Things I’ve Come to Understand Because of 4/16
- I love my brother-in-law as much as my brother. I’m sure I have for a long time, but I didn’t realize it consciously till 4/16.
- Feeling secure isn’t about locking all the doors. It’s about feeling I don’t have to and I’ll still be okay.
- I know what it’s like to have an asthma attack now, and I know that there are two Virginia state police officers who are the nicest men in the world. Thank you for taking care of me when I broke down with that asthma attack.
- I have learned that a poet’s words can give a community a path out of their sadness. I had no idea a poem could ever be adopted so thoroughly. Literature is a powerful thing.
- I found that I have compassion for a mass murderer. What he did was horrible, but I’m glad the Va Tech community found a place for a Hokie Stone for him in the memorial.
- I understand what it was like to want a gun. For a day, I wanted a gun, and I wanted to know how to shoot it to defend myself. [You’re all safe; the feeling passed.]
- I still feel safe on campus. At 1:30 AM Friday, I was walking around by myself. I have not let someone take that away.
- There are times when knowing that everyone in my family is physically safe isn’t enough.
- I know which people in this vast world really care about me. They IMed or emailed on 4/16 to check on me. One of them even showed up outside my office building to give me a hug on the 17th. Some of them are still checking on me. Some people still haven’t said a word. The categories of who does and doesn’t care about me have become very transparent. [edit: This was misread as indicating that I have/had a list of names. I don’t/didn’t. 5/15/07]
- That I’ll never understand and I desperately want to know why.
Coping in a Time of Tragedy
Literature can provide powerful support for us in times of trauma and sadness. In the Teaching English in the Two-Year College article “Literature of Survival: A Literature Class as a Place for Healing,” Kate Dailey explains how literature can provide models and guides for readers searching for ways to make sense of traumatic experiences. When Nikki Giovanni was asked to speak at the Convocation at Virginia Tech (audio of poem , transcript of poem , convocation video) a week ago, she could never have predicted the way that her poetry would prove a healing salve for the community.
Overnight, words from Giovanni’s poem appeared on handwritten posters, on professionally-made banners, on tshirts, on full-page newspaper tributes, and on car windows. When I visited the Virginia Tech Department of English yesterday, a colleague confessed that Giovanni was amazed by the way the poem has been adopted by the community. As an English teacher, I too am amazed. It’s rare to see a poet’s words splashed across an entire community, but Giovanni’s reading at the Convocation has become the rallying moment for students, faculty, staff, alumni, related families, and the greater community. When Giovanni said, “We will prevail,” we all believed her.
Dailey’s Teaching English in the Two-Year College article emphasizes why literature can have such a powerful effect: it provides a model for healing, guiding readers through the process of remembrance, mourning, and reconnection. English teachers know that literature touches lives. In this last week, we’ve gained powerful evidence of just how deeply literature can touch us all.
This entry was originally posted on the NCTE Inbox blog on April 24, 2007.
In Memory
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Normally all these ribbons seem silly and pretentious to me. Today, this is the best I can do. I don’t have words for it. |
Reading My E-mail While Chris Writes His Blog
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Chris.tv got a little boring. Okay, sure the writing teacher in me was entertained for a while by watching him compose his blog entry on the mashups from Thursday night. Once I saw that his composing process was fairly normal however, I wandered off to do other things. This is the result.
Again, even though Bwana disagrees, I must emphasize that using iMovie does not involve sacrificing kittens.
Soundtrack: |
Pink Camo Purse
OMG!!! Gaze upon the beautiful present that I am saving up to buy for Dr. B to carry to her knitwit jamboree. It is going to match her shirt PERFECTLY!!!