Black Swan Green- Final Reflection

After finishing this book, I tried to figure out how I would teach it in the classroom and came up with a blank sheet of paper. I agree with most of what has been said by everyone else in the reading group. It seemed to me like there were moments that had great potential but they all fell flat. Some of the slightly fantastical elements that could have made the story really interesting by mixing magical realism in were introduced and then dropped with no further exploration. The scene with the woman in the woods when he hurt his ankle is an example. We find out at the end that she does exist and is just a senile old woman which











just ended up seeming like a neat and tidy way to tie up a loose end. I got that feeling with a lot of the individual
scenes or episodes; I walked away from the reading feeling like the story had gotten away from Mitchell halfway through and rather than paring it down into a cohesive narrative, he just scrambled to find a way to end it.
I don't see myself teaching this in a classroom. With the limited time we have with our students to make an impact on them this novel just isn't something I would want to waste that time with. It has potential but falls short in the
sneaks there are other options that are more realistic and more cohesive that students would be able to relate to more.
If students were expected to read this for class it would be useful to either use post-it notes as Cory suggested, or a double-entry journal to help students keep track of what was going on. Writing down colloquialisms to be looked up or researched later, along with current events of the time. A lot of group and partnered work would also be helpful to flesh out what was happening and why it's important would be another possible strategy.

BSG Reflection, Part III

There’s a lot to think and write about for the final third of the book. A lot. In some ways, I left the book a bit more satisfied than I was through the process of reading it. It came together, in a way. As Jason grew up throughout the span of the year, a lot of the fantastical elements seemed to slip away in favor of reality. Sometimes that reality was harsh: his parents’ divorce, the turning of the tides with the kids at school. But sometimes rites of passage—like his first kiss—also pushed him toward adulthood and the book toward a more concrete narrative. I’m left thinking, though, about the book’s “teachabilty,” which aligns with the second of our reflection questions: What is your thinking at this point about assigning students readings that are likely to lie outside their interests?

Somewhere halfway through the text, I realized why I was so irritated with the process of reading Black Swan Green. I had no choice in picking it. It’s been a long time since anyone has told me what to read, at least in terms of a novel. Since college, I’ve made up my own reading list. When I didn’t like a book, I could stop reading it. But, more often than not, I wasn’t prone to even start a book I wouldn’t like because I was doing the choosing. Reading BSG put e right back in high school. Dare I say it was almost an “aha! moment”? From then on, I started to build what I guess would be empathy for my future students. I got it all over again: no one wants to read something they’re forced to read if there’s no investment in it. And I read BSG as if in a vacuum. I had to choose one of two books, I recently read Oscar Wao, so the choice was clear. But other than my commitment to my group and this blog, there really wasn’t an investment. No one told me why I should read the book or why it would be “good” for me or what it would teach me. As for me, given my frequent frustration, there was little investment to be had. The book isn’t “bad.” Certainly not. But it’s not something I would teach, either. The issue isn’t that its content is outside of students’ interests. It’s a bildungsroman, after all. But there’s a denseness to it and a kind of otherworldly logic that kept e at a remove. Therefore, I couldn’t imagine asking students to read it. I think nearly any text can be taught in the classroom as long as the teacher finds the inroads to the personal connection of the piece. Why should students care? If the teacher can’t answer that, than they shouldn’t be bothered with reading the text.

But, given that denseness, there were reading techniques I had to engage in (and really pull out) that I haven’t had to use in years. And that brings me to our other reflection question: What kinds of things can a reader do (especially a student) in order to make sense of what might be confusing parts of the book? For this, I decided to use a technique that I’ve been teaching my sixth graders in my student teaching placement: Post-Its. To keep our students engaged with their independent reading texts and facilitate conferencing, we teach them to write Post-It notes to jot down questions, predictions, and ideas about characters and how they’re changing. So that’s just what I did. Along the way, I put Post-Its on pages with passages I particularly liked or to note the ways Jason was changing through the course of the novel and the development of his perceptions. I think conversation is also key. We’ve gotten to do this a bit in class, but in an actual classroom, I would very much encourage small and whole group discussions of the material—but prompted and free-form. It’s important to struggle through a text collectively and not in solitude. I think the teacher may sometimes need to take some role in directing this conversation, otherwise the discussions can lead to a lot of griping as they did in our group.

Now on to the text. As I said, the book became much more concrete in its final third. And it’s a good thing, too. The book would have been pointless had Jason not grown up throughout the year. Jason comes to some realizations about the world that I found really poignant. One motif that carried throughout the book was Jason’s relationships with trees. In the first chapter, he says spending time with trees is preferable to speaking with humans. He makes allusions to this idea a couple of other times, as well. [“What tree cares if you can’t spit out your words?” (234) he asks at one point]. But by the end, he demystifies the forest that has brought him both adventure and danger: He finds “the whole wood’s only a few acres… Hardly Amazonia. Hardly Sherwood Forest” (288). And (perhaps a bit too neatly) he comes to breakthroughs about his speech impediment. He learns it’s the expectations of others—and not Hangman “himself”—that trigger his stammer (289).

And then there are the harsh truths. Midway through the book, Jason opines “kids can never complain about unfairness ‘cause everyone knows kids always complain about that” (178). And yet, by the conclusion, Jason comes to see it’s not about fairness when the real question, he says, is “who says the world has to make sense?” (285). Again, my concern here, as always, is that Jason’s insights and understandings were always a little too mature for his age. I think the best coming-of-age stories truly capture the voice of the narrators at that age. (This is why The Cather in the Rye has always struck me as so false.) Mitchell hasn’t quite done that. Yes, Jason’s a poet and is given to lyricism. But it’s preternatural and, for me, a bit contrived. While the character is fully realized within the world of the book, it’s not a character that approximates a real 13 year-old boy circa 1982.

That’s how I leave the book, for now. A bit annoyed, but grateful for the occasional thoughtful turns of phrase. I’m grateful, also, that I have once again experienced that long lost sensation of reading as a student. In my Teaching Reading in the English Classroom course, we interviewed adolescents on their reading experiences. They spoke about the “forced readings” that were devoid of context. This experience really illuminated that concept and has definitely informed my future approach to choosing and teaching texts. (Should I have the choice!) But even when the selection is not up to me, I can do my best to help my students make the connections. A teacher, I think, should be as much a “guide” through literature as he or she is the occasional “giver” of useful (and, admittedly, sometimes not-so useful) knowledge.

final chapters

Souvenirs

This was the chapter where I felt that Jason was finally growing up and starting to listen and seeing reality. He was really coming in to his own. I had a bunch of favorite quotes from this chapter.

“Wish I could be thirteen again” –Dad

“Then I thought, you’ve obviously forgotten what it’s like.”- Jason

He meets Danny, someone new to look up to, and someone who has a different perspective on his dad.

He wants to grow up in this chapter, like when he uses his dad’s razor.

This chapter was one last hurrah with his dad and his childhood, souvenirs of his childhood, memories of what time with his family was like.

He witnesses his dad really drunk and as a suck up to his boss.

The best character in this chapter was Rosamund. Rosamund helps to put things in to perspective for Jason and his worries about the watch he broke.

“It’s a watch you broke! Not a future. Not a life. Not a back bone.”

“You don’t know my parents.”

“The question here is, do you?” (190)

Jason sees a different side of his mother was well; what she’s like at work. I was proud of Jason for standing up to those girls and telling his mom that he saw them stealing from the store. He could have tried to act cool with them because he was attracted to one of them, and let them get away with stealing, but he shows a brave noble side that shows his respect for his mother and what she’s been pursuing.

Despite all these souvenirs of memories and objects, rewards from his parents Jason says in the end “Good moods’re are fragile as eggs….bad moods’re as fragile as bricks.”

Maggot

This chapter was full of advice, realizations and proof that life goes on.

“Hate doesn’t need a way. Who or even what is ample” (198)

Debbie Crombie being pregnant: “The Yews’ll help raise it Kelly Reckons. Bring Tom back to life in a way, I s’pose.” (206)

Holly Deblin is introduced. She is the girl that he hasn’t noticed because he has been so interested in Dawn Madden. Holly tells Jason: “You’re not a maggot. Don’t let dickheads decide what you are.” (211)

I wished that Jason would have spent more time thinking about the copies of life lessons that he saw copies of on his teacher’s desk. I’m glad he took a copy for himself, and it may have been the impedes for him standing up for himself for the first time. “Your breath smells really bad Ross.” (215) This tactic may have almost backfired, but it leads to an interaction with the bus driver Norman Bates who reminds Jason “Life’s a Borstal.” I’m not sure if Borstal is a jail, detention center or nut house, but Jason begins to realize not doing something may be as bad as acting.

Knife Grinder

This chapter seemed like a set up for later on.

The gift from Jason’s father, the TV seemed shady from the very beginning. It was as if his father was trying to win his favor.

The idea of the sound of a knife grinding stuck with me whenever Jason’s parents argued and when the town was arguing over the Gypsies.

Jason says his of his parents arguments: “Questions aren’t questions. Questions are bullets.” & “Their arguments’re speed chess these days.” (223)

The part with the dog was a bit of a stretch stealing Jason’s bag, but it was a set up for later on in the novel.

Goose Fair

This was the remnants of Jason’s innocence. It was fun with bumper cars, candy apples and halls of mirrors.

We find out more about the school bully Ross and what he’s capable of.

Ross insults Dawn which gives Jason some confidence that maybe there’s hope he can have the girl.

Jason also made unlikely allies with Allan the Gypsy boy.

I wished that Jason hadn’t given back the wallet, it seemed illogical and yet noble.

Dawn crushed Jason’s spirits one last time when he sees her with Grant Birch and then Ross gets in to the accident and Dawn never leaves Ross’ side.

Disco

Jason finally comes clean about the abuse he and so many others have endured all semester.

He gets a lesson in reputations and that perhaps he’s like Bruce Wayne, an average guy who moonlights as a superhero. On some level Jason could be a superhero.

At the disco, Jason gets some acceptance from some unlikely people for standing up to Ross’ gang.

And then he finally gets the acceptance he needs from a girl, Holly. “You can only have one first kiss” (275)

“This moment’d taken twelve months to whoosh here” (277)

Rosamund was right, Jason confesses to his father and then his father confesses his infidelity to Jason.

January Man

A new year? A new life? Jason feels reborn?

The neighbors wonder if when Jason moves : “But you’ll be looking forward to a brand new school” (281) Who would be looking forward to a new school? He just got some acceptance, and a girl, now he has to start all over. Maybe a little wiser, and still learning.

We finally learn that the woman he met when he smashed his watch was real. I had almost forgotten about that, and it felt disjointed to leave this til the last moment. Although he did seems less crazy now that the mystery was solved. But why wait a year?

The OXO tin contains the memories of his family still together. It’s his one secret place to keep what is important to him.

When they are moving out he has an honest conversation with Julia. She knows he was the author of those poems all along. Jason burned them all up as his final act, putting his past behind him.

“It’ll be all right…on the end Jace.”

“It doesn’t feel very all right.”

“That’s because it’s not the end” (294)

Final Thoughts on Black Swan Green

Black Swan Green Part 3
After completing the novel, I felt relieved to finally finish with the last page. Black Swan Green disappointed me. Jason is frustrated with the ephemeral nature of life as a thirteen year old boy. I too am frustrated as a reader with how transient and disjointed this novel is. The twelve chapters represent a month in Jason’s life but they fail to amount to a cohesive whole. After the first half, the novel becomes repetitive, fragmented and anticlimactic. I asked what the larger significance of this uneventful novel is. There are no resolutions because the novel lacks conflict. Many teenagers experience dreary childhoods similar to Jason. I wish Mitchell had focused on Jason’s poetry. Jason’s poetry abruptly stops once Madame Croomelynck disappears. The chapters can function as topics of conversation on real world issues. For example, students can explore racism/xenophobia, Gypsy’s and immigration in the chapter “knife grinder”. But there are better texts that explore and tackle issues, such as divorce, gentrification and war, in much greater depth. Mitchell has said in an interview that "Ideas are well and good, but without characters to hang them on, fiction falls limp." I agree that Jason is certainly an intriguing character but Mitchell’s novel lacks content and substance. There is no story and no ideas.
I do, however, praise Mitchell’s experimentation with language. Black Swan Green is a good example of Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglossia: a novel is comprised of different speeches and linguistic variety (e.g. narrator’s voice, character’s conversation, national language, etc.). Although the way Jason precociously thinks and speaks is not believable, I found myself writing several of Jason’s musings:

The world won’t leave things be. It’s always injecting endings into beginnings. Leaves tweezer themselves from these sweeping willows. Leaves fall into the lake and dissolve into slime. Where’s the sense in that? Mum and ad fell in love, had Julia, had me. They fall out of love, Julia moves off to Edinburg, Mum to Cheltenham, and Dad to Oxford with Cynthia. The world never stops unmasking what the world never stops making” (295).

This is a wonderful quote about the vicissitudes of Jason’s life. But amidst these insights, Mitchell says nothing new about family, loss, one’s country, and navigating one’s way in the world as a thirteen year old boy.

BSG Reflection, Part II

As I read these chapters, I found myself looking for a connective theme. Why are these the episodes from Jason’s life—his year, as it seems they go month-by-month—that David Mitchell shares with the reader and that the character wants us to know (as he narrates them first-hand)? I’m still unsure. It feels to me that this is one of those novels you have to finish and look back on to fully understand its mechanics. Fortunately, I don’t remember much about my first reading of it (I’m still not sure if I completed it back then because I was frustrated with the colloquialisms at the time). What insights does the reader glean from these scenes from Jason’s year? What messages about youth, life, and the other big “stuff” are writ large across this novel? I guess here I’m thinking about the kind of expository (and, really, exploratory) writing I would have my class do if we were to read this book. Though, more and more, I’m thinking this text would be too difficult for most high school classrooms. (Andrea: You mentioned this below and I totally agree.)

Because this text has the features of a bildungsroman, there’s an obvious opportunity for writing that focuses on the personal. But in pushing students to think more critically, I’d be interested to see what themes, motifs, and symbols they would pull out as both significant and worthy of closer examination:

1. In my last post, I spoke a little about the structures of hierarchy in the village and in Jason’s eyes. In these chapters, we gain fresh insights. For instance, the structures of Jason’s family are laid bare in the third chapter, “Relatives.” Here, we see the way that everything in the house I thrown off by the arrival of the Lambs. Uncle Brian’s imperiousness cows Jason’s father, and Jason is in awe of and, ultimately, in thrall to his cousin Hugo, whom “luck loves” (43). The power struggles that run throughout this chapter are fascinating. How and why does Julia get the upper hand? Why does Jason’s father allow someone to come into his house and dominate when he is such an imposing figure at other points throughout the novel? A second instance of these structures brings the discussion back to class (as I glanced at with the first chapter). In “Bridle Path,” Kit Harris views Jason as the wealthy interloper. “Locals have more respect for my boys [his dogs] than some townie,” (71) he says. Here, the tables are turned and Jason is seen as someone atop the social structure by an outsider in ways that are similar to his view of himself being at the middle of a different structure among the boys and in the town. What do these shifting ideas about who is important tell us about the nature of these structures and their stability?

2. Another idea for exploration here could be the mix messages that Jason receives from the adult world and what insights they give the reader about where Jason is emotionally and socially as the novel unfolds. Two instances come to mind. The first is Jason’s interaction with his teacher, Mr. Kempsey. When his speech therapist intervenes and Jason is exempted from having to recite a text in front of his class, Mr. Kempsey speaks to Jason about the situation in ways both circuitous and ambivalent. Moreover, Jason senses he has the play the role of the naïve and gracious student: “I knew what he’d said but he was expecting me to act confused” (40), Jason says in the midst of Mr. Kempsey’s pompous speech. Jason, a student clearly intrigued by literature (Mr. Kempsey can’t be unaware of his poetry award, can he?) is blind to Jason’s needs and interests and forces Jason to play dumb for his (Mr. Kempsey’s) benefit. Along the same lines of Jason’s interests, there’s a devastating moment during the Lamb’s visit wherein Jason’s Father, Michael, insults Jason. “Technology, design, electric cars. That’s what schools should be teaching. Not all this “Wandered lonely as a cloud” guff” (48), says Michael. Yes, Jason’s mother exhibits some pride at his award, but his Dad essentially undoes any of this self-esteem building. How do these episodes inform our understanding of Jason and what he experiencing? Is it any wonder he “ache[s] to follow” the “V’s of long-distance birds” (69) out of town?

These struck me as two viable avenues for discussion in both class and written work. I’m interested to see how subsequent chapters will build on these ideas and what else they’ll have to offer.

Black Swan Green First Half

Although the novel centers on Jason Taylor, the novel is so much more. Initially I was uncertain as to how and what would I want to teach from Black Swan Green. The novel is largely uneventful and the narrative structure defies the classic triangular plot diagram of rising action, conflict, climax and resolution. Perhaps students could explore multiple structures of narration and how often stories, even wonderful stories, do not require heavy plot. What makes a good story? Characters? Ideas?
After reading the first half, the novel can act as in invitation to a diversity of ordinary themes and issues that extend beyond Jason’s musings and coming of age. For example, the death of Thomas Yew in the Falklands War conjured up personal memories of my neighbor’s son who is deployed in Afghanistan and classmates who have passed away in high-school. Students could explore the idea of loss in their own lives. In addition, students could examine the topic of war and the present war in Afghanistan. The war has taken a back seat in the media and yet it demands discussion. Although Black Swan Green is set in a geographically and historically different time period, the topics of conversation are universal. Mr. Nixon’s speech about Thomas’s death was stirring and thought provoking:

Life can inflict few cruelties perhaps on cruelty-more acute than the death of a son-or brother…I hope that, as you consider Thomas’s sacrifice, you will think about the consequences of violence, who conducts the violence, be it military or emotional. I hope you will note who initiates violence, who conducts the violence, and who must pay the price of violence. Wars do not simply appear form nowhere…I also hope you will consider what is truly precious in your own lives, and what is merely…flimflam…grandstanding…froth…posturing..egotism (112).
Mitchell is incredibly deft at writing dialogue and employing multiple voices. Another mini-lesson could focus on the dinner table scene between Uncle Brian and Jason’s annoyed sister, Julia. Uncle Brian berates Julia for her decision to want to attend Edinburgh or Durham University instead of the prestigious Oxford University. Students could discuss notions of family expectations, class, and reputation. For example, why does society place such a strong emphasis on college rankings? Similarly Jason’s fascination with Hugo and Ewan could lead to a free-write on who do we admire as a teenager, who do we want to be like, and why?
Mitchell also touches upon gentrification as another issue. The man with the three Dobermans calls Jason a townie: “Knew it. Locals have more respect for my boys than some townie. You come here, come traipsin’ about, leavin’ gates open, puttin’ up your little toy mansions on land we’ve been workin’ for generations. Makes me sick. Just lookin’ at you” (71). Jason’s family is middle to upper middle class. They are new to the town. Living in New York, students witness the constant transformation of neighborhoods. Who and what is authentic? How do they feel about such change? Why do people resent newness and new people? Can neighborhoods and cities stay static?
Lastly, I wonder how my reactions and experience reading the novel would differ if I was currently in high school compared to now as a twenty-three year old looking back on my early teenage years? I say this because I don’t know if I would enjoy and comprehend Mitchell’s novel in high school. I am for the most part enjoying the novel now because of the verbal wordplay and mainly the intertwining of ordinary life with Mitchell’s commentary of British society in the 1980s.

First half of Black Swan Green

I'm beginning to feel like I'm reading Jason"s journal rather than being told a story. It's the events of his day and I didn't think this was the direction that the story was headed in.
Hangman: I wished that Jason would have shared his "hangman's 4 commandments" with Mrs. de Roo. I think Students can really empathize with wishing they could have called out sick to avoid being embarrassed by an in school presentation. They can also empathize with how unfair teachers like Mr. Kempsy, can be.
Relatives: Who doesn't have moments like this chapter? The show that people put on in their own family to not feel inferior to their own relatives. This chapter showed Jason's longing to fit in and who he idolizes. His cousin gives him advice, and is a huge influence on who Jason wants to be. I rely enjoyed Jason's inner monologue in this chapter, the way he thinks the cigarette is "Vile" but tells his cousin it's "nice" (65) the way that you have to find a way to talk your way out of a situation and learn from your mistakes.
Bridle Path: This chapter confused me a bit. If I was Jason and had the whole house to myself, and was as excited as he was that no one else was home, my adventure would have been in the house. It seemed like a really forced way to talk about and meet other characters. The adventure he wanted to have seemed really disjointed. I'd probably have my students write a fictional account of this chapter where he stays home, a missing chapter, after having read the chapter. I'm not sure what I would have done in my classroom with the Tom Yew and Debbie Crombie scene. It opens the door to discussing Jason's tendencies to be voyeuristic instead of living life, but then again he's only 13. I'm not sure how I would handle this chapter. The opportunity to teach about the cold war and what was happening in the world at the time would be very tempting, but I realized that this is something I will have to really research and find connections to current event to help students understand the cold war.
Rocks: What a literal and figurative title. Jason's mom literally wanted Rocks in her garden, and Jason was growing a pair of "rocks" talking to someone as cool as Ewan, and Jason's parents' rocky marriage. Jason wonders about the cost of war, in the world and in his own family. The Koi fish scene was hilarious and made me laugh out loud.
Spooks: Jason finally gets some acceptance from his peers but is it all worth it?He's trying to balance who he really is with who he has to be around his peers. This chapter would really get students thinking, although I'm not sure how honest they would be about wanting to be "followers".
Solarium: This chapter had great quotes to analyze by Madame Crommelynck. "A wonderful, miserable age. Not a boy, not a teenager. Impatience but timidity too. Emotional incontinence" (146) She forces him to look at his writing in new ways. I might ask my students to write a poem under a pseudonym and see what the results would be.

January Man Reflection

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading this book. The vernacular was difficult to understand at times but I found myself getting more and more used to it the further I read. The contextual clues were usually enough to help me understand the slang terms being used, although I wouldn't be surprised if I have to look a few things up before the end of the book. The main character is very average and the narrative has a very Holden Caulfield vibe, although I find Jason Taylor to be much more likeable. The author does a great job bringing you into Taylor's world including all the nuances of young teenage social hierarchy. He also does a great job of pulling you into the story quickly with hints of things to come, ie. the strange phone calls to his dad's office and the old lady in the woods. I also really like the alter-egos of the narrator and the way they were introduced, casually without a lot of explanation but in a way that makes it clear to the reader through their varying voices what their purpose is in the mind of Jason Taylor. So far, it seems like a great book for young adults, so far it's realistic and uncontrived; the author doesn't sound like an adult trying to sound like a kid. The underlying self-deprecating humor makes it an easy read for adults, entertaining without being boring. It might be a bit more difficult for American students to understand because of all the British slang and pop culture references to Britain in the eighties but I think it would still be a good book to use in the classroom with the expectation of a little added explanation on the part of the teacher in regard to references made in the book that students may not understand.

Thoughts on Chapter 1

Black Swan Green is a hard book to get into. I say that as both me and “teacher me” thinking about my students reading the text. Mitchell asks the (American? 21^st Century?) reader to acquaint himself with the totally unfamiliar dialect and idioms of a British village circa 1982. I found myself having to use context clues time and again to try to understand what the characters were saying. This kind of reading asks you to be active, engaged. We don’t have “sixth form” (15) as a grade level in the U.S., for instance. As a reader, I had to use the clue that Julia, Jason’s sister, is 18 to guess what that meant. (I actually Googled it to remind me about the British schooling system. I could only hope students would try to be resourceful in this situation.) By chapter’s end, I found myself much more comfortable reading. And I appreciated the fast-flying 80s pop culture references throughout. They leant an authenticity to the story and character—from musical references to the Human League to movie references to Superman II.

Mitchell also asks us to become familiar with the terminology and characteristics of Jason’s interior world. So far, we know that he has three inner voices guiding him: Hangman (who seems to control his speech for fear of his impediment), Unborn Twin (a source of self-deprecation and social anxiety), and Maggot (a kind of superego). I really liked the casualness with which these voices were introduced. It was up to the reader to discern their purpose and place in the story. I also think they may be a useful tool to track Jason’s growth over the course of the novel. Which voices take prominence? Why? How will and do the power dynamics shift?

Finally, one theme I predict may be explored in the text—and that I think would be interesting to keep in mind when teaching this to a class—is Jason’s (and maybe the village’s) idea of social hierarchy. He’s thought a lot about what makes someone accepted. For example, Jason tells us that “names aren’t just names” (5). Rather, whether a child in Black Swan Green has a nickname, is called by his last name, is referred to by his first name, or so on, all reflects his social standing. There’s a code these children abide by and to Jason, at least, it ultimately defines people as being either important or unimportant. I wonder how his conceptions of these classifications will change during the course of the narrative. What factors will contribute to these changes and what will be the signifiers?

chapter 1

My first impression of Black Swan Green was that it had a Catcher in the Rye vibe. The struggles of a junior high school/ high school student who is going through a lot in his life. He experiments with how to behave around his peers, although Jason doesn't seem nearly as self destructive as Holden. Jason is afraid to show his peers how smart he is for fear of how ostracized he will be. He also (like Holden) seemed to have one family member that seemed to care about him, his grandfather, and he keeps his grandfather's watch in a safe place just as Holden does with Allie's glove. I'm probably think along the lines of Cather because my hope is that if I were to teach Black Swan Green I would be pairing it with Catcher.
My prediction is that Jason has a traumatic past that he will have to deal with with some professional help. His father seems to have a separate life from the family he lives with.
My difficulties with the text so far arose from my thinking about how I would teach this. The British lingo, and references, slang, games etc... are all things I circled and have to/ had to look up. There are so many that part of me doesn't know if it will turn students off. It's like that old saying, a joke isn't a joke if it has to be explained. How much will an explanation of all of these terms take away from the text. I'm picturing my students rolling their eyes at all the explaining. All the slang and references also make me wonder how I can make it relatable and tangible to their lives. Jason and his friends play on a frozen pond in the woods. Not many of my students will have experiences like that. Playing stick ball or basketball in their neighborhood would be comparable, but I feel like I may be reaching.

January Man

I found myself having to reread the first several pages of “Black Swan Green” because of the colloquial language and Mitchell’s play with punctuation/form. I was asking myself who is this narrator and why I am having so much difficulty with this text? The novel is written in English but I am learning new words and idioms. In addition, there are many political and British pop culture references that I’m completely ignorant about. I felt similar to when I read Salman Rushdie for the first time because I was completely oblivious to a specific culture and its history. Nor am I familiar with how teenagers speak from England, specifically the West Midlands of England. But after reading the text aloud, I’m growing accustomed to Jason’s vernacular and slang.

I slowly warmed up to Mitchell’s novel. Jason resonated with me because of how funny and ordinary his life is. His bland and unremarkable name, Jason Taylor, says it all. I enjoyed Jason’s monologue when he decides not to correct Ross Wilcox: “I was dying to tell that prat that actually, if the Japanese hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor, America’d never’ve come into the war, Britain’d’ve been starved into surrender, and Winston’s Churchill’d’ve been executed as a war criminal. But I knew I couldn’t (10). Jason feels somewhat ostracized, caught in limbo between the ‘cool’ kids and the ‘losers.’ I am reminded of Holden Caulfield in “Catcher in the Rye.” But I have a feeling that I’ll enjoy Black Swan Green more. I’m intrigued and curious about Jason’s father’s secret and who is calling him? And who is this enigmatic, old lady and her cryptic brother living in a cottage in the woods?