Furia

Title: Furia 

Author: Yamile Saied Mendez

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers 

Publication Date: September 15th, 2020 

Genre/Format: YA Contemporary Fiction/Novel 

GoodReads Summary: In Rosario, Argentina, Camila Hassan lives a double life.
    At home, she is a careful daughter, living within her mother’s narrow expectations, in her rising-soccer-star brother’s shadow, and under the abusive rule of her short-tempered father.
    On the field, she is La Furia, a powerhouse of skill and talent. When her team qualifies for the South American tournament, Camila gets the chance to see just how far those talents can take her. In her wildest dreams, she’d get an athletic scholarship to a North American university.
    But the path ahead isn’t easy. Her parents don’t know about her passion. They wouldn’t allow a girl to play fútbol—and she needs their permission to go any farther. And the boy she once loved is back in town. Since he left, Diego has become an international star, playing in Italy for the renowned team Juventus. Camila doesn’t have time to be distracted by her feelings for him. Things aren’t the same as when he left: she has her own passions and ambitions now, and La Furia cannot be denied. As her life becomes more complicated, Camila is forced to face her secrets and make her way in a world with no place for the dreams and ambition of a girl like her.

What I Think: I'm completely obsessed with this book! Camila and her story sucked me in right away and I was desperate to know what was going to happen. While this is a love story...it's more about Camila loving herself than anything else and I'm all for that! I was so invested in this book and I think it has a lot to do with the writing and how honest Camila's story is. Maybe because I'm Latina myself and have spent so much time on identity work it really resonated with me...but please, share this with students because we all need some good examples of how to navigate our complex and unique identities and this story is so great for all readers.

    As a mentor text, Camila spends a lot of time navigating her different identities. She's a daughter but she's also a footballer and she's hiding that from her family. When it comes to thinking about our own unique and complex identities, this book gives us an opportunity to do that. The book starts off with her talking about a family proverb that has been passed down and how that lives now with her. This is a great way to think about who we are in the context of our family, our ancestors, and even the place(s) where we grow up. 

    In my notebook, I started by making a list of what comes to mind when I read the snatch of text, then I made a list of places in my life, and a list of a few sayings I heard over and over again growing up. Then I chose one saying to write about and, like Yamile, I wrote about how my ancestors lived that saying and how it has become part of my life. This is a great discussion to have with students that invites them to reflect on what messages have been passed down to them by their family and where they've grown up but also an opportunity to share what ideals their family has shared with them. As a teacher, this is a great way to learn about students and honor their backgrounds. For me, and for Camila, it's important to also question what we've been taught. Not from a good or bad perspective but from a perspective of, "Is this how I want to live?" Because we always have a choice.

    If you're interesting in slides so you can try this yourself and/or with students, check out the Story Exploratory Patreon community where I share videos, writing tips, extended activities, and monthly workshops. 

Snatch of Text: "Lies have short legs. I learned this proverb before I could speak. I never knew exactly where it came from. Maybe the saying followed my family across the Atlantic, all the way to Rosario, the second-largest city in Argentina, at the end of the world.

    My Russian great-grandmother, Isabel, embroidered it on a pillow after her first love broke her heart and married her sister. My Palestinian grandfather, Ahmed, whispered it to me every time my mom found his hidden stash of wine bottles. My Andalusian grandmother, Elena, repeated it like a mantra until her memories and regrets called her to the next life. Maybe it came from Matilde, the woman who chased freedom to Las Pampas all the way from Brazil, but of her, this Black woman whose blood roared in my veins, we hardly ever spoke. Her last name got lost, but my grandma's grandma still showed up so many generations later in the way my brown hair curled, the shape of my nose, and my stubbornness - ay, Dios mío, my stubbornness. Like her, if family folklore was to be trusted, I had never learned to shut up or do as I was told. 

    But perhaps the words sprouted from this land that the conquistadores thought was encrusted with silver, the only inheritance I'd ever receive from the indigenous branch of my family tree. In any case, when my mom said them to me as I was getting ready to leave the house that afternoon, I brushed her off. 

    'I'm not lying,' I insisted, fighting with the tangled laces of my sneakers - real Nikes that Pablo, my brother, had given me for  Christmas after he got his first footballer paycheck. 'I told you, I'll be at Roxana's.'"

Founding Story Exploratory #exploringidentity

I'm a small business owner.

In some ways it was a monumental change in my life and in other ways it was no big deal. 

Mentally, it took a lot to get Story Exploratory up and running. Physically, walking into the county building and submitting my application was a piece of cake. 

I dreamed up Story Exploratory because 

I wanted to be 

seen, 

celebrated, 

and empowered. 

I felt overwhelmed and tired and stuck. 

I felt under-appreciated. 

I felt like life had more in store for me.

I felt like I just had to figure out how to share it with the world. 

I wondered if maybe others were feeling this too. And I wondered if maybe I could create a space where people could feel seen, celebrated, and empowered. 

Story Exploratory is my contribution to the world. 

Story Exploratory is for awesome people who are ready to make the world a better place. If you are self-reflective, willing to put in the work, and not afraid to take action, then Story Exploratory is for you. By exploring our stories, we own the people, places, and experiences that have shaped us, share our journeys, and use our stories to impact change in the world. 

I believe you are more amazing than you know. 

My job is to see you and celebrate you. At Story Exploratory, I give you the time and space and love to explore your story, own your headspace, and maximize your potential. YOU will make the world a better place. I'll be there to guide you and help you along the way. It's not easy, but together, it will be an epic adventure. 

As the founder of Story Exploratory, 

I 

see, 

celebrate, 

and empower people.

It's the best! I help people unlock their stories and polish them up so they can shine. I help people navigate the ups and downs of life, tackle self doubt, and face their inner critics. I help people take action and live up to their amazing potential. I support people at every point in their journey. Best of all, I get to celebrate people and have fun. 

I'm a proud, small business owner.

Just when I think I'm old enough to know who I am, I start a small business and suddenly I'm taking on a new identity. It's exciting to think about how our identity can evolve over time and I want to be sure to share this with my students. I also am so proud to be able to share this new identity as a small business owner. I'm a Latina woman who started her own small business and that's pretty rockstar, right?!

If you're interested in checking out one of my upcoming workshops, you can find more information and register here.

Shared Art Project #exploringidentity

Last week I shared how I'll be using Jason Mamoa's short film Canvas of My Life to introduce identity webs to my students with Sara Ahmed's lesson from Being The Change. I also shared my ideas for inviting students to write about a door that has been significant in their life. After giving students an opportunity to get to know each other through these activities and others too, I then have a shared art project for them based on Canvas of My Life.

We've all heard of shared reading and shared writing, right? Well, this is a shared art project! I've always been an arts and crafts kind of girl. I come from a family of creatives and I'm lucky that they encouraged my creativity. Art is special and important and I want to incorporate it into my class as much as possible.

Here's what I have in mind for our first art project!

I bought a 5 x 5 canvas drop cloth from Home Depot for each of my classes and am going to ask them to work together to paint something that represents them as a class. My aunt is an artist and has tons of little bottles of acrylic paint and oodles of paintbrushes so I've asked her to come in and share her expertise and resources with my students. 

At this point, students will be familiar with symbolism so I'll talk to them about what they would paint that would represent them as a group. We'll talk about the message Jason Mamoa shares in the video and also what we've learned about each other from sharing our doors and what is important to us overall. Then we'll divide up the work and get started. I have space on one wall in our classroom where we'll display their artwork for the year. My thought is that at the end of the year, we'll cut the canvas up and students will each get a piece of the canvas to take with them as a keepsake and a reminder of the work we did together. 

My goal for our shared art project is to invite students to think about their identity in terms of being part of a community and how they impact that community. I'm so excited to see what they come up with because I already know it will be more awesome than I can even imagine. Don't worry, I'll share how this goes and how the art turns out!

Have you tried art projects with your students? I love the idea of bringing art into my classroom and would love to hear your thoughts or stories of what you've tried!

Doors In Our Lives #exploringidentity

Last week I shared how I'll be using Jason Mamoa's short film Canvas of My Life to introduce identity webs to my students with Sara Ahmed's lesson from Being The Change. I'm also going to use the film to introduce the idea of symbolism and then segue into think about people, places, and experiences that have shaped us. I'm planning to do picture book book-a-day and have picked out books with doors in them so we can discuss what doors represent and then share doors that have been significant in our lives. 

Thank You, Omu!

Door,

Doors In The Air

Wherever You Go

Knock Knock

Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns

*not pictured: Journey

Why doors exactly? 

Because of this guy: Alan Benchoam.

Here I am with Alan Benchoam in his gallery in Guatemala.

When I was in Guatemala in June, I met a photographer named Alan Benchoam who takes photos of doors. You can find more information about him at Doors of The World. He also creates collages with all the doors and as I was looking at his art, I realized how amazing doors are. There are doors we go through, doors that open, doors that close, doors that take us to different places. Doors hold a lot of meaning. I love the symbolism but also that doors are a universal experience.

The picture books I shared above all have doors in them, whether the door is a focus of the book or just embedded in the story at some point. My goal is to read the books to give students an opportunity to think of doors in different ways as they choose a door they would like to write about. Students will be asked to take a picture of a door of their choice and to write about it. Then we'll share the photos they took and their writing. I'd love to display these but haven't worked through the details of what this would look like. Maybe I'll get the kids' input and go from there!

Of course, I believe in writing along with the students so when I was in Guatemala and had this idea of taking pictures of doors and writing about them, I snapped pictures of two doors that meant a lot to me while I was there. Being a writer myself is imperative as a teacher of writing but sharing myself is equally as important. I'll share both of these pictures, talk through my ideas, and model writing about a door that is significant to me. (I'll be sure to share my writing and how this goes with students!)

While I was in Guatemala, I stayed with my cousin Andrea and her family and this is the door to their house. It looks like a simple brown door but when I look at it, I feel the love that welcomed me on the other side of it. I think of her, her husband, and her three kids. I think of the stories we shared and the memories we made while I was there. We played hide and seek and Chinese jump rope, they were fascinated by my bedtime routine, and they ordered a vegan pineapple upside down cake for my birthday celebration are some of my favorites.

This is the door to K'Ashem, my cousin Edgar's adventure tourism agency in Guatemala. When I look at this door, I feel excitement. Going on an excursion with him was the highlight of my trip to Guatemala. I loved getting to see him in his element and to experience Guatemala with him. I'm such an outdoorsy, adventurous person and so is he so when I look at this door, I think of him and am reminded to live life to the fullest.

My goal is to take time for students to write about something in their life and share it as we get to know each other but then work on a shared art project based of off the Jason Mamoa video...I promise I'll share more about that next!

Jason Mamoa and Identity Webs #exploringidentity

I'm diving into learning on the very first day of school! This summer I read Sara Ahmed's Being The Change and truly loved her identity web lesson. My students are 7th and 8th graders so I wanted to pick a text that would catch their attention. I looked at the texts Sara suggests in Being The Change but ultimately decided to go with a digital text that I found from Katherine Sokolowski's blog post: Building Relationships at the Start of the Year. 

Katherine shared this Carhartt Handemade Film about Jason Mamoa called Canvas of My Life. I love it for lots of reasons and had already planned to show it as part of a community building art project but as I was thinking about identity, I realized this movie fits perfectly with Sara's identity web lesson. Here it is so you can watch it for yourself:

I'll ask students to watch and notice what we learn about Jason Mamoa and who he is. Based on Sara's lesson, we'll create an identity web for Jason based on evidence we find in the text, then I'll create one for myself, and finally, they'll have time to discuss and create their own identity webs. I'm toooootally simplifying this so you'll have to get a copy of Being The Change so you can read Sara explain this lesson in much more detail. 

Building students' awareness of themselves and their identity is super important to me but I want my students to grow their understanding of how we fit into communities we belong to as well. Using this video for our identity webs will be a great foundation for our shared art project that invites students to develop their identity as a classroom community/team. More on that soon!

On Blogging with Students #exploringidentity

My Writing Wednesdays posts are inspired by my friend Katherine Sokolowski who blogs at Read, Write, Reflect. She's a middle school teacher who writes too!

*****

Blogging has been an awesome addition to my life so I’m excited to share it with students! I first started our family blog in 2008 and then shifted to blogging about teaching in 2010 so it's a big part of my identity.

What I love most about blogging is that it's short and sweet. I try to keep my blog posts to the point but the writing process is also short when I blog. I spend time on my posts but I go through the process and publish what I’ve written fairly quickly (especially compared to traditional publishing!). 

I love that I can add a picture or a video and I can link to other ideas. And I really love that I have a cool artifact with all my thoughts in one place. It’s a unique sort of digital scrapbook that allows me to share my life with others. 

This year I’ll be sharing some sort of short text with students, either a photo, video, poem, or article. We’ll use these texts to practice visual thinking strategies, making connections, asking questions. Then students will think critically, discuss and maybe do some research, and respond by blogging. They'll have a choice to pick what they want to respond to from the week. Because blogging is meant to be short...both in length and turn around, I’m hoping this will be a place for students to explore ideas and experience publishing on a consistent basis. 

I’ll be looking for thoughtful content and for students to practice including different media in their responses but I won’t be grading their blogs. To start, I'm going to use Seesaw for the first trimester so they'll have a sheltered audience and then we'll discuss and decide if it's working for them or not. 

Shout out to Pernille Ripp and Tricia Ebarvia for sharing their thoughts on blogging with students and helping me plan for blogging with my students! Do you blog with students or have thoughts on giving students the opportunity to blog? I'd love to hear about it!

3 Things I Know to Be True #exploringidentity

What you value and what you believe are important when it comes to knowing yourself but a few weeks ago, my friend asked me to name three things I absolutely know to be true. I shared those three things in my last Exploring Identity post, 31 Things About Me: Jen Vincent but now I'd like to expand upon them.

I absolutely know that I love myself. It's taken me a long time to get here but blogging about identity in 2015 helped me feel more whole. Writing about my life, people, places, and experiences that shaped me allowed me to better understand my unique experience with life and to appreciate my Latinx heritage. People, places, and things will come and go in my life but I love myself no matter what.

I absolutely know that stories make the world a better place. Telling my stories helped me grow to love myself. And in loving myself, I am better able to participate in the world. As a mom, writer, and educator, I'm better because I know my story, I appreciate my story, and I share my story with others. I started Story Exploratory because I know the power of story firsthand and I truly believe if we all owned our stories, shared our stories, learned from each other, and celebrated our stories, the world would be a better place.

I absolutely know that things change. In June, I went on an excursion in Guatemala with my cousin Edgar through his agency, K'Ashem. We camped at Laguna Lachuá and swam in its brilliant turquoise water. 

When it was time to leave, I packed up my tent and my gear and went to sit by the water. Everyone else did the opposite, they swam as long as they could before they had to pack up, so I had the lake all to myself. It was serene. The water was clear and still and absolutely beautiful. (Here's a picture, that's me sitting in the hut.)

Soon Edgar came to tell me it was time to go. 

"No quiero ir," I told him as I wiped the tears streaming down my face. 

He laughed and reminded me that even good things come to an end and that's what's beautiful about life, it's always changing.

It was hard to say goodbye to that moment but now I carry my cousin's words with me and work to cherish every moment because inevitably things change, whether I want them to or not.

Naming three things I know to be true made me think about people, places, and experiences I've had and how they have shaped me. This is a great activity to explore for yourself and/or to discuss with students.

So tell me...what three things do you absolutely know to be true?

31 Things About Me: Jen Vincent #exploring identity

I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. My understanding of my own identity is constantly changing but I'm also starting the school year off with the theme of identity so I thought it would be good to do a blog series about exploring identity. 

In 2015, I participated in the month-long Slice of Life Challenge. The ideas is to blog every single day for an entire month. I had spent time unpacking my identity and thinking about my experiences and how they shaped who I am so I decided to take the entire month to write about this. That month of blogging was so powerful for me. I cried while writing most of those posts! Those posts are probably some of the most vulnerable writing I have ever written.

You can find links to them all in my wrap up blog post: The One Where I Have to Share My Stories if you're interested in reading them. 

But that was four years ago and I've learned even more about myself since then so I thought it would be good to share a little more about me again. This year during the March Slice of Life Challenge, my friend Mandy Robek wrote a post called 31 Things About Me at her blog Enjoy and Embrace Learning. Mandy got the idea from Lisa Keeler at Reading, Writing and Learning. Here's her 31 Things About Me post. I saved the links to their posts to use as a mentor text and now I'm happy to present my 31 Things About Me post!

1. I adore Megan Stielstra and her essays and would love to meet her someday! They inspired me to write a short story about loving Guatemala which then led me to buying a ticket to go and visit last month.
2. My friend Leticia recommended the podcast Let Their Be Luz to me so I listened to every single episode and it has been life changing in so many ways. I definitely recommend it!
3. We got a minivan last spring and I LOVE IT mostly because we can fit lots of people in with us and traveling with friends is always more fun. 
4. Baths are amazing. I discovered Lush about a year ago and love their shampoo bars and their bath bombs.
5. Yellow is my favorite color.
6. The sun makes me happy. I even got a sun tattoo last year. 
7. I think I'm fairly coordinated but for the life of me, trying to get better at something like baggo or bowling stresses me out.
8. I love Chocolate-Covered Katie's black bean brownie recipe (gluten free and vegan!) and I also love sharing them with people because most people love them too and never guess there's a whole can of black beans mixed in. 
9. If I could live anywhere...it would be Guatemala.
10. I used to write regularly in my laundry room when I was working on my first novel. 
11. People should have the option to take an afternoon nap. Like, this should be a regularly scheduled afternoon plan.
12. My first Story Exploratory workshop was in 2015. My sister and my neighbor came...which I considered a huge success but at the same time didn't think was a success at all. Then it took me until 2018 to remember how much I believed in Story Exploratory. In 2019, I filed for my doing-business-as certificate!
13. When I trained for (and ran) the Chicago Marathon in 2003, I would see rabbits all the time. I always thought they were my grandpa coming to visit me and to remind me that I was strong and beautiful. Since starting up my Story Exploratory workshops, I've seen more rabbits again and now I really think it's a sign from the universe that I'm on the right path and that I should keep going. 
14. Any time I visit a new place, I like to find a local coffee shop and/or an independent bookstore. They are the coolest places.
15. I've been vegetarian since 2010 and vegan most of those years. I swear, my skin is softer. And I kid you not, I feel absolutely zero menstrual cramps (and before it was bad!).
16. I consider myself to be super low maintenance but my friend Elizabeth sells Color Street and I do like doing my nails from time to time.
17. Star Wars is an epic love story and I'm a huge fan. 
18. Adopting our puppy Perdi from a shelter in 2015 was one of the best decisions of my whole entire life.
19. Tacos are amazing. Just like ice cream in a cone, you don't need utensils or containers so they're good for the environment too!
20. I'm always up for an adventure. 
21. Sometimes I wish I had a more Latina name. Even my maiden name, Jennifer Jones, wasn't Latina. Our names are such a part of who we are and my Latinx heritage isn't represented in my name. Although, when I went to Guatemala earlier this summer, I met people whose names sounded American to me so maybe what I really need to do is get over this idea of names belonging to a place.
22. The first time I experienced professional development in my school district that focused on identity, I cried. It was emotional for me because identity and discussing topics of anti-racism and being anti-biased is something important to me but at that time, it felt like we never discussed it as a system.
23. I love winter but don't like all the stuff that goes with it. Especially as a mom...snowpants, hats, gloves, boots...ugh.
24. Writer's workshop is my jam. I'm so lucky that I had teachers who gave me the experience with writer's workshop as a student because it just made sense to me as a teacher. 
25. The kidlit community is the best.
26. I find it hard to half-ass anything. But sometimes in life, you have to decide it's okay to put in the minimum so my motto has become, "We're going to full ass the minimum."
27. One of the best compliments a student ever gave me was when they said, "Mrs. Vincent, you're like a student." Yup. I'm a true lifelong learner and super proud of it.
28. I often feel like people don't understand me. Like my ideas are so out there. Like I approach things differently. Like I'm comfortable diving into things. Like I'm not worried about stuff. Sometimes it's lonely and other times it feels pretty badass.
29. I've been known to turn down a lunch invitation because I had an amazing, just-ripe avocado waiting for me at home. 
30. I cry. A lot. But most of the time I cry because I'm so so so happy and that's how my body reacts. I also see it as a form of cleansing. It's my body's way of releasing or processing the emotions...I think? I'm not really sure but these two explantations make sense to me at this time.
31. There are three things I absolutely know to be true: I love myself, stories make the world a better place, and things change. (I have a blog post about this coming up next!)