Fare Well: A Letter to the Class of 2016

AP Lit, AP1, AP2

Dear Seniors,

If I knew at high school graduation what I know now, it wouldn’t matter. I don’t know if this will resonate beyond one reading, or if it will resonate at all, but after eight years of farewells to seniors, this year I feel compelled to write, to send you off with some advice. Maybe this is just some cosmic timing in my life; maybe it’s being a parent; maybe it’s both or neither. And while I don’t know very much more now, at 35, than I did when I was 18, I still feel compelled to speak up. So, here’s my one rule for a good life.

  1. Life is long. While that might sound like the antithesis of The Motto (YOLO), it is in the same vein: your life is statistically going to be longer than most others in human history. This is a huge responsibility. Life is long means you have time to make mistakes, so permit yourself freedom to fail. Life is long also means that the daily work of not being caught up in nonsense, of seeing the big picture and aiming always towards happiness or contentment or peace is going to be something you continually work at. For me, that has been the hardest part of living: knowing that every day is one of thousands I will experience and still not thinking of each day, each moment, as special. A quick note on Moments, by the way: there are moments, like graduation, that are orchestrated. A lot of people go through a lot of trouble to make a graduation happen, and I’m not only talking about day-of logistics, but also the extensive list of people and their lives that have been bent towards getting you to this point, by which I mean bus drivers and custodians and vending machine suppliers and transportation repairmen and light rail engineers, plus of course parents, siblings, friends and the whole of human history whose backs upon which we all sit today (especially if you are reading this on a “smart” device). There are going to be other moments in your life that don’t seem to matter. There will be the blackout rides to work, where you put on your seat-belt and your sunglasses and then, without seeming to know how it happened, you are undoing that seat-belt and stepping into a parking lot without entirely being sure of how you got there. This can happen in college, too. It’s called complacency. For some of us, complacency is the goal. I became a teacher because it was the steadiest work I could think of: you literally can’t get fired without doing something terrible. The problem with steady is that it can get boring. And, yes, I’m telling you that I’ve been bored at my job. This is probably a shock to those of you who still believe your teachers only exist in the schools, that we like elves who live only in the rooms where you see us daily. I’m sorry: we go home, sometimes. We go home and we vent about you on the bad days. But, to the point: we also go home and say nothing on most days. On these ordinary days, when everything went according to plan, we don’t talk about our day. And that’s the inevitable conflict: we want things to go according to plan, so much so that some of us get addicted to planning. College is wonderfully predictable: professors usually show up. Parties usually happen. People are usually decent and friendly and bonds can happen seemingly spontaneously and you’ll instinctively cultivate that bond for years. Then graduation (Moment) and then First Job (Moment-ish) and then what? I’m not saying that life after college is boring. I’m saying that it’s no more boring than what you’ve already faced. Especially at a school like ours, you know that kind of stressful boredom, where there seem to be one million things happening and yet you feel like nothing ever happens. Maybe that’s just a millenial thing, maybe it’s more universal. Either way: if that kind of stress-boredom got to you in high school, it’s going to get to you in college and again as an adult. And, like I said, life is long. And I hope that scares you a lot right now, because it should. Because you shouldn’t accept perpetual stress, nor should you accept perpetual boredom. Real happiness, the cliche goes, comes from within. That means your inner life has to be rich and has to be acted upon the world around you.  It means you have to exert your will on the world as you, individually, experience it. That doesn’t mean be a bully or bullish. It means be at peace and be a force for peace. Less abstractly, that means your life is going to be filled with millions of moments that you can either sleep through, like your commute to work, or that you can absolutely be invested in, like this moment now. The beauty of the Orchestrated Moments is that they remind us that life beyond them is a series of chaotic, random moments. And, of course, these big moments also suffer from the dullness of reality: it is very likely that your big-hearted imaginings as a freshmen had this moment filled with RomCom music and sentiments and yet, here you are, itching under your robes. We are the ones who sculpt our experiences into stories and then meanings about life when we need them. The more we are blind, the less meaning our lives will seem to have. So, stay awake. Seek the moment, however subtle. Seek change, however far off or beyond your control that change might seem. Don’t let beauty go unremarked upon, don’t allow fools to gain power, and don’t ever ever ever forget that good is Good and Good is Big and you want to be Big. Be the Biggest you can for as long as you can. And that’ll be enough.

All my love,

MD

[amlit] Presentation Assignment

American Literature, AMLIT1, AMLIT2, AMLIT3, Uncategorized

Your presentation is a verbal and visual narrative of your process letter. This means your presentation should touch on all of the main sections of your letter (Decisions, Inspiration, Process, and Truth & Consequences) as well as incorporating images of your project. If your project resulted in something performative (a song, a skit, a film, a video game, etc.) then you are required to perform—or, at the very least, show us a previously performed version of–your project. If your project is more static (like an art piece, poetry, an essay, etc), then you are required to share important aspects of your final product and guide us to comprehend the meaning. This means, for art, you will show the piece and explain; for poetry or essays, you are expected to read aloud from your work. Presentations should last for at least three minutes and no more than seven.

[amlit] Brief, Urgent Messages: Telegram Assignment

American Literature, AMLIT1, AMLIT2, AMLIT3

To begin this short project, we will be looking at chapter 5 of Slaughterhouse-Five as a Tralfamadorian novel–or, a novel that is composed of “brief, urgent messages,” or, as Billy Pilgrim calls them, “telegrams.”

To do this, you will each look carefully at one “telegram,” which has been assigned in class (assignments are reproduced below, just in case you’ve forgotten). Your job will be to contemplate that “telegram” as both a Tralfamadorian and as an Earthling. As a Tralfamadorian, you should look for the “brief, urgent message” communicated in the “telegram.”  As an Earthling, they should contemplate how the discrete “telegram” contributes to a larger picture that is “beautiful and surprising and deep.” You will then report back to the class on the Tralfamadorian and Earthling message of your assigned telegram during our next class session.

To help ensure your success, I’ve re-posted an image that outlines the close-reading process (which I’ve termed Deciphering the Message). Review the image below, and use that process to guide your understandings before beginning your contemplation.

DecipheringTheMessage\

Telegram/Section (pg#) Student
AMLIT1 AMLIT 2 AMLIT 3
Moments after…his pants (88-89) Mike Shah, Haseeb Valeria
“There were other…So it goes.” (89) Danny Yousef Fatima
And Billy…radium dial. (90) Eduardo Ishan Tamana
Billy went…They laughed and laughed. (90) Kevin Memphis Kanishka
And the Germans…So it goes. (90-91) Mateusz Lisette Himani
As the Americans…’Vy anybody? he said. (91) Brian Katrina Jeff
When Billy Pilgrim’s name…So it goes. (91) Sebastian Sonya Arryl
Billy was told…So it goes. (92) Ian Mansukh Cris
Properly enrolled and tagged…the Pirates of Penzance. (92-93) Daniella Kristopher Martina
These lusty ruddy vocalists…the British compound itself. (93) Kirsten Mary Aya
The Englishmen…flattened tin cans. (94) Angelique Krysta Geraldine
They were adored…Billy Pilgrim wondered dimly who Jerry was. (94-95) Debora Ina Juan
Now he was indoors…So it goes. (95-96) Sofia Aimee Andy
The banquet hall…Cinderella, the most popular story ever told. (96) Ryan Madeline Julian
Billy Pilgrim was on fire…to tell her he was alive and well. (96-97) Mohamed Charles Eric
There was a silence…my luck. (97-98) Abdulrafay Dmitry Kush
Billy found…patients in there. (98) Rachel Christopher Russel
Billy was put to bed…entered a morphine paradise. (98-99) Kelsey Raj Moustafa
Under morphine…Why? (99) Taha Sharan
Night came…the end of war. (99) Prutha Valentina
Billy uncovered his head…Science fiction was a big help. (100-101) Zaynah Daisy
Rosewater…Rosewater. (101) Zoe
Another time…go on living.'(101) Genesis
There was a still life…Billy didn’t really like life at all. (101-102) Alex