbol is an expression for something real but unknown.
...our intuitions point to things that are unknown and hidden, that by their very nature are secret.
p.95
...the psyche is a door that opens upon the human world from a world beyond, allowing unknown and mysterious powers to act upon man and carry him on the wings of the night to a more personal destiny.
...the poet now and then catches sight of the figures that people the night-world...p.96 he catches a glimpse of the psychic world that terrifies the primitive and is at the same time his greatest hope.
p.101
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.
p.105
Participation mystique is the secret of artistic creation.
To grasp the meaning of a work of art, we must allow the work to shape us as it shaped the artist.
The psychologist should constantly bear in mind that his hypothesis is no more at first than the expression of his own subjective premise and can therefore never lay immediate claim to general validity.
The phenomenology of the psyche is so colourful, so variegated in form and meaning, that we cannot possibly reflect all its riches in one mirror.
p.87...the psychologist must content himself with widely ranging descriptions of psychic processes, and with portraying as vividly as he can the warp and woof of the mind in all its amazing intricacy.
p.88
...the more unconscious the author is of (psychological assumptions), the more (psychological intentions) background reveals itself in unalloyed purity.
p.94
a true symbol is an expression for something real but unknown.
...our intuitions point to things that are unknown and hidden, that by their very nature are secret.
p.95
...the psyche is a door that opens upon the human world from a world beyond, allowing unknown and mysterious powers to act upon man and carry him on the wings of the night to a more personal destiny.
...the poet now and then catches sight of the figures that people the night-world...p.96 he catches a glimpse of the psychic world that terrifies the primitive and is at the same time his greatest hope.
p.101
Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. The artist is not a person endowed with free will who seeks his own ends, but one who allows art to realize its purposes through him.
p.105
Participation mystique is the secret of artistic creation.
To grasp the meaning of a work of art, we must allow the work to shape us as it shaped the artist.
from Gaston Bachelard's THE POETICS OF SPACE Introduction
"The poet, in the novelty of his images, is always the origin of language. To specify exactly what a phenomenology of the image can be, to specify that the image comes before thought, we should have to say that poetry, rather than being a phenomenology of the mind, is a phenomenology of the soul. We should then have to collect documentation on the subject of the dreaming consciousness...
before the interior poetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for the mind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwells in it, takes pleasure in it...can therefore be taken as a clear maxim of a phenomenology of the soul."
"...the poetic image is essentially variational, and not, as in the case of the concept, constitutive.
Good argument for poetry therapy:
"A consciousness associated with the soul is more relaxed, less intentionalized than a consciousness associated with the phenomena of the mind. Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through the circuits of knowledge."
This is why the self-help book type of reading is not to be confused with bibliotherapy. And though the argument here is strongly poetry based, I propose it is comparable to reading fiction when the criteria of a relaxed mind, an open and aware consciousness, rather than the critical mind, is active. This can also be understood by reading Jungian works on "active imagination" (See Marie-Louise Von Franz.)
before the interior poetic light was turned upon it, it was a mere object for the mind. But the soul comes and inaugurates the form, dwells in it, takes pleasure in it...can therefore be taken as a clear maxim of a phenomenology of the soul."
"...the poetic image is essentially variational, and not, as in the case of the concept, constitutive.
Good argument for poetry therapy:
"A consciousness associated with the soul is more relaxed, less intentionalized than a consciousness associated with the phenomena of the mind. Forces are manifested in poems that do not pass through the circuits of knowledge."
This is why the self-help book type of reading is not to be confused with bibliotherapy. And though the argument here is strongly poetry based, I propose it is comparable to reading fiction when the criteria of a relaxed mind, an open and aware consciousness, rather than the critical mind, is active. This can also be understood by reading Jungian works on "active imagination" (See Marie-Louise Von Franz.)
Georges Poulet's PHENOMENOLOGY OF READING
" A book is not shut in by its contours, is not walled up as in a fortress. It asks nothing better than to exist outside itself, or to let you exist in it it."
"the book is no longer a material reality.... It has become a series of words, of images, of ideas which in their turn begin to exist. And where is this new existence? Surely not in the paper object. Nor, surely, in external space. There is only one place left for this new existence: my innermost self...dependent on my consciousness."
"Language surrounds me with its unreality."
paraphrasing:
I have thoughts which are part of a book I am reading, the thoughts of another.
"I am thinking the thoughts of another...
But I think (it) as my very own...
My consciousness behaves as though it were the consciousness of another."
The work lives its own life within me; in a certain sense, it thinks itself, and it even gives itself a meaning within me."
In this essay, Poulet argues that we cannot know the author by the work, but I disagree. We can know the author's mind at the moment in time when the work was being created and as such know as much about the author as the author is likely to know about herself. Do we know the author's biography? Of course not, but we know the author's mind, as fleetingly as thought based language will allow.
Check out Mallerme's opion in "THE BOOK: A Spiritual Instrument"
"the book is no longer a material reality.... It has become a series of words, of images, of ideas which in their turn begin to exist. And where is this new existence? Surely not in the paper object. Nor, surely, in external space. There is only one place left for this new existence: my innermost self...dependent on my consciousness."
"Language surrounds me with its unreality."
paraphrasing:
I have thoughts which are part of a book I am reading, the thoughts of another.
"I am thinking the thoughts of another...
But I think (it) as my very own...
My consciousness behaves as though it were the consciousness of another."
The work lives its own life within me; in a certain sense, it thinks itself, and it even gives itself a meaning within me."
In this essay, Poulet argues that we cannot know the author by the work, but I disagree. We can know the author's mind at the moment in time when the work was being created and as such know as much about the author as the author is likely to know about herself. Do we know the author's biography? Of course not, but we know the author's mind, as fleetingly as thought based language will allow.
Check out Mallerme's opion in "THE BOOK: A Spiritual Instrument"
Thursday, September 01, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Zero Summer
Still reading Caitlin Kiernan. Did I mention she's singlehandedly turned me into a short story reader.
Quote from above mentioned:
There should be a word for losing something that was never yours to begin with.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
School of Life Bibliotherapy Going Strong
http://bedsidetablebooks.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/heavenly-reading-retreats/
Wish something like this would fly in the States. Unfortunately, not enough of the literate have discretionary income.
Still I'm slowly building momentum to offer something similar in Portland for free. If I can work anywhere, it's Portal Land.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
C Kiernan Live Journaling
http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/#asset-greygirlbeast-784869
So...you aren't in control even when you're your own boss.
Maybe it's a matter of degree.
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
Sunday, August 07, 2011
Friday, August 05, 2011
Caitlin R. Kiernan
http://greygirlbeast.livejournal.com/
I never knew horror could be so beautiful.
P175 from To Charles Fort, with Love
The mind exists only in a moment, always, a single flickering moment, remembered or actual, dreaming or awake or something between the two, the precious, treacherous illusion of Present floundering in the crack between Past and Future.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Art Journal Workshop by Traci Bunkers
With DVD. How fun. Traci shows how fun art can be if you just Go For It. She's obviously not overthinking. It's clearly about the process. What is she thinking while she's playing with color, balance and form. It's not about a "marketable" finished product. It's about the experience. I love the new book arts movement. Books as a personal art form have entered the mainstream.
Bunkers' visual journaling is an excellent call to arms for silencing the inner critic so we can hear the soft whisper of our own creativity so often drowned out by commercial media.
Let the play begin. Even grownups need to color, cut & paste. I've been doing altered books and collage for about 12 years and am only recently beginning to understand the therapeutic benefits of art as a way to self awareness.
Good introduction to the world of art therapy.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Limited overview of bibliotherapy
The problem with this POV is limiting the subject to children. I found this to be true when working on my MLIS and have found there has been little progress in applying the practice to adult readers. One of the reasons quite probably is a result of little or no funding in today's libraries for readers advisory, much less a more in-depth application.
"Readers aren't playing captive audience any more..."
As book talk burgeons online, readers and librarians have more pointers to follow, or not, than ever before
Since Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published in 2008, it has received 1,561 consumer reviews on Amazon, averaging four of five stars. LibraryThing has registered 682 reviews, putting Tattoo among its most-reviewed books, with observations ranging from a top-ranked "gut-wrenching" to "what's the hubbub?" Over on the blogs, Bookbitch and LJ reviewer Stacy Alessi (www.bookbitch.com) offered a rave, writing that "every twist and turn is completely unexpected." But the Elegant Variation's Mark Sarvas did no more than signal that the book looked promising--even as an irate reader of his blog posted a comment huffing that Tattoo was "poorly written, poorly constructed, and, I hate to say, poorly imagined." Oh, and New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani moderately derided it, allowing that the main characters were "interesting enough to compensate for the plot mechanics."
Over the last 15 years, the book review landscape has changed seismically. Reviewing is no longer centralized, with a few big voices leading the way, but fractured among numerous multifarious voices found mostly on the web. In turn, readers aren't playing the captive audience any more. Undone by economics, many traditional print sources have been shuttered or, like the formerly stand-alone Los Angeles Times and Washington Post Book World review sections, either collapsed into the rest of the paper or moved entirely online. The New York Times Book Review is still standing but is half the size it was a few decades back.
Meanwhile, book talk thrives on the web, with eager readers thronging LibraryThing and Goodreads, trading recommendations on Facebook and Twitter, and pushing their own reviews on Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. From the most casual forums to rich and rigorous sites like the Millions (www.themillions.com), reviews are energetically spun out, then tweeted, rated, challenged, and otherwise subject to endless feedback.
Beginning the conversation
Pointedly, a chunk of this conversation comes not from critics picked expressly for their expertise but enthusiasts who may or may not be the best adviser you could find on a particular book. The more careful among us will point to their cheers, tears, and bashes and wonder, "Are those really reviews?"
Others could care less, countering that reviewing was always supposed to be an intellectual conversation and the real exchange has finally begun. As they'd argue, the current range of voices in the reviewing arena can only be good, promoting books, conversations about books, and connections among readers, bringing a much wider spread of material into play than can be covered in traditional review sources, print or online. The sheer numbers voting for or against a particular title can be illuminating. "On balance, I trust Michiko Kakutani a lot more than any single LibraryThing reviewer," acknowledges LibraryThing founder Tim Spalding. "But given a choice between her review and 100 LibraryThing reviews, I'd usually take the latter." In the end, says New York Public Library's Miriam Tuliao, today's richness not only satisfies readers' hunger but "ensures that there will be a diversity in what is being published."
Whether print or online, traditional or consumer, a review is now as likely to treat an obscure sf gem or specialized political treatise as the latest literary masterpiece, reflecting a broadened book market following readers' interests.
The big sources still review a focused bunch of high-power books, and they have reach. As Free Press senior editor Amber Qureshi notes, "A fantastic review on a personal blog will not have the same impact on a book as a tepid one in the Christian Science Monitor, online or print."
But while the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Time Book Review, and the Washington Post Book World once pushed sales, now it's as likely to be Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, and People. "That's the New Reviewing Trifecta," says EarlyWord's Nora Rawlinson, who also cites the book power of NPR. "They deal more with books that will appeal to general readers and seem to have an interest in making books happen."
With the book market more fragmented than ever, with so many voices echoing through our heads as we consider what to read next or purchase for patrons, with our almost fetishistic resistance to being told what to think, no one critic today can speak for us, and certainly many can't even speak to us. But even as we ditch the concept of authority, even as we say that every voice should be heard, even as it seems that every voice is getting heard, at least in cyberspace, it's apparent that, in fact, not everyone's a critic.
Anyone can blog, or post a consumer rating or review, or register an online comment, but, famously, not every blog is bearable reading, not every consumer review insightful, not every comment exactly what's needed to nail the book. Some judgments are worth more than others; the question is how we judge.
A question of authority
In print or online, traditional reviews still offer something unimpeachable while consumer commentaries have the verve and single-mindedness to do something that traditional reviews cannot. The two coexist comfortably because they fill different needs. Will the latter come to replace, or at least supersede, the former? That's anyone's guess, but one thing is certain: today's raging stream of voices has radically altered the idea of reviewing, with huge consequences for book culture itself.
The traditional review has always been defined by the idea of authority; presumably, the book has been assigned to a reviewer who has some knowledge of the subject, is sufficiently versed in the literature to make valid comparisons, and embraces the obligation to write an unbiased and closely reasoned assessment for a broad audience. What the reviewer knows--and knows how to communicate--matters. As arts and travel journalist Terry Trucco sums it up, "While I'm happy to read a review by Paul Krugman of an economics or political book, I don't particularly want him weighing in on the ballet or cooking or, God forbid, fashion."
The golden ideal of the authority-driven review has been challenged by the conversation the Internet facilitates, where special interests are pursued energetically. A blog offers an impassioned reader's personal slant, and a consumer review is perhaps an informed read and perhaps a stab in the back by a jealous competitor. Anyone can post, and an opinion is just an opinion until you start winkling out the depth of understanding behind it. But most book talk on the web isn't trying to emulate work by seasoned critics. It's a different beast entirely, generally striving for conviction rather than objectivity, advice but not hierarchy; the goal is ultimately participation.
The problem with love letters
For librarians, spending public money and conscious of the need to defend purchase decisions, the I'll-do-it-my-way stance on the web can be problematic. "Most, but not all, consumer criticisms read more like love letters or, at the other end of the spectrum, screeds," says Shawna Thorup, Fayetteville Public Library, AR, which obviously makes them troublesome for collection development.
Of one high-profile consumer reviewer, always suspiciously over the top, Alessi bitingly observes, "Would anyone seriously into books even look at her reviews? The woman reads several books a day and loves, loves, loves them all. Ridiculous."
Blogs and consumer reviews haven't entered official collection development policy--yet. But they're useful stopovers in the book hunt, especially in niches not covered by the biggies. Bookbitch Alessi can't see her library system relying on Amazon reviews for nonfiction, though "perhaps there is a little more leeway with fiction, especially if there is no authoritative or conflicting review."
Kim Garza, Tempe Public Library, AZ, agrees. "I have often used reader reviews online when I am not sure about something," she says, "but I approach them carefully."
Karl Helicher, of Upper Merian Township Public Library, King of Prussia, PA, puts the whole thing in perspective: "For years, we have bought books recommended by customers, and choosing books on the strength of a public review is really no different." In the end, that sense of connection may preempt authority.
"I would expect a traditional magazine or newspaper review to be more objective than a blog or patron review, but that doesn't necessarily make it better in my eyes," says LJ fiction reviewer Sally Bissell, South County Regional Library, Estero, FL, herself a thoughtful blogger. "I have also read some wonderful, from-the-heart blog posts that speak to me as a reader and as a buyer."
Angelina Benedetti, King County Library System, WA, is even more emphatic. Reflecting on patrons miffed that she's not up on crop circles or urban chicken farming, Benedetti says, "To your question, 'Where has the authority gone?' I ask, 'How authoritative was anyone anyway?'"
Digging for gold
Respected authorities can have holes in their knowledge, turn out sloppy work, fail to read the book, engage in logrolling, grind their axes vigorously, or "play out old grudges in the review pages," as Oxford University Press publicity director Purdy grouses. And amateurs can write persuasively, from a fund of knowledge, about their favorite books. The problem has always been and still is figuring out who to trust.
Whether for reading pleasure or collection development, concrete advice on how to sort through all this free-fall book talk is hard to come by. Beyond their favorite sources, readers turn themselves into critics, taking a prove-it-to-me stance while continually looking for reviewers or blogs that steer them "toward good reads and away from bad reads time and time again," as Purdy puts it. However, the pervasive anonymity of the web can make following standout writers a challenge, so dedicated readers focus on what grabs them, cultivate an ability to spot fakes and grandstanders, and recognize that some subjects (e.g., genre fiction) are better treated by committed amateurs than others (e.g., history).
Falling back on glam sites like the Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com) or The New Yorker's Book Bench (www.newyorker.com/arts) is definitely a cop-out. "I've learned as much from a 'small' review as I have from a 'big' one," says Free Press's Qureshi, "and, having written myself, I know better than to be snobby about my sources."
Fortunately, this is not entirely a do-it-yourself project; the Internet provides built-in help for the free-for-all it has fostered. As the like-minded gather to discuss favored topics, connections are built and sensibilities acknowledged; friends can help filter out which books, reviewers, and sources are tops. Says LibraryThing's Spalding, "The New York Times gets Stephen King or Christopher Hitchens to review books in part because we know them well enough to care about their opinion. Well, I care about my friend Ben more than I care about either of those fellows. The same applies when you don't know the person, but you see that they share very similar tastes." Trusting your buddies isn't a new idea, but it's amplified infinitely on the web.
In making judgments, one can also look at the writing itself, which can be wipeout brilliant but is just as often messy and unreasoned or simply uninformative and routine. "Overall, I have mixed feelings about decentering (and usurping?) traditional voices because I value good writing and thoughtful analysis," says Stephen Morrow, an LJ fiction reviewer and composition professor at Ohio University. What consumer reviews and most blogs lack is an editor, not only to correct those pesky typos but to question dubious assertions and assure coherent thought. As Morrow smartly sums it up, "There's no editor to ask, 'You have some wonderful thoughts on deep-sea diving and the War of 1812, but what do you think of Cormac McCarthy's book?'"
Yet, Morrow, who like many of us finds himself of two minds on this subject, also values the raw energy and engagement of a writer unleashed. "Bloggers go for broke," he explains. "They can be original and tremendously funny or satirical because they have no one to stop them from saying stuff like, 'Nicholas Sparks is just phoning them in.'"
Beyond the traditional review, you've got intimacy (or something that feels like it), you've got sharp personality (read LJ reviewer Terry Hong's Smithsonian BookDragon blog, and you know she's whip-smart, charming, and not to be crossed), and you've got a populist voice ("I don't feel like I have to have an advanced degree in literature to understand the reviewer, as is often the case with The New Yorker," says Morrow). Since it's embarrassing to mislead an online friend or follower, you've also got brutal honesty, though, of course, scrupulous attention to standards of truthfulness mark more traditional writing as well. And, finally, you've got some good ideas; says Spalding drily, "It's a myth that online reviews are written by idiots."
An expanding forum
Book coverage may be seeping from newspapers, but authority-driven reviews aren't lost. From Kakutani's work to the professional, prepublication commentary in LJ and elsewhere, they're integral to today's robust book talk wherever they appear.
"I now write for both print and online formats, and with that combination, my readership is in the multiple millions," notes book reviewer Jane Ciabattari, president of the National Book Critics Circle. "Before, I'd venture my reviews reached the population of the cities whose newspapers I was reviewing for, plus the magazine/literary quarterly audience." That's exciting.
The mix of review types endures because different readers use them differently. Some read reviews to determine what book to pick up next, others to decide what to purchase for patrons or customers. Some want to be part of a conversation for the sake of conversation, others to contribute to that conversation so they can see their names on the screen (why else would anyone want to be the 1,562nd commenter on Larsson?). Some want to learn about the subject, others simply to be entertained or to confirm impressions of a book they've finished. Some, like Qureshi, are editors seeking "to identify our audiences better and publish to them"; others are librarians like Fayetteville's Thorup, who would never use consumer reviews when leading book club discussion because, after all, "All the members have consumed the book and have their own opinions."
That's for now. What about the future? Those in the younger demographic don't have the habit of looking up to anyone when deciding what to read or see or absorb through their earbuds, depending instead on their cohorts. As Morrow notes, "Most of my students aren't reading book reviews at all, print or online."
Will they learn to depend on reviews like Ciabattari's? A few years back, credentialed reviewers might have despaired, but they're emerging from a prevailing sense of gloom to embrace the future. "We're at an exciting juncture," says Ciabattari. "The conversation about books has been growing exponentially because of the viral nature of social media and the many ways in which formerly print book publications are exploring the use of literary blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so forth." In the heady, freewheeling environment of the web, readers have many options. They will join the conversation in their own way, whether online or mobile, drawn by something new or hot or intriguing that's just a click away.
PHOTO (COLOR)
~~~~~~~~By Barbara Hoffert
Barbara Hoffert is Editor, Prepub Alert, LJ
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
VA Bibliotherapy Resource Guide
http://docs.google.com/gview?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.triwest.com%2Fdocument_library%2Fpdf_docs%2FBibliotherapy_ResourceGuide.pdf
May not link.
Try searching "Bibliotherapy Resource Guide" pdf in Google.
May not link.
Try searching "Bibliotherapy Resource Guide" pdf in Google.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Grave Expectations by Bailey & Flowers
At 56 1/2 I'm shopping around for my post-death experience. My mother thinks it's macabre and even friends think it's one of stranger of my offbeat interests. But I think it's a topic that has lots of potential for those of us who like to plan, especially if those plans are prone to off the beaten path preferences.
I'm not alone in this as Bailey & Flowers attest in their book Grave Expectations: Planning the End Like There's No Tomorrow. The only thing I wasn't particularly keen on was the lined white spaces for adding your own plans, though a web link with these as forms that could be filled in and printed out for filing with important papers might be useful. As it is, it just kind of seems gratuitous and gives the book a kind of cheesy look. Having said that, I want to share some of the really cool stuff I found in book.
One of my favorite is the Ecopod, an Egyptian-shaped sarcophagus made from recycled paper, which I'd really like to buy now and design interior and exterior myself, do-it-yourself creative adventure of the "in between" as life is referred to by Robert Thurman in his works on Tibetan Buddhism & death.These only recently have become available in the States. Other fabulous ideas that deserve some serious consideration include:
Promession
and
Resomation
and I also liked
www.funeria.com.
I'm not alone in this as Bailey & Flowers attest in their book Grave Expectations: Planning the End Like There's No Tomorrow. The only thing I wasn't particularly keen on was the lined white spaces for adding your own plans, though a web link with these as forms that could be filled in and printed out for filing with important papers might be useful. As it is, it just kind of seems gratuitous and gives the book a kind of cheesy look. Having said that, I want to share some of the really cool stuff I found in book.
One of my favorite is the Ecopod, an Egyptian-shaped sarcophagus made from recycled paper, which I'd really like to buy now and design interior and exterior myself, do-it-yourself creative adventure of the "in between" as life is referred to by Robert Thurman in his works on Tibetan Buddhism & death.These only recently have become available in the States. Other fabulous ideas that deserve some serious consideration include:
Promession
and
Resomation
and I also liked
www.funeria.com.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Bibliotherapy Certification
- Thank you, Rhea, for the history and info on bibliotherapy certification.
- American Libraries, Mar/Apr2011, Vol. 42 Issue 3/4, p7-7, 1/3p
- A letter to the editor is presented in response to the article "A Feeling for Books" by Jennifer Burek Pierce in the November/December 2010 issue.
I am deeply concerned about the alarmist and misleading piece on bibliotherapy in Jennifer Burek Pierce's Youth Matters column "A Feeling for Books" (Nov./Dec. 2010, p. 48).
Bibliotherapy's place in librarianship is not a new issue; librarians have been debating it since its first use by a trained librarian in 1904, when E. Kathleen Jones used it with patients in a mental hospital. The field really caught on in the 1930s when it was practiced primarily with individual patients in medical hospitals; teams of librarians and doctors provided information about illnesses and outcomes in a service we now call patient education.
In 1939, ALA established its first Committee on Bibliotherapy, giving it official status as part of librarianship.
By the 1970s, librarians in prisons and mental hospitals (and in public libraries that provided outreach services to residential institutions) were also using bibliotherapy. At that rime, we talked about three types of bibliotherapy: institutional, clinical, and developmental. The last type was used primarily by librarians, teachers, and others to promote normal development and self-actualization in students and others in the community from the 1960s on.
Pierce's article did not define the type of bibliotherapy under discussion. It also neglected to mention the bibliotherapy training and certification available to librarians (and others).
In the 1980s, the ALA bibliotherapy unit worked with the National Association of Poetry Therapy to develop standards and training to practice bibliotherapy. A number of professional librarians (myself included) became certified practitioners after completing astringent process with a mental health mentor. This "license" was not mentioned in the article. Currently, the National Federation of Biblio/Poetry Therapy awards three different credentials: Certified Applied Poetry Facilitators, Certified Poetry/biblio Therapists, and Registered Poetry/biblio Therapists.
~~~~~~~~By Rhea Joyce Rubin, Oakland, California
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Characters in the Story of our Lives
On holiday at my mom's I've picked up something I wouldn't normally read, though the author is best-selling and well-reviewed. The novel, The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks, is a good story, not particularly compelling or challenging, but an entertaining, somewhat sentimental and so far predictable story. However, I did find a good quote that I think fits nicely into the bibliotherapy vein:
"People come, people go--they'll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures."
Who are the characters at play in your life?
"People come, people go--they'll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book. When you finally close the cover, the characters have told their story and you start up again with another book, complete with new characters and adventures."
Who are the characters at play in your life?
Monday, April 11, 2011
Dublin's version of bibliotherapy
Useful format, though this is not bibliotherapy but rather a self-help reading bibliography.
Good to know that the subject is getting some play, nevertheless.
Good to know that the subject is getting some play, nevertheless.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Deep State by Walter Jon Williams
Recently stumbled upon an old cyberpunk reading list from the 90's. Walter Jon Williams was on the list and I'd never read him. Though more of a techno-thriller than what I normally think of as cyberpunk, Deep State has a lot of similarities to early Gibson. He makes the usual political statement, in this case it's a Turkish regime, of "absolute power corrupts absolutely" while tossing out a number of gamer and hacker premises.
Of course, I love the fact that the main protagonist is female. There's just enough espionage, gadgets and romantic interest to keep the pages turning. No brilliant insights, but telling, in the same way that Wag the Dog reminds us that war isn't just about the military any more.
Of course, I love the fact that the main protagonist is female. There's just enough espionage, gadgets and romantic interest to keep the pages turning. No brilliant insights, but telling, in the same way that Wag the Dog reminds us that war isn't just about the military any more.
Friday, March 04, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
E.Moon (2003) via K.Wilhelm (1976)
The Speed of Dark, winner of 2004 Nebula Award for Best Novel, this was the book that set the bar too high and resulted in my not being able to find anything worth writing about for months.
I project autism is a next stage in evolution for all of us (as a species) as we overstimulate ourselves into multimedia stupors, myself included, don't get me wrong. I'm one of the worst. Plus, I already much prefer my privacy to dealing with people and would be benefit from a happy "bouncing room" like the one made available at work for our gifted narrator and protagonist. Even the little spinning fans might serve a purpose in helping to quiet the churning thoughts under bombardment from the incessant stream of interruptions and the Sisyphean task of rolling that boulder of email, listservs, twits, and posts up the mountain day in, day out.
Total identification with the quiet voice of our author, who speaks volumes:
"If they aren't going to listen, why should I talk?
I know better than to say that out loud. Everything in my life that I value has been gained at the cost of not saying what I really think and saying what they want me to say."
The book (one our narrator is reading on neurology) answers questions other people have thought of. "I have thought of questions they have not answered. I always thought my questions were wrong questions because no one else asked them. Maybe no one thought of them. Maybe darkness got there first. Maybe I am the first light touching a gulf of ignorance."
"Maybe my questions matter."
"I do not know what the speed of thought is. I do not know if the speed of thought is the same for everyone. Is it thinking faster or thinking further that makes different thinking different."
Must check out more Moon. See Remnant Population, a finalist for the Hugo Award.
In Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang we see a post-apocalyptic world where cloning strips the ability for creative, independent thought.
There's something about the eyes they just don't have. Theirs only see outward, I think, and yours, and those in the other men in the picture, they can look both ways.
Perhaps the greatest threat from floods of media input isn't how much we take in, but whether or not we take time to process and apply what we learn, that we look inward to test what we see and hear against our own internal, pattern-forming awareness.
And this is what distinguishes therapeutic, or the active reading that I think of in terms of bibliotherapy from passive reading, in general. In finding the right book at the right time, the one that speaks to us in the quiet whisper that we must be still and quiet to hear, we come a little closer to finding ourselves able to be the protagonists in our own stories.
I project autism is a next stage in evolution for all of us (as a species) as we overstimulate ourselves into multimedia stupors, myself included, don't get me wrong. I'm one of the worst. Plus, I already much prefer my privacy to dealing with people and would be benefit from a happy "bouncing room" like the one made available at work for our gifted narrator and protagonist. Even the little spinning fans might serve a purpose in helping to quiet the churning thoughts under bombardment from the incessant stream of interruptions and the Sisyphean task of rolling that boulder of email, listservs, twits, and posts up the mountain day in, day out.
Total identification with the quiet voice of our author, who speaks volumes:
"If they aren't going to listen, why should I talk?
I know better than to say that out loud. Everything in my life that I value has been gained at the cost of not saying what I really think and saying what they want me to say."
The book (one our narrator is reading on neurology) answers questions other people have thought of. "I have thought of questions they have not answered. I always thought my questions were wrong questions because no one else asked them. Maybe no one thought of them. Maybe darkness got there first. Maybe I am the first light touching a gulf of ignorance."
"Maybe my questions matter."
"I do not know what the speed of thought is. I do not know if the speed of thought is the same for everyone. Is it thinking faster or thinking further that makes different thinking different."
Must check out more Moon. See Remnant Population, a finalist for the Hugo Award.
In Kate Wilhelm's Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang we see a post-apocalyptic world where cloning strips the ability for creative, independent thought.
There's something about the eyes they just don't have. Theirs only see outward, I think, and yours, and those in the other men in the picture, they can look both ways.
Perhaps the greatest threat from floods of media input isn't how much we take in, but whether or not we take time to process and apply what we learn, that we look inward to test what we see and hear against our own internal, pattern-forming awareness.
And this is what distinguishes therapeutic, or the active reading that I think of in terms of bibliotherapy from passive reading, in general. In finding the right book at the right time, the one that speaks to us in the quiet whisper that we must be still and quiet to hear, we come a little closer to finding ourselves able to be the protagonists in our own stories.
Time Must Have a Stop by Aldous Huxley
"Perhaps dirt is the necessary condition of beauty."
"Perhaps hygiene and art can never be bedfellows."
"Remorse is pride's ersatz for repentance, the ego's excuse for not accepting God's forgiveness. The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful--because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact."
And because knowledge, the genuine knowledge beyond mere theory and book learning, was always a transforming participation in that which was known, it could never be communicated--not even to one's own self when in a state of ignorance.The best one could hope to do by means of words was to remind oneself of what one once had intuitively understood and, in others, to evoke the wish and create some of the same conditions for a similar understanding."
"But whereas any particular manifestation of beauty--in art, in thought, in action, in nature--is always a relationship between existences not in themselves intrinsically beautiful, this was a perception of, an actual participation in, the paradox of Relationship as such, apart from anything related; the direct experience of pure interval and the principle of harmony, apart from the things which, in this or that concrete instance, are separated and harmonized. And somewhere, somehow, the participation and the experience persist even now as I write."
"Perhaps hygiene and art can never be bedfellows."
"Remorse is pride's ersatz for repentance, the ego's excuse for not accepting God's forgiveness. The condition of being forgiven is self-abandonment. The proud man prefers self-reproach, however painful--because the reproached self isn't abandoned; it remains intact."
And because knowledge, the genuine knowledge beyond mere theory and book learning, was always a transforming participation in that which was known, it could never be communicated--not even to one's own self when in a state of ignorance.The best one could hope to do by means of words was to remind oneself of what one once had intuitively understood and, in others, to evoke the wish and create some of the same conditions for a similar understanding."
"But whereas any particular manifestation of beauty--in art, in thought, in action, in nature--is always a relationship between existences not in themselves intrinsically beautiful, this was a perception of, an actual participation in, the paradox of Relationship as such, apart from anything related; the direct experience of pure interval and the principle of harmony, apart from the things which, in this or that concrete instance, are separated and harmonized. And somewhere, somehow, the participation and the experience persist even now as I write."
Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
"Everything is biographical, Lucien Freud says. What we make, why it is made, how we draw a dog, who it is we are drawn to, why we cannot forget. Everything is collage, even genetics. There is the hidden presence of others in us, even those we have known briefly. We contain them for the rest of our lives, at every border that we cross."
"We would study ourselves in this evolving portrait. It made us secretly competitive."
"We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell."
"...retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and lines, making up a single monologue."
"...what is most untrustworthy about our natures and self-worth is how we differ in our own realities from the way we are seen by others."
"We relive stories and see ourselves only as the watcher, or listener, the drummer in the background keeping cadence."
Have you ever wanted to personally thank an artist or writer for giving you something so exquisite, for adding to your being by way of their wisdom tethered to life. Aloha nui loa, you kind, beautiful, brilliant man.
"We would study ourselves in this evolving portrait. It made us secretly competitive."
"We live permanently in the recurrence of our own stories, whatever story we tell."
"...retrievals from childhood that coalesce and echo throughout our lives, the way shattered pieces of glass in a kaleidoscope reappear in new forms and are songlike in their refrains and lines, making up a single monologue."
"...what is most untrustworthy about our natures and self-worth is how we differ in our own realities from the way we are seen by others."
"We relive stories and see ourselves only as the watcher, or listener, the drummer in the background keeping cadence."
Have you ever wanted to personally thank an artist or writer for giving you something so exquisite, for adding to your being by way of their wisdom tethered to life. Aloha nui loa, you kind, beautiful, brilliant man.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Friday, January 07, 2011
My Kingdom for a Book
Lately, I read and I read and I read and I read but I can't connect with the book that carries me to the place I need to be.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
socialmention.com shows lorebrarian top poster
http://socialmention.com/search?q=bibliotherapy&t=all&btnG=Search
Do your own search and/or follow the RSS feed to keep up on what's being posted on bibliotherapy all over the web.
Do your own search and/or follow the RSS feed to keep up on what's being posted on bibliotherapy all over the web.
Friday, October 29, 2010
Music Therapy Exercise
Using this list or your memory, if you're so lucky, create a soundtrack for your life.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Curtains by Tom Jokinen
Subtitle:
Adventures of an Undertaker-In-Training.
Inside scoop on post death rigamarole, including multitude of new options and trends toward green burial. Interesting read by Canadian author who spent six months behind the scenes, hands-on. At 55 1/2, I'm glad to know there are cheaper alternatives for my final purchase. For those who stand on ceremony, Robert Anton Wilson's send off celebration ushers in a cyber-mystic new age of dying. If I had some extra cash, I wouldn't mind investing in an artisan urn from Graton California. Will add links to sites offering such goodies when I have a chance to do a little surfing.
Adventures of an Undertaker-In-Training.
Inside scoop on post death rigamarole, including multitude of new options and trends toward green burial. Interesting read by Canadian author who spent six months behind the scenes, hands-on. At 55 1/2, I'm glad to know there are cheaper alternatives for my final purchase. For those who stand on ceremony, Robert Anton Wilson's send off celebration ushers in a cyber-mystic new age of dying. If I had some extra cash, I wouldn't mind investing in an artisan urn from Graton California. Will add links to sites offering such goodies when I have a chance to do a little surfing.
Saturday, October 09, 2010
Poetry Therapy II
personally edited version of The Descent of Winter by William Carlos Willams
This sadness of the sea--
waves of lifting and falling mood.
My writings are a sea
full of misspellings and
faulty sentences. Level. Troubled.
There are no perfect waves--
This sadness of the sea--
waves of lifting and falling mood.
My writings are a sea
full of misspellings and
faulty sentences. Level. Troubled.
There are no perfect waves--
Sunday, October 03, 2010
by the bed
Curtains by tom jokinen; dreaming in chinese by deborah fellows; vamped by david sosnowski; house of many gods by kiana davenport
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.1
Monday, September 27, 2010
GABA and Creativity
Information on readers and writers in collaborative creative experience.
(To be edited for pertinent info at some future date.)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s9wvObtBk_IC&oi=fnd&pg=PA427&dq=gaba+and+creativity&ots=AHoCPTxgx7&sig=Ko0OvlQHxFRQIsiw3tqBL9JbaH0#v=onepage&q=gaba%20and%20creativity&f=false
(To be edited for pertinent info at some future date.)
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=s9wvObtBk_IC&oi=fnd&pg=PA427&dq=gaba+and+creativity&ots=AHoCPTxgx7&sig=Ko0OvlQHxFRQIsiw3tqBL9JbaH0#v=onepage&q=gaba%20and%20creativity&f=false
The Road to Oceania - William Gibson & Zero History: Reading had likely been his first drug.
http://www.netcharles.com/orwell/articles/col-rtoceania.htm
In NYTimes, June 25, 2003, Gibson presents an idea that may have seeded ZERO HISTORY.
Read: "The collection and management of information, at every level, is exponentially empowered by the global nature of the system itself..." I.e., In every moment, our lives shape the world order and in turn are shaped my it.
As our lives become open books, the transparency of our collective lives creates a new relationship to time. Past and future exist simultateneously in the present. Knowing the present, being fully present, allows us to know and thus shape the future albeit in our own small way. Characters in Zero History embody extremes of influence, from the mild-mannered protagonist to the arms trading antagonist and many, many levels in between from FBI to fashionista.
Gibson, roughly: Ideas have lives of their own; the "order flow" wants to happen; we need to move with the flow or get out of its way, as stasis presents potential problems for simultaneous awareness and realization.
All this aside, my favorite line from the book was a one-off reference to the mediocrity of professionalism.
You've just gotta love Gibson for those underlying glimmers of the man behind the magic. Gibson invites us to see not just the man behind the curtain, but the curtain.
In NYTimes, June 25, 2003, Gibson presents an idea that may have seeded ZERO HISTORY.
Read: "The collection and management of information, at every level, is exponentially empowered by the global nature of the system itself..." I.e., In every moment, our lives shape the world order and in turn are shaped my it.
As our lives become open books, the transparency of our collective lives creates a new relationship to time. Past and future exist simultateneously in the present. Knowing the present, being fully present, allows us to know and thus shape the future albeit in our own small way. Characters in Zero History embody extremes of influence, from the mild-mannered protagonist to the arms trading antagonist and many, many levels in between from FBI to fashionista.
Gibson, roughly: Ideas have lives of their own; the "order flow" wants to happen; we need to move with the flow or get out of its way, as stasis presents potential problems for simultaneous awareness and realization.
All this aside, my favorite line from the book was a one-off reference to the mediocrity of professionalism.
You've just gotta love Gibson for those underlying glimmers of the man behind the magic. Gibson invites us to see not just the man behind the curtain, but the curtain.
Saturday, September 04, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Like being in love: Reading
In skimming some of the sites earlier today, it dawned on me. (I love that saying "dawned on me.") Reading is like being in love. As in love, for a short time, we are taken out of ourselves and feel connected with something larger. Whether it's a character, the author, the setting, it's the connection to something that expands while encompassing (a magical word) our being.
Have you fallen in love lately?
Have you fallen in love lately?
random sampling of Google Alerts on query BIBLIOTHERAPY
Ooooo, must re-visit:
http://libnancy.posterous.com/
academic:
http://digitalcommons.library.unlv.edu/lib_articles/23/ (free download/other site charges $30)
A bit off topic but is timely and might be a good resource for bibliotherapy:
http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2009/11/2010-reading-from-my-shelves-project.html
Collection of links to pdf documents, many free but others link to pay site (bahumbug) still worth it for the links that deliver:
http://books168.com/bibliotherapy-writing-therapy-pdf.html
Interesting "docstoc" articles readable without download or with:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/51838675/within-Play-Therapy-Benefits-of-Utilizing-emotional-release-therapy
Hello...This is NOT bibliotherapy, this is biblio prophesy: http://residueprojects.com/oracle/biblio-therapy-ladies-with-oracle-cornelius-agrippa.html/
This on the other hand is a step in the right direction. I could see it on my library's web page:
http://librarybooklists.org/fiction/children/jbibliotherapy.htm
academic:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/6057/librarytrendsv11i2f_opt.pdf%3Bjsessionid%3DD92B89746655B1DAEBFB64012E176B0B%3Fsequence%3D1&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f2:v0:d1:i1:ld:e1:p1:t1282229640:&cd=TRStnS3hFxA&usg=AFQjCNEPmOdRIn8KnMUiISOYThtKg7VZPw
The concept of bibliotherapy is becoming more widespread and socially acceptable as fact:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/40522591/Effetti-della-biblioterapia
Focus on biographies and gifted kids:
http://www.ingeniosus.net/archives/tag/bibliotherapy
Alfred Adler Institute:
http://pws.cablespeed.com/~htstein/fict-psy-preview.htm
Prose before prozac & book clubs as thereapy:
http://www.women24.com/BooksAndAstrology/News/Bibliotherapy-101-20100517
Confused idea of bibliotherapy but nice links to reader related sites:
http://somanybooksblog.com/2010/05/09/bibliotherapy-and-what-happens-when-you-have-so-many-books/#comment-52406
Links to academic papers that probably requries $$, but could probably be found for free with a bit of searching. (Reminder to self to see what's worth digging up and posting.):
http://www.searchmedica.com/search.html
Asperger's syndrome recommendation for a book that is a strong case of reading as therapeutic approach:
http://www.42online.org/node/276
http://libnancy.posterous.com/
academic:
http://digitalcommons.library.unlv.edu/lib_articles/23/ (free download/other site charges $30)
A bit off topic but is timely and might be a good resource for bibliotherapy:
http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/2009/11/2010-reading-from-my-shelves-project.html
Collection of links to pdf documents, many free but others link to pay site (bahumbug) still worth it for the links that deliver:
http://books168.com/bibliotherapy-writing-therapy-pdf.html
Interesting "docstoc" articles readable without download or with:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/51838675/within-Play-Therapy-Benefits-of-Utilizing-emotional-release-therapy
Hello...This is NOT bibliotherapy, this is biblio prophesy: http://residueprojects.com/oracle/biblio-therapy-ladies-with-oracle-cornelius-agrippa.html/
This on the other hand is a step in the right direction. I could see it on my library's web page:
http://librarybooklists.org/fiction/children/jbibliotherapy.htm
academic:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/6057/librarytrendsv11i2f_opt.pdf%3Bjsessionid%3DD92B89746655B1DAEBFB64012E176B0B%3Fsequence%3D1&ct=ga&cad=:s7:f2:v0:d1:i1:ld:e1:p1:t1282229640:&cd=TRStnS3hFxA&usg=AFQjCNEPmOdRIn8KnMUiISOYThtKg7VZPw
The concept of bibliotherapy is becoming more widespread and socially acceptable as fact:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/40522591/Effetti-della-biblioterapia
Focus on biographies and gifted kids:
http://www.ingeniosus.net/archives/tag/bibliotherapy
Alfred Adler Institute:
http://pws.cablespeed.com/~htstein/fict-psy-preview.htm
Prose before prozac & book clubs as thereapy:
http://www.women24.com/BooksAndAstrology/News/Bibliotherapy-101-20100517
Confused idea of bibliotherapy but nice links to reader related sites:
http://somanybooksblog.com/2010/05/09/bibliotherapy-and-what-happens-when-you-have-so-many-books/#comment-52406
Links to academic papers that probably requries $$, but could probably be found for free with a bit of searching. (Reminder to self to see what's worth digging up and posting.):
http://www.searchmedica.com/search.html
Asperger's syndrome recommendation for a book that is a strong case of reading as therapeutic approach:
http://www.42online.org/node/276
Monday, August 23, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Fiction - the best book lists from Flashlight Worthy
Fiction - the best book lists from Flashlight Worthy: "- Looks to be a treasure chest for readers. There 's more than fiction on the site, I just chose the obvious based on my personal preference.
Peter Steinberg and Eric Mueller, who run the site, both love to read very, very much, and explain Flashlight Worthy is equal parts Peter's idea, Eric's coding, the suggestions of the Flashlight Worthy community, and the support of friends and family.
They take suggestions for their lists from the community at large, if you register and have something they agree needs adding.
If this isn't a jumping off place for bibliotherapy, I don't know what is. Well done, boys.
Peter Steinberg and Eric Mueller, who run the site, both love to read very, very much, and explain Flashlight Worthy is equal parts Peter's idea, Eric's coding, the suggestions of the Flashlight Worthy community, and the support of friends and family.
They take suggestions for their lists from the community at large, if you register and have something they agree needs adding.
If this isn't a jumping off place for bibliotherapy, I don't know what is. Well done, boys.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Why Read?
My fascination with bibliotherapy is rooted in a need for self validation, granted. But there are reasons we value reading of the pleasure variety. My heretofore undocumented intent for this blog is to keep me focused on this idea so that there may come a time when I can put all the pieces together and have something worth sharing.
Tonight (3:51 a.m.), eureka, we read for positive self reinforcement. That, and as an added benefit, we have a better chance of embedding something in our memory if it's in the form of a story. (There's a reason all religious leaders have been excellent storytellers...)
Then again, stories have multiple level impacts, one of which involving affecting our moods aka emotions aka neurotransmitters or brain chemistry. So...in effect, we could alter our mood, or state of mind, by what we are reading, i.e., reading alters our consciousness. Trippy, right?
So, if we tag what we read, not just with subject, author, title, keyword language, but take it to the next level and tag with how the reading made us feel, we would have a huge database equivalent to a literary drugstore of psychotropic and/or homeopathic remedies. (That is, if you are like me in that sometimes you find yourself not in the frame of mind you would like to be inhabiting and would like to lift to a preferable head space.
More on this, and please make suggestions on implementation of the above. The collaborative opportunity is a big part of what would make this work.
Tonight (3:51 a.m.), eureka, we read for positive self reinforcement. That, and as an added benefit, we have a better chance of embedding something in our memory if it's in the form of a story. (There's a reason all religious leaders have been excellent storytellers...)
Then again, stories have multiple level impacts, one of which involving affecting our moods aka emotions aka neurotransmitters or brain chemistry. So...in effect, we could alter our mood, or state of mind, by what we are reading, i.e., reading alters our consciousness. Trippy, right?
So, if we tag what we read, not just with subject, author, title, keyword language, but take it to the next level and tag with how the reading made us feel, we would have a huge database equivalent to a literary drugstore of psychotropic and/or homeopathic remedies. (That is, if you are like me in that sometimes you find yourself not in the frame of mind you would like to be inhabiting and would like to lift to a preferable head space.
More on this, and please make suggestions on implementation of the above. The collaborative opportunity is a big part of what would make this work.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Cory Doctorow's FOR THE WIN and Alex Shakar's THE SAVAGE GIRL
Every now and then, synchronicity strikes and I find myself reading two books that dovetail thematically. Such is the case with For the Win and The Savage Girl. Both novels endeavor to awaken our sensitivities to the out-of-control influences extant in our late stage capitalism.
Doctorow's book is being marketed to young adults and the style and pacing is perfect for his market. Loved the book and the message: Solidarity! but missed a more adult approach to character development. That's where Shakar's book came to the rescue: slower plot development, but we have the opportunity to develop a little insight into the main characters.
Doctorow's book has been published recently and Shakar's in 2001. Both books voice a strong concern for our devolution as a species brought on through our enslavement to consumerism. Doctorow's gamers fight for standards, such as those safeguarded by unions. Shakar talks of a "post-ironic" society where we as consumers no longer exist outside of our "purchasing power" and constantly buy to self identify.
We are each alone unto our credit rating... "But," Shakar says, "hell is not necessarily other people, no, not necessarily; hell is being surrounded by people who share no solidarity, it's like dying of thirst on the bank of a contaminated river."
Why is this we may ask ourselves and Doctorow answers, "It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions." And I would add to that the many are not asking for fear of being perceived as stupid because the question IS stupid. But, the stupidity rests in the question, not in the asking which is simply part and parcel of the inconceivable path we are all on that brings us to this "post-ironic" point in time, smug in our knowledge. Because, are we not spoon fed up to the minute news stories from all over the world? Do we not have access to mindboggling POV from diverse media as well as individuals, through social networking? Are we anything if not informed? BUT, can we take the information we receive and translate it into an understanding of the forces around us that governs our lives? There lies the rub.
My bathtub book during this same time frame further supported the theme. (This has been a very, very good week or two of reading.) One of my favorite authors, Aldous Huxley, touched on some of these same subjects in his TIME MUST HAVE A STOP. However, in true form, Huxley leads us to the subject from a more philosophical frame of mind: "...there's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." A principle that is in direct contradiction to his character of rich uncle Eustace who surmises, "So long as one was alive, death didn't exist, except for other people. And when one was dead, nothing existed, not even death. So why bother?"
Little does rich uncle Eustace know that no sooner than the words are uttered than he has a heart attack and dies, primarily from apathy and overindulgence. But this isn't what's of interest, rather Huxley's description of the death experience on pp.125-129, or most of chapter 13.
Doctorow's book is being marketed to young adults and the style and pacing is perfect for his market. Loved the book and the message: Solidarity! but missed a more adult approach to character development. That's where Shakar's book came to the rescue: slower plot development, but we have the opportunity to develop a little insight into the main characters.
Doctorow's book has been published recently and Shakar's in 2001. Both books voice a strong concern for our devolution as a species brought on through our enslavement to consumerism. Doctorow's gamers fight for standards, such as those safeguarded by unions. Shakar talks of a "post-ironic" society where we as consumers no longer exist outside of our "purchasing power" and constantly buy to self identify.
We are each alone unto our credit rating... "But," Shakar says, "hell is not necessarily other people, no, not necessarily; hell is being surrounded by people who share no solidarity, it's like dying of thirst on the bank of a contaminated river."
Why is this we may ask ourselves and Doctorow answers, "It's the stupid questions that have some of the most surprising and interesting answers. Most people never think to ask the stupid questions." And I would add to that the many are not asking for fear of being perceived as stupid because the question IS stupid. But, the stupidity rests in the question, not in the asking which is simply part and parcel of the inconceivable path we are all on that brings us to this "post-ironic" point in time, smug in our knowledge. Because, are we not spoon fed up to the minute news stories from all over the world? Do we not have access to mindboggling POV from diverse media as well as individuals, through social networking? Are we anything if not informed? BUT, can we take the information we receive and translate it into an understanding of the forces around us that governs our lives? There lies the rub.
My bathtub book during this same time frame further supported the theme. (This has been a very, very good week or two of reading.) One of my favorite authors, Aldous Huxley, touched on some of these same subjects in his TIME MUST HAVE A STOP. However, in true form, Huxley leads us to the subject from a more philosophical frame of mind: "...there's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." A principle that is in direct contradiction to his character of rich uncle Eustace who surmises, "So long as one was alive, death didn't exist, except for other people. And when one was dead, nothing existed, not even death. So why bother?"
Little does rich uncle Eustace know that no sooner than the words are uttered than he has a heart attack and dies, primarily from apathy and overindulgence. But this isn't what's of interest, rather Huxley's description of the death experience on pp.125-129, or most of chapter 13.
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Monday, May 31, 2010
Serious BookArts Bibliotherapist
http://lucymayschofield.blogspot.com/2009/08/babl-tours-to-seaside.html
One pound for 10 minutes. What a deal! But wait, that's only $12 an hour.
Won't give up my day job to hit the road at these rates.
Still, inspirational...
One pound for 10 minutes. What a deal! But wait, that's only $12 an hour.
Won't give up my day job to hit the road at these rates.
Still, inspirational...
Friday, May 21, 2010
What is bibliotherapy
What is bibliotherapy What is bibliotherapy?
Many therapists, educators, health practitioners, artists and other professionals have been practicing a form of bibliotherapy for centuries. Although the origins of "bibliotherapy" may date back to the nineteenth century, a time when the term referred to the use of books in hospitals to calm patients, it is now used to describe a wide range of practices: elementary school teachers using children’s picture books in identity formation, therapists using fiction in personal healing, and palliative caregivers using films to help people explore the fear of death. The term bibliotherapy has been evolving, yet the complexity of the practice has not been fully developed. Practitioners need to hear each others’ definitions of bibliotherapy so that we have a more complete understanding of how this term is being used and can incorporate new elements and concepts.
The theory underpinning such reading and writing is that certain readings, whether poetry, essay or story, when decoded and somatised by the “patient,” can moderate the feelings, opinions and/or the mood of the person transforming words into neural representations in the reader. This is achieved, I hypothesize, (in the absence of widely based scientific research), because the reader interprets the words as information about how the world, as experienced and described by the writer, can be realised in the brain/mind of the reader. The writer’s composition of people, places, relations, politics, etc., must be similar enough to the reader’s to induce him or her to lend their brain to the work of acquisition. At the same time this composition must be different enough to produce a helpful shift in outlook. So it is that writers say they cannot read their own work, until they are changed enough to see it as not identical to their new selves. There must be detachment as well as identification, for judgement, assessment and integration to take place.
The reports of such reading outcomes are countless. Every book club and every call-in show that asks for testimony of help from books produces innumerable stories about reading and healing. Of course these answers are shaped by the framing of the question. But what if we took the “help” and “healing” out of the question? By far the greatest number of readings of novels, poems, essays, self help books and so on take place outside any framework of what we have been calling "bibliotherapy," and outside any clinical setting. Such internalisation of fiction or fact has the potential to play a large and helpful role in the life of the reader. What takes place in a therapeutic context can happen for every reader when provided with the appropriate materials, the care, the guidance, the coaching, the education as to how to read holistically.
Compiled and edited by Dr. Hoi F. Cheu
Based on texts by ABAL members: Dr. Joseph Gold (Family Therapist, Professor Emeratis), Dr. Rober Oxlade (Psychiatrist), Dr. Jeanette Romkema (Educator), and Dr. Stephen Bonnycastle (Literary Theorist)
What is "Bibliotherapy"?
A Short Conceptualization - Stephen Bonnycastle, "Bibliotherapy in action: A reader's developing responses." Textual Studies in Canada 13/14 (The Bibliotherapy Issue, 2004), p.1.
A book enters the life of an individual, a deep relation is formed, and the person changes in some significant way as a result of this engagement. Bibliotherapy deals with how and why this happens, and how this process can be put to use in ways which improve our lives as individuals and as social beings.
A Brief History - Jeanette Romkema, "Principles and Practices of Bibliotherapy: A Workshop," presented to the Association for Bibliotherapy and Applied Literature, Royal Military College, Kingston, ON, June 12th, 2004.
Many therapists, educators, health practitioners, artists and other professionals have been practicing a form of bibliotherapy for centuries. Although the origins of "bibliotherapy" may date back to the nineteenth century, a time when the term referred to the use of books in hospitals to calm patients, it is now used to describe a wide range of practices: elementary school teachers using children’s picture books in identity formation, therapists using fiction in personal healing, and palliative caregivers using films to help people explore the fear of death. The term bibliotherapy has been evolving, yet the complexity of the practice has not been fully developed. Practitioners need to hear each others’ definitions of bibliotherapy so that we have a more complete understanding of how this term is being used and can incorporate new elements and concepts.
More Details of the Concept and Its Application - Joseph Gold, from a course on Bibliotherapy to be taught at Laurentian University (written in 2009).
Biliotherapy has been used to describe the reading of literature, in the first instance, and then, as the term became more inclusive, to the activity of writing poetry, journals and letters, in the effort to help people cope with a variety of painful situations. Whether the problem addressed be physical discomfort or disability, emotional conflict or suffering like loss, divorce, or problems arising from social situations in family, work or community, patients have used reading and writing, along with “the talking cure,” to change and improve how they feel and behave. In the clinical setting, these readings have often been prescribed; often they have been introduced by patients themselves.
The theory underpinning such reading and writing is that certain readings, whether poetry, essay or story, when decoded and somatised by the “patient,” can moderate the feelings, opinions and/or the mood of the person transforming words into neural representations in the reader. This is achieved, I hypothesize, (in the absence of widely based scientific research), because the reader interprets the words as information about how the world, as experienced and described by the writer, can be realised in the brain/mind of the reader. The writer’s composition of people, places, relations, politics, etc., must be similar enough to the reader’s to induce him or her to lend their brain to the work of acquisition. At the same time this composition must be different enough to produce a helpful shift in outlook. So it is that writers say they cannot read their own work, until they are changed enough to see it as not identical to their new selves. There must be detachment as well as identification, for judgement, assessment and integration to take place.
The assumptions underlying the hypothesis are based on continual, commonplace observations that humans make from birth. We see how people react to learning all kinds of information, and we see the results such learning produces in the expressions, language and behaviour of the listener or reader. Information produces changes in the receiver him or herself, whose brain and body, unlike a radio or phone, is not unaltered by the news passing through it. Unlike a machine, the human brain and its extended organism is changed by the meaning of the lexicon decoded by that brain. Unless of course the lexicon is in a language unknown to the reading brain.
In human brains the reader’s biochemistry is altered as aspects of the recipient/reader are emotionally changed in the service of adaptation. The information may be of such a nature that action may need to be taken in the interests of safety or well being. For instance, we are aware of listening carefully to reports about weather warnings, epidemics, air raids, in order to protect ourselves and make our plans. We are much less aware that information within storied texts interweaves with our personal narratives in countless areas involving relationships, behaviour and connections in all aspects of our daily lives. How we can read to achieve this connection to the text, to enhance this rich learning experience, is teachable and learnable. The skill that makes this possible can become a habit of thought and feeling, requiring the permission and active engagement of the reader. The first requirement of such teaching is raising the reader’s awareness of this potential.
The changes that arise from new information that is helpful can alter the central and autonomic nervous system producing increased levels of endorphins, increasing hope and expectations, lessening feelings of isolation and self pity, assisting in planning, future thinking, problem solving, activating imagination and therefore creativity, increasing important knowledge of the world and improving self knowledge by means of reflection upon reading. All and any of these may have the benefit of providing relief from repetitive and compulsive cycles of negative thinking, from despair, and from a feeling of cognitive emotional entrapment. New ways of evaluating our acquired data help us review and revise our relationships to others and our environment.
The reports of such reading outcomes are countless. Every book club and every call-in show that asks for testimony of help from books produces innumerable stories about reading and healing. Of course these answers are shaped by the framing of the question. But what if we took the “help” and “healing” out of the question? By far the greatest number of readings of novels, poems, essays, self help books and so on take place outside any framework of what we have been calling "bibliotherapy," and outside any clinical setting. Such internalisation of fiction or fact has the potential to play a large and helpful role in the life of the reader. What takes place in a therapeutic context can happen for every reader when provided with the appropriate materials, the care, the guidance, the coaching, the education as to how to read holistically.
We arrive on earth equipped with a story template developed over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. I think it is entirely possible to teach a new level of consciousness to readers regarding their own reading process. It will of course be obvious that this idea has a strong biological bias or tone, and the more we learn about our selves as organisms, the more this tone will be evident. There is a growing body of information on human development and the complexity of thinking and feeling in the formation of our personal identities, as well as knowledge of what hinders healthy development.This growing awareness can now be built into the arts and humanities. Holistic reading is the term I am using for an expanded inclusion into general education of bibliotherapy.
Beyond Reading Literature - Robert Oxlade, a note for the ABAL website, 2004
Bibliotherapy refers to the use of literature as an aid to therapy, particularly for people suffering from psychological trauma or mental illness. In general, however, the term signifies a common thread that we can all, in our different ways, contribute to or benefit from, reading and writing to enhance health, growth, healing and well-being. Bibliotherapy has rapidly evolved in scope and sophistication to become an area of interdisciplinary study and practice. It now links professionals from the world of language, literature and arts with educators, psychologists, and clinical therapists from a wide range of professional backgrounds and focus. It has extended from its original book-reading dialogue therapy to include therapeutic uses of writing. The medium also has expanded from print to include audio-visual aspects of narrative through, for example, film and video.
Some Research Directions - Hoi F. Cheu
Recent achievements in our understanding of neuroplasticity and the ecology of the mind have brought new insights into the concept of bibliotherapy. What Norman Doidge calls "The Culturally Modified Brain" has dissolved a century old nature vs. nurture discourse: "Not only does the brain shape culture, culture shapes the brain (The Brain that Changes Itself, Penguin, 2007, p. 287). We now have scientific observations to demonstrate that cultural activities can change brain structures. This knowledge has significant implications to the study of literature. After decades of cultural construction theories, we can now reunite with the scientists to investigate a biological approach to literature without going against what we know experientially - literature, or complex storytelling in any form, is natural and beneficial to "the symbolic species," as the medical anthropologist Terrance Deacon refers to human beings.
But still we know little about the actual interrelations between storytelling and brain structure. There is much room for new discovery and breakthrough in brain science and medicine. From a "humanities" perspective, the awareness may also imply a necessary enquiry into the application of literature beyond cultural, psychoanalytic, and political criticism. It is time to study more closely how to engage the brain and the process of "literature." We can no longer consider literature to be a form of high art; instead, it is time for literary scholars to look more closely into how the personal and the political, as well as the biological and the technological, aspects of "stories" rewire the brain and rewrite life. And, in turn, how the brain can restructure our cultural landscape through inventing metaphors, articulating feelings, extending connections, and turning neuro-impulses into personal and social transformations. In light of bibliotherapy, literary education is about engaging the process of "literature" as a basic survival resource. By literature, bibliotherapy refers to the storytelling process: a human activity that learns and uses symbolic language to make connections, to make sense, and consequently to create identities and self-consciousness. Literature is an adaptive human behaviour for responding to and coping with change. To conduct a full scale of investigation of literature's benefits and learn how to engage bibliotherapy more effectively, we need a new round of trans-disciplinary conversations among arts and sciences.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
editing T.S. Eliot (poetry therapy)
There will be time to digress,
In the afternoon, the evening,
Malingering moment to moment
Crisis to crisis,
Disturbing universes.
I have wept; I have fasted:
I have wasted time; by time am wasted.
Growing old, growing old:
Singing mermaid songs.
How to begin? Why presume?
Women in Michelangelo's room,
Framed and painted canvas on the wall,
Has it been worthwhile, after all.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Joanna Russ's On Strike Against God 1980
"I've lost my awe of the library completely: this vast, defunct megalith over which we little mammals wander, nipping and chewing bits of its skin." p.91
And yet, I wouldn't have been able to read this out-of-print book without interlibrary loan. I appreciate the metaphor by Russ, but I would have to say my awe of libraries remains unblemished.
And yet, I wouldn't have been able to read this out-of-print book without interlibrary loan. I appreciate the metaphor by Russ, but I would have to say my awe of libraries remains unblemished.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Narcissism and ambition
"Narcissistic adults are widely thought to be the result of bitter disappointment, of radical disillusionment in the significant others in their infancy. Healthy adults accept their self-limitations (the boundaries and limitations of their selves). They accept disappointments, setbacks, failures, criticism and disillusionment with grace and tolerance. Their self-esteem is constant and positive, not substantially affected by outside events, no matter how severe."
- Perspectives - Vol. 6, No. 1 - A Primer on Narcissism - Page 1 of 3 (view on Google Sidewiki)
Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger
With Rebecca's Mandalay ambience and Jane Eyre's psychological complexes, Waters' newest novel is good for being derivative. Not as compelling as her trilogy Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith but readable. The jacket describes it as "thrilling" but that stretches it more than a little. Rather than read her, I would recommend the film versions of her trilogy. Very hot.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Reader Types in one Reader Response Theory
Six different types of reader (Associative, Investigative, Speculative, Affective, Cognitive and Passive) were apparent from my data, and it appears that an optimal match or fit occurs between specific readers and certain texts. Certain readers were compatible with some texts and not others. The types of reader or identity style indicate the satisfactions a reader may seek from the reading event. In my longitudinal study the readers operated predominantly on one of the six styles consistently. Certain combinations of text and reader exhibited a ‘best-fit’. Where such compatibility exists, the reader is enriched by the encounter and the text is no longer the same text as it was when created by the author; it becomes infused with the life and experience of the reader. Both reader and text change in the process.
The Associative Reader: This reader enjoys a text if it is relevant to their own experience. This reader sees her task being the connection of their past experience with that of the poem. In journal entries of the associative reader the text seems to function prolifically as a ‘stimulus’, the text reminding them of one experience after another. Personal memories are evoked by the text. If the text has a message to communicate which the reader feels to be relevant to the reader’s life, a positive reaction is likely. This reader who associates a text with her own experience rarely finds comprehension a problem. This reader rarely comments on style in initial encounters with the text, because meaning is seen to be of prime importance. In some
respects this reader is similar to the cognitive reader, but an important difference is that the cognitive reader often focuses on social rather than personal significance in the text.
The Investigative Reader: This reader is similar to the speculative reader but differs in certain important respects. Like all good detectives the investigative reader likes to find a solution. This reader generates a number of tentative hypotheses about the meaning of a text, but this reader is not as relaxed as the speculative reader, as he wants to find a solution and bring the text to definite closure. The investigative reader often believes in the existence of one fine, fixed and definite interpretation. Nailing down the author’s views and message is often important. The investigative reader desires coherence in a text and attempts to fit the different parts of the text into a unifying whole. If some parts of the text cannot be reconciled with others, the reading experience becomes less enjoyable and can be frustrating. The investigative reader needs a sufficient degree of indeterminacy (to use Iser’s term) to be fulfilled. A negative reaction arises from too much indeterminacy, where a text ‘can mean anything’ (like ‘The Sick Rose’ by William Blake), or too little indeterminacy, where a single correct meaning is obvious.
The Speculative Reader: The speculative reader is able to adopt a detached viewpoint and set up a range of propositions or hypotheses which can be quickly and easily disregarded in favour of more plausible interpretations. This reader is philosophical and has an outlook that is characterized by more depth than most of the others – she thinks deeply about things. She easily engages in metacognition and rather introspective reflections about her own reflections. The speculative reader enjoys ambiguity and may enjoy obscure and impenetrable works. This reader tolerates confusion, ambiguity and incomprehension. The speculative reader is ‘laid back’ and is unperturbed by texts which do not easily yield up their meanings. The text’s resistance to closure simply increases this reader’s pleasure, and simple or straightforward literary texts are disliked. This reader dislikes texts that are too didactic or simplistic. The speculative reader focuses on meaning rather than form or literary techniques. This reader enjoys profound works that provoke her to consider the nature of the human condition. The focus in journal entries is on blueprint, not stimulus. Only after a text has been interpreted to some degree does this reader make connections between their own life experience and the text.
The Affective Reader: The affective reader judges a poem predominantly on its affective impact. Both in life and in reading this reader focuses on emotions. Feelings and moods are often referred to in journal entries. Any mood is better than no mood at all for this reader. This should not be confused with a text that is about an emotional experience – rather the experience, mood or feeling needs to be generated in this reader for the text to be appreciated. The affective reader believes that a text has been created as a result of an emotional experience on the part of the poet and feels that it should be apprehended through feeling. Understanding the meaning of a text seems to be important as it is a prerequisite for a mood to be evoked. Theme and subject are more important than form, and, as with the speculative reader, texts of profound significance to the human experience are appreciated especially if they make the reader ‘feel’.
The Cognitive Reader: This reader is more detached and less emotionally involved than the affective reader. More than the associative reader this reader enjoys the cognitive challenge of active reading and appreciates texts which require some effort to understand, revelling in the process of constructing meaning rather like the speculative or investigative reader. Like them, this reader tends to focus on content and meaning. The cognitive reader enjoys thinking and takes pride in the ability to use logic, imagination and lateral thinking. The desire for intellectual stimulation results in obvious and immediate poems being disliked. The cognitive reader may be more socially aware than the associative reader, and works are appreciated if they inform issues which have social relevance. A thoughtful, analytical reaction rather than an emotional response tends to be produced. The cognitive reader enjoys the mental process of interpreting poems but appreciates it if the message of the poem has social significance.
The Passive Reader: This reader fails to engage in the active construction of meaning, has a negative attitude to literary reading, and cannot tolerate ambiguity – prefers prose and non-fiction.
Acknowledgement:
The above is from an online version of a lecture
by Mark A. Pike, Ph.D
For anyone following this blog: Ultimately my interpretation of bibliotherapy is that it's what happens when you apply reader-response criticism to any work of fiction/non-fiction, regardless of media or age group. Below are some ideas related to teaching and related applications of bibliotherapy.
Reader-response
Enhancing Response to Literature through Character Analysis. Argues that traditional textbook approaches to teaching literature alienate students from literature. Describes effective alternatives in which students learn interpretive strategies as they analyze and discuss their own important values in life, and then those of characters in a story; and learn to deal with irony. Outlines writing activities that reinforce interpretive strategies and analytical skills students have developed. Proposes that instruction targeted at conceptual change should be designed to consider cognitive development and capitalize on what is known about social development. Discusses: (1) asking students to "step into" and explore the world of the text; and (2) helping students "step out" of the world of the text to consider it analytically. Includes providing opportunities to (1) improvise, (2) examine specific speeches in depth, and (3) speed write about a character's thoughts. ctively in class for reader response. On Day 1, after students read the novel, the instructor re-read selected passages aloud and asked students to record their responses; on Day 2 students met in small groups, shared their writing, and selected two common images to use as a book cover; on Day 3 students sketched their covers on the board and discussed why they chose these particular images and what they signified. Each group discussed their cover and identified connections between their images and what they perceived as messages in the text. This exercise shows students that they can begin to analyze and interpret a literary work independent of the teacher or commentaries by a literary critic. Suggests that where children are given the power to make meaning for themselves, they are more likely to learn to read critically than those who are not. Connecting to Story through the Arts. Provides examples of arts infused literary studies, with each example using art experiences (expressive writing, creative movement, visual arts, exploratory music, and informal drama) to relate to the literature text. Notes that the learning outcome is to involve readers in exploring the meaning of the story as it relates to their own life experiences. Notes that literature responses nurture the transactions between readers and meaningful texts. Noting that children must be provided with the opportunity to read various types of text as early as possible if they are to develop into strategic and self-directed readers, this paper presents research evidence to show that every text type makes unique demands on readers. Story mapping. Learning comes from reading and sharing reading. We learn by "overhearing" our own and others' meaning-making processes.
Reader-response
Enhancing Response to Literature through Character Analysis. Argues that traditional textbook approaches to teaching literature alienate students from literature. Describes effective alternatives in which students learn interpretive strategies as they analyze and discuss their own important values in life, and then those of characters in a story; and learn to deal with irony. Outlines writing activities that reinforce interpretive strategies and analytical skills students have developed. Proposes that instruction targeted at conceptual change should be designed to consider cognitive development and capitalize on what is known about social development. Discusses: (1) asking students to "step into" and explore the world of the text; and (2) helping students "step out" of the world of the text to consider it analytically. Includes providing opportunities to (1) improvise, (2) examine specific speeches in depth, and (3) speed write about a character's thoughts. ctively in class for reader response. On Day 1, after students read the novel, the instructor re-read selected passages aloud and asked students to record their responses; on Day 2 students met in small groups, shared their writing, and selected two common images to use as a book cover; on Day 3 students sketched their covers on the board and discussed why they chose these particular images and what they signified. Each group discussed their cover and identified connections between their images and what they perceived as messages in the text. This exercise shows students that they can begin to analyze and interpret a literary work independent of the teacher or commentaries by a literary critic. Suggests that where children are given the power to make meaning for themselves, they are more likely to learn to read critically than those who are not. Connecting to Story through the Arts. Provides examples of arts infused literary studies, with each example using art experiences (expressive writing, creative movement, visual arts, exploratory music, and informal drama) to relate to the literature text. Notes that the learning outcome is to involve readers in exploring the meaning of the story as it relates to their own life experiences. Notes that literature responses nurture the transactions between readers and meaningful texts. Noting that children must be provided with the opportunity to read various types of text as early as possible if they are to develop into strategic and self-directed readers, this paper presents research evidence to show that every text type makes unique demands on readers. Story mapping. Learning comes from reading and sharing reading. We learn by "overhearing" our own and others' meaning-making processes.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Write Or Die : Dr Wicked's Writing Lab
Using a timer the following took about 15 minutes to Write Or Die : Dr Wicked's Writing Lab
Octavia Butler's Fledgling is not bad. Always looking for new vampire renditions. I like that the vampire is a little girl, who is older than she appears and sexually active. I think this speaks to something we all know intuitively to be true. Little girls have an innate awareness of themselves as sexual beings long before boys and become aware of their power at an early age. Butler makes the simple but often ignored truths core elements of her narrative. Simple facts, no moral or ethical judgment, just the way things are in this alternate world of creatures who feed and form symbiotic relations with their food.
Lots of excitement. Thriller plot line. Could be more earthy. Something sensual in the feeding experience is suggested, but misses the mark. Analogy to wine might bring in a lexicon for why one blood tastes better than another. If it's just a question of chemistry and palate, why? Genetics are mentioned but not in way that brings anything new to the reader, more as a teaser. Our protagonist is an genetic experiment. Use a bit of the lingo, make me believe it's possible. So much of the premise is just background.
Still, readable for undemanding fans of the genre.
Octavia Butler's Fledgling is not bad. Always looking for new vampire renditions. I like that the vampire is a little girl, who is older than she appears and sexually active. I think this speaks to something we all know intuitively to be true. Little girls have an innate awareness of themselves as sexual beings long before boys and become aware of their power at an early age. Butler makes the simple but often ignored truths core elements of her narrative. Simple facts, no moral or ethical judgment, just the way things are in this alternate world of creatures who feed and form symbiotic relations with their food.
Lots of excitement. Thriller plot line. Could be more earthy. Something sensual in the feeding experience is suggested, but misses the mark. Analogy to wine might bring in a lexicon for why one blood tastes better than another. If it's just a question of chemistry and palate, why? Genetics are mentioned but not in way that brings anything new to the reader, more as a teaser. Our protagonist is an genetic experiment. Use a bit of the lingo, make me believe it's possible. So much of the premise is just background.
Still, readable for undemanding fans of the genre.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman
This is a YA novel by theme, but also a fun read for any adult who has ever walked on the weird side. Portman includes lots of legitimate information and resources on magical traditions both pre and post Crowley. Tarot archetypes give shape to the narrative and even define characters. I'm looking forward to seeing Portman tackle something targeting adults using the same ideas. How about a series watching Adromeda Klein grow up, sail through college and become a librarian. Maybe she could even correspond magically with the great akashic librarian in the aether. Just saying...Adromeda could be our answer to the death of Potter.
Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez
Interesting approach to the vampire tradition, combing feminist themes with settings ranging from the Deep South to the Wild West and all the excitement of untold historical possibilities, were it "her"story, rather than "his."
R. Scott Bakker 's Neuropath
"...precious little distinguished the neurochemical profile of love from that of obsessive-compulsive disorder."
"Everything you live, everything you see and touch and hear and taste, everything you think, belongs to this little slice of mush, this little wedge in your brain called the thalamocortical system. The neural processing that makes these experiences possible__we're talking about the most complicated machinery in the known universe __is uttterly invisible. This expansive, far-reaching experience of yours is nothing more than a mote, an inexplicable glow, hurtling through some impossible black. You're steering through a dream..."
"Consciousness is an end-user... Out of all the information our brains crunch every second, only a tiny sliver makes it conscious experience--less than a millionth, by some estimates."
Aren't you just loving the novel of consciousness trend and the proximity it underlines between real and surreal?
"Everything you live, everything you see and touch and hear and taste, everything you think, belongs to this little slice of mush, this little wedge in your brain called the thalamocortical system. The neural processing that makes these experiences possible__we're talking about the most complicated machinery in the known universe __is uttterly invisible. This expansive, far-reaching experience of yours is nothing more than a mote, an inexplicable glow, hurtling through some impossible black. You're steering through a dream..."
"Consciousness is an end-user... Out of all the information our brains crunch every second, only a tiny sliver makes it conscious experience--less than a millionth, by some estimates."
Aren't you just loving the novel of consciousness trend and the proximity it underlines between real and surreal?
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