Diary of a Part Time Harlemite...and Book Thief

This week in #teachread we are considering intertextuality as a element of texts and interpretation. We have also been discussing what distinguishes “literature” from other types of text. On the Twitter backchannel, we’ve also been hashing out the boundaries of “text.”

So, this morning, I had the following exchange on Twitter, and realized the intertextuality inherent in my “reading” of Zaha Hadid’s architectural designs and my (re)interpretation of The Wave once I saw the naturally-formed rock formations realized man-made in steel and glass. I have been to The Wave (one of the lucky few) and my readings of the images of the wave and the structures are affected by my experiences with the rock. And then I realized the intertextuality of the previous conversations about text that played into my tweets and the writing of this very post…and then…

@ematamoros Reminds me of the geology of my home state: google.com/search?num=10&…

— anna smith (@writerswriting)

October 30, 2012

@writerswriting Very nice. I’m constantly in awe of Hadid’s ability to bring such natural expression to steel and glass.

— Eduard Matamoros (@ematamoros)

This is the true story of an unmotivated adult. I know. You were expecting me to say teen. I didn’t. I said adult and I meant it. For over a week now I have owned a copy of The Book Thief on my nook and it’s even available on my phone. I have posted at least three Instagram photos about the reading of this book. But the book isn’t the only fiction involved here. “The reading of this book” has been the other fiction. I can’t get started. I can’t get motivated. 

The irony here is that last Wednesday, “Reading: Motivation, Engagement and the Adolescent” (or something to that effect) was our topic for the Teaching Reading in Secondary ELA class. We discussed attributes attributed (yeah, not motivated enough to find a synonym) to teens and the role of motivation and engagement in reading practices and comprehension. (The class doesn’t know it yet, but we’ll be returning to reflect on their initial “invented adolescents” to consider how they are “constructing adolescence.”)

For now, I think I’ll dwell on motivation from the inside, while in the unmotivated state. What can I learn from being unmotivated that all the answers from all of our course readings couldn’t tell us? (Lesson #1: “Motivated” or “unmotivated” are poor labels for individuals. Though I can’t get myself to read more than the first screen of words for this book, I’m motivated enough to spin the heck out of it for this blog post.)