I’m working on a new book now. A comedy for YA readers. (Nope, not gonna tell… yet. Everything stays in the lab until it’s ready to be tasted.) So much of the stuff I have written has been “raw, deep, edgy YA grit” that I am dying to flex some other writing muscles and show I am not a one trick pony.

Thematically, I’ve done gangs, immigrants, racism, sports, and on and on.

So I thought to myself, time for erections. (Oops, I just threw open the lab door. Oh well. Teenagers… you gotta be relevant, right?)

Anyway, as I work on this new book, I realize that I still need all the same elements as I do when I write one of my more, “go to the edge” teen books.

*The protagonist has got to be someone about whom I care deeply. (Cause if I don’t care about them, the reader sure won’t.)

*The problem has to be HUGE to them. (Though his erection isn’t… okay, I’ve said enough.)

*They need to have both an overt want and an inner need. And often these two things are diametric opposites of one another. (For example, the overt want of Jerry Maguire is to be the big dog, king fish, take no prisoners agent that represents all the top American athletes so he can live the life of a superstar. His inner need, however, is to become a humble, kind, thoughtful, caring, responsible adult who can show love, commitment and kindness in a dedicated relationship. He wants the vapid limelight. He needs good ol’ fashioned salt-o-the-earth love. Good character, right? And they do battle with one another right in front of our eyes. Tom Cruise plays this type really, really well. Think about Rain Man.)

*Gotta have a rockin’ antagonist. (Blogged about that the other day.)

*Conflict has to grow. Conflict has to rise. Conflict has to saturate every page. CONFLICT HAS TO BE THE DRIVING FORCE OF THE NOVEL. Whether or not it’s a story about conquering the forces of evil or hiding the forces of nature in your pants, CONFLICT drives stories. It’s an inviolable rule of good storytelling and makes me think of something I once heard Steven Spielberg say: figure out what the worst thing possible that can happen to your character is… and then have that thing happen. Then, how they respond will reveal who they really are. (And you thought he was just amusement park rides on the cinematic journey… the guy knows his stuff.)

Of course, there’s much more. Dialogue, voice, tone, setting, subplots, relationships, motivation, background, deus ex machina (avoiding it) and showing, not telling (incorporating it). The toolbox required has many levels and no matter how many books one has written, all of these elements still require attention anew once you crack open the new document on your computer and begin to concoct new tales.

So what makes comedy different for me now? Not much, in my opinion. Not much at all. Other than me recognizing that if I “try” to be funny, it’s a recipe for disaster. You just gotta let the humor come from where it does while staying true to all the requirements of good storytelling. Telling a joke and writing a book are not the same thing. Matter of fact, writing a joke, fah-gett-abow-it! I have no idea how those folks do it. I read 3-5 line funny jokes and am amazed. Joke writing is an art unto itself. For example:

LITTLE RALPHY ON MATH

Little RALPHY returns from school and says he got an F in arithmetic.

‘That’s what I said!’

So clever, right?

At the end of the day, comedy, it’s been said, is tragedy where no one really gets hurt. Wile E. Coyote take about 200 anvils to the head in all those Road Runner cartoons. The Three Stooges pop one another in the eye, head, gut and so on. In Meet the Fockers, Ben Stiller gets absolutely traumatized by his father-in-law to be. And we laugh.

And considering how somber and serious and sober so much of our life can be, it’s really important to turn on the smiles now and then, no? At least that’s how I am measuring the quality of this book: how much fun did I have writing it? (Cause if I am not laughing and loving the writing of this book… who in the world is gonna want to read it? In many ways, authors are always their own first audience.)

And boys who pop woodies in math class — much to their own horror and lack of control — they are audience number 2.

Kind of a big potential crowd though, no?

As Jim Burke has mentioned – quite brilliantly – writers today (and of the future) will require compositional skills in formats that consist of 3,000 words, 300 words, 30 words, 3 words and no words. (I am paraphrasing here; he’s much more eloquent.) The point is, that literacy is increasingly more diverse than ever and the challenges we face preparing our kids to successfully tackle the demands behind placed upon them are both dynamic and shape shifting.

However, when you look at the word counts above, I get the vibe that many forward thinking people (outside of persnickety teachers… like yours truly) are ready to throw the 3,000 word composition under the bus. They call it antiquated. Outmoded. Academic. 21rst century skill conversations revolve around “digital this” and “socially networked that” but rarely, if ever, pay homage to the value of the good ol’ fashioned long, thoughtful, richly textured essay.

Well, check this story out. If that ain’t proof that the ol’ bugger still ain’t got some life in it, nothing is.

Sorry, but I can’t recall yet seeing a story on how a tweet resulted in such an outpouring of generosity and goodness. I could be wrong, but having only 140 characters may be fun if you want to smarmily talk about the texture of your morning waffle. Yet, if you want to reach the movers and shakers of this world, as the 11 year old girl above proves, you are gonna need some chops with the written word.

Otherwise, all your gonna have is lightweight junk food for your intellectual meal. And man cannot live by smarmy waffle alone.

I’ve read scores and scores of books on the art and science of teaching. Many of the big names, lots of small ones, folks who have had some genuinely brilliant stuff to say and others who struck me as flat out nincompoops. But I think that one of the most important things I have taken away from all my “studies” is something about which everyone in our profession needs to be frequently reminded.

We flub. We mess up. We make mistakes… on almost a daily basis.

Sure, there are days when their is magic at the whiteboard, as if our dry erase markers were an alchemist’s wand turning neurological water into cranial fine wine. But most days, balls are dropped. Opportunities come up but they are not seized. Something exceptional is planned and it falls flat on its face. I come off as salty when in fact I am in a great mood but merely pressed for time. Yes, I always want to be attuned to the individual needs of all my kids –especially the ones that merely need a friendly, encouraging voice that day — but when I am in the midst of navigating 186 other kids over the course of 7 hours and the fire alarm has just been pulled for the fourth time in a row during third period by a buncha comedians in the halls, I sometimes miss the cues.

I aim to do great and then I find myself just barely hanging on. The last bell of the day rings and I realize that I did not get done nearly the amount of things I needed to do in order for tomorrow to function the way it ought to. Friday hits and I realize that I really need to work both Saturday and Sunday in order to make sure Monday is gonna work the way it needs to — and in the ways my kids deserve it to.

But I’ve got plans with the family, errands long left undone, a stack of paperwork from my own life to navigate (like the very pedestrian necessity of paying bills) and my pillow is taunting me with the idea of actually getting more than 5 1/2 hours of sleep every night.

And do I manage it all in some sort of suave, filled-with-European panache fashion? Hell no. I stumble forward, bang my foot into the dresser and screw up.

I bumble and stumble forward. And this is after 10 years at Lynwood High and even longer than that in the profession.

Yet, the difference now is that I understand this about teaching. I get that this is the nature of our career beast. Early in my career I used to get down on myself, really beat the crap out of myself. Think to myself, “Ya know, you really stink at this — and you are working at almost maximum life capacity to be this bad. It’s hard, I am no good, and the kids deserve better. Shouldn’t you pack up and go find a cubicle somewhere that offers bathroom breaks any time you need to pee?”

However, with experience, that negative-loop tape recording no longer plays in my head. Why? Because I’ve come to realize no one ever masters the art of teaching. No one is immune to falling short, fouling up, getting caught in a situation for which you were completely unprepared and acting in ways that, “Oh, if I could only turn back the clock 45 minutes and get a do-over, the world would be so much better.”

It just doesn’t happen.

And so here I am, so frequently with my tail between my legs. But if I set my intention to do as well as I can do, continue to try and improve my craft, make sure that I learn from my mistakes and remain optimistic about the future, I think I am gonna be alright.

And if I can remain alright, I do believe I have something of great value to offer my kids. Even if sometimes I am going to trip and fall and bang my head on a desk in front of a room full of teenagers who are gonna make no bones about laughing at me and telling all their friends at lunch what a dork Mr. Alan is.

Cause at the end of the day, this is a job that can only be highlighted in a “And warts and all” type of fashion. There is just no way to ever avoid the, as Homer Simpson would say, “D’Oh!” of being a teacher.

Had an exceptionally interesting conversation today with my literary agent about the need for an interesting villain in fiction. He spoke quite eloquently about the idea that the strength of a hero is really predicated on the force of opposition that your hero must face. After all, a weak villain doesn’t require any great, spectacular heroism to conquer — and this a problem with a large majority of the slush pile fiction he sees almost on a daily basis.

And to walk into his office and see all the manuscripts, all the aspiring writers, all the folks who are hoping to pen their way into the canon of our literary imaginations, well… let’s just say it’s remarkable how many books every year people were only hoping to publish… forget all the legions of books which are being published.

Obviously, as a writer, I know this. And I work at this. The better the bad guy, the better the hero must be… and therefore the better the book should be (theoretically) because, as Aristotle, Egri, McKee, Vogler, Campbell, and so on talk about — audiences crave heroic triumph… and if the odds aren’t bleak and the forces aligned against your protagonist aren’t insurmountable and phew, how in the heck will they ever be able to handle THAT curveball solid… then people have better things to do with their time. They will lose interest, tune out and walk away.

Now of course, I’ve read all the heavies… but our students most often have not. And a cool thing I like to do — especially when it comes to really engaging reluctant readers — is to celebrate the bad guy. To view the villain through the prism of admiration. Change perspectives and celebrate the devious for their unabashed lust. Good guys, we see them all the time. How about examining a complicated villain?

Lady Macbeth is a gimme for almost all ELA teachers. Inevitably, it’s where all discussions of Macbeth go. And it’s because she’s a great villain, a heck of character with a lot to be admired if ambition and power hungry manipulation is your thing. And as heartless folks go, Bill Sikes from Oliver Twist certainly shows an admirable coldness that deserves some celebration for just how ruthless he can be. Iago is one of my favorite characters in all of literature and come on, Dr. Jeckyll ain’t got nothing if he don’t have Mr. Hyde.

There are all kinds of good ways to get into books with your students. How about a little love for the bad guys? If the Socs aren’t such jerks, the Greasers aren’t so admirable. If Andy “It” Evans, isn’t such a date-raping senior dirtbag preying on susceptible freshman, then Speak doesn’t creep you out nearly as much. If white people weren’t so psychotic, Roots isn’t so gripping.

When it comes to stories, antagonists make the piece. And the badder, the better.

Yet, to be truly bad, you must have some good. Something admirable. Something that doesn’t allow us to put you in a convenient mental box of “it’s all black and white and they are the black”. Seeing the white, that’s what makes us twist. Villains who are black and white are boring. But interesting villains, they’ll keep us up late at nights, turning page after page wondering, what is this person going to do next?

Think about Satan… Jesus doesn’t resonate nearly as much without him.

If your students are going to branch into fiction, the cardinal rule is, “Show some love to the bad guy… they are the reason why heroes are forced to shine.”

I am immensely proud of this picture. The people you see include 1) Jacqueline Woodson, an author who has won the Caldecott Medal, the Coretta Scott King Award, the Newberry Honor Medal, and the Margaret A. Edwards Award for Lifetime Achievement as given by the American Library Association 2) Ann Martin, President of the American Association of School Librarians 3) me, and 4) Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of Speak among other books (and if I listed all her accomplishements and awards, you’d be reading for a hell of a long time — what hasn’t she won is really the question?)

And why do I post it? Because we just got together in Chicago this past Saturday to go to bat for librarians and go to bat for students.

It rocked the house!

It also packed the house. Check out this photo I took from the stage just moments before I took the microphone.

Cool, huh?

But the big point I want to make is that librarians and English teachers are joined at the hips. We are simpatico. Peeps. Homies. Personally, I adore librarians and I have a feeling if I took a poll, there are a heck of a lot of people out there in the world of the Language Arts and public schooling that would have a heck of a lot of good things to say about librarians.

But our brothers and sisters in these of-so-hallowed halls are under assault.

Don’t pretend it’s not happening. Don’t think to yourself, “Well I got my problems,” or “We, in the world of English Language Arts and school are under assault as well,” and don’t throw up your hands and think, “Get in line, Buddy… who ain’t having their screws turned right now?”

Our libraries are being massacred and it’s a freakin’ tragedy!

Let’s be simple. American libraries are a core pillar of democracy. (I truly believe that but if I go off right now to explain what I mean, well… ultimately, I think the statement is self-evident in a way so I am not gonna waste the words right now.)

And as I have said many-a-time, if you want to really judge a school, go check out their school library facilities — and the extent to which the students on campus use the library. Of course you are going to see an over-worked, underpaid, under-appreciated library staff… that’s par for the course. But a school with a run down, out of date, woeful library is almost always going to be a school that is under-performing. There is a direct link.

And it’s not the librarian’s fault. It’s the lack of recognition for the value of a school library being evidenced by the school board, the administration and the parents in the community. Those folks need to own up!

For our own part, Lynwood High School lost their librarian quite a while ago… and we are now a school expected to function without a school librarian. For some reason, the powers-that-be think that a few well-meaning aides can do the job. (NOTE: Our aides are pretty outstanding — I will say that. They have saved my butt more times than I can count. Just rock stars!) But it seems as if the school plan is to let core content teachers direct student learning and cover the gap that a person with an advanced degree in Library Sciences/Media Specialties would typically be expected to provide. And what we can’t cover (huge chasm that it is) is apparently expendable.

And the thing is, this mentality is happening across more and more locations across the nation.

Public libraries are reducing their hours. Or closing their doors. And the notion of “library as a luxury” is starting to permeate in public policy making.

It’s BULLSHIT!!!

Support our libraries. Check out the ALA website to see how you can do more. (Even being aware is a step in the right direction). And they have so much valuable “stuff” available, it’s just incredible!

Truly, the library’s contribution to America is incredible. And it’s under assault from short-term thinking bean counting ignoramuses!

Maybe Bradbury was wrong. Perhaps it will not be book burning that gets us. Perhaps it’s library closures.

I was a featured speaker on the President’s Panel of AASL this Saturday for the American Library Association’s annual conference. (Took place in Chicago this year… what a town!)

So much great info, so many great people and so many great, mind-blowing ideas came at me from so many different directions that it’s virtually impossible to keep up.

Yet, through the speaking, the book signings, the chatting, the schmoozing and the eating I did in Chi-town (did I mention what a great town Chicago is?) I was FLOORED by a few things. For example, I heard that…

Google handles more questions in a second than a reference librarian will answer in a career.

That stat alone is enough to make me stop blogging at this very moment because I think I need to digest the implications of what this signifies. I mean everytime I think I realize that things in the world of books and education and learning and information have changed I am confronted by something new that makes me say, “Goodness, do I really understand how much things have changed?”

Do any of us?

No one asked me but…

Considering that a bunch of high-fallutin’, really smart, really accomplished folks are now getting together to concotuate national standards (and you wonder why they didn’t invite me to the party?) I figured I throw in my own 2 cents.

All I ask is that they give me one standard. Just one. The rest, I’ll leave to the professionals.

Standard 1.0: Have fun!

That’s right, have fun. Enjoy your class, enjoy your students, enjoy your work and enjoy your challenges. Smile. Laugh. Tell jokes. Throw open our classroom doors to humor.

After all, these are kids. Diverse, unique, spectacularly special kids who are universally bound by very few universally applicable elements whereby a national model of standards is really going to aptly apply to meet the needs of every kid in this country anyway.

But all kids need to laugh. And all kids love to laugh. And, as someone much smarter than yours truly once said, there is no shorter line between the chasm of two people than a shared smile.

Having fun in the classroom is not a luxury… it is a critical need. People learn better when they enjoy what they are learning. Teachers are more effective when they enjoy what they are teaching. School administrators grumble less when they see kids enjoying school and the teachers enjoying that the kids are enjoying school. Great parents appreciate the value of fun. Great teachers appreciate the value of fun. Kids most assuredly appreciate the value of fun and we will never reach our fullest potential as penultimate technicians of the academic craft (whatever the heck that means — I just stuck it in there because it sounded all erudite) unless we are having fun.

Fun and rigor are not mutually exclusive in the classroom and anybody who thinks so… well, they are a stick in the mud who doesn’t really know much about how best to reach kids.

I’ll say it again… Standard 1.0: Have fun!

It would be a great contribution to American education if we could all recognize its value. And it applies top to bottom across the board in the world of K-12.

School budgets need to be cut! But you better not shortchange MY child’s education. This is the schizophrenic mantra being shouted by policy-making parents today.

On one hand, when they put on their bean counter hats, they see the excess, the fluff, the areas which can “justifiably” be scaled back. On the other hand, when they wear the hat of a being a parent and they look at the education that their own flesh and blood are getting in our schools, suddenly it’s a whole different tune we hear being sung.

Art and music are expendable, non-core luxuries when policy decisions are being made for other people’s children. But when it comes to their own kids, if they don’t have flutes, paint, percussion, and piano, they bark the accusation, “What kind of Neanderthal schooling is being provided by you philistines!?”

If only the folks that made the decisions as to what’s best for other people’s kids viewed these decisions through the prism of how they would evaluate the very same questions when applied through the lens of “What would be best for my own kids?” things would be so much different.

When we start to educate our kids as if they really are “our” kids — and not the kids of “other” people — we are going to make a heck of leap forward in national education policy.

For those who wonder why we need Sex Ed taught in our schools, I offer this story, the tale of the teens who mistook a woman’s lovemaking cries for assault and promptly beat the crap out of the man with whom she was amorously copulating.

But the question arises as to which school personnel are qualified to handle such a delicate, senstive class. Good thing we have teachers such as this person, the elementary educator who “accidentally” spliced in a few seconds of her own sex adventures in a take home DVD of school memories for the kids to relish.

You gotta wonder what the summer project was, dontchya?

At the end of the day, all I know is, it’s a good thing we have stable leadership in this country — as this person clearly personifies. Otherwise, who knows where we’d be.

(Caribou Barbie… where do they make this stuff up?)

But sex ed wouldn’t just be about the birds and the bees. We could teach hygiene, personal responsibility and how to properly circumcise yourself, a lesson most obviously needed as this man proves when he uses a set of nail clippers to do a job most certainly requiring shears.

Is this not a textbook definition of the old saying, “Never send a boy to do a man’s job.”

Procreation: We need the pros.

I was just informed that my pay was being cut 3% for next year. The vote of the school board in regards to the issue of cutting my salary was unanimous. Budget issues. Belt tightening. Everyone taking one for the team.

Things is, I kinda get it. I mean we are facing huge budget issues, folks everywhere are tightening their belts and if everyone doesn’t chip in a little, then there is no way to make up for the fiscal shortfall and keep our schools running.

But the question is, do I get to work 3% less hard because I am being paid 3% less salary? Are my duties diminished by 3%? Will the effort expected of me be reduced 3%? Instead of grading 100% of my students’ papers next year, am I allowed to only grade 97% of them and say, “Sorry… budget cuts.”

Of course not. And why? Because at the end of the day my salary has almost no relationship to my duties or expected performance. They exist in 2 totally different areas of my professional world. I don’t work according to how much I am paid for my work. The compensation I earn is the compensation I earn, as determined by Lynwood Unified, and the effort I expend as a professional educator is the effort I choose to expend, dependent, at the end of the day, on my own willingness to lay it on the line.

Like most employees in most tax-payer financed jobs, I can choose to be a minimum threshold type of worker whereby I simply get my tasks accomplished or I can can work at trying to be the best I can be at my job. (And as we all know, the latter category is much less populated in any profession… not just teaching. Matter of fact, I’d argue that percentage-wise, more teachers try to be their best than say post office employees, DMV counter folks, city hall secretaries — not to cast aspersions.)

But really, as a teacher, I can loaf it, worksheet my way through the lame textbooks I am provided, follow a scripted program as dictated by our “curriculum specialists” and simply do all the things I am told to do, follow all the rules, give all the tests, take all the attendance and poof… do my job while being able to say, “Hey, this is what you just paid me to do.”

Of course, real teachers only know one speed at which to work: they give their best. Some days are better than others, some days are fraught with calamity where lesson plans implode, kids seems to have come from Planet Sugar (or Planet Sleep Deprivation or Planet Head-Up-Their-Butts — hey, they are a lot of different planets from which teens can arrive) and so on… but real teachers go to work and think about a zillion other things NOT related to their compensation each day.

They innovate. They accelerate. They mediate and they over-compensate. And they do it back and forth all day long.

I think about my paycheck maybe 1 or 2 times a month, and even then, the time for this is fleeting. The rest of my time, I think about how I can be more effective. And the more effective I am, the better I feel because I know my kids are being better served.

But do I equate my own effectiveness with accelerated compensation? Naw. And do I feel like I owe less to my kids next year because I will be paid less? Naw. And if merit pay is put into place, do I have another gear to hit, another club in my bag I have been holding back because I really can reach deeper… if you tempt me with more cash, that is?

Naw.

I am already pedal to the metal. And will be next year even though I will be earning less money for doing so. That’s just the nature of the beast.