Layering Instruction: Text Selection

ENGLISH 1A: Non-Fiction Reading and Writing
Fall 2020 Readings/Viewings:

All of the texts feature models of effective writing and present learning as a key theme. As the students are reading about rowing solo across an ocean or about octopuses and shellfish navigation, they are also reading about learning. Resilience (through preparation and practice) is another underlying theme. Four layers of instruction through text selection.

And I haven't started talking yet.

Martin Wells, Civilization and the Limpet

Tori Murden McClure, A Pearl in the Storm

Tim Severin, The Brendan Voyage

Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival

Films: Heart of the Sea and Fish People

and a collection of short essays on related topics.

Required Reading, Say I

Dreaming

I had meant to hit the water this past weekend, but the stormy weather kept me home. Because of the traffic and driving issues, actually. I managed two pool workouts though, so I'm placated, if not happy.

Out in the water on a stormy day? That's gravy, as long as I have a clear, doable exit.

On the highway over the Santa Cruz mountains in the pelting rain with all those fools who don't know how to drive in rain anyway? No, no thank you.

The above shot? January 8, 2012. A glorious day in Pacific Grove.

Tonight, I'm working on handouts for class (well, not right now) and reading around.

I'm rereading Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" for class.

I'm reading bits from Kaui Hart Hemmings' The Descendants, an excellent novel that has been made into a film with George Clooney recently. I'm rereading bits from Linda Greenlaw's The Lobster Chronicles and Ian Rankins' The Complaints.

I'm listening to Grace Potter and the Nocturnal's eponymous CD right now, and I'll replay it once more before putting in a quieter CD, one of Jack Johnson's.

I've a shot of Irish in some water, and I expect to drink a bit of tea too, English Breakfast, no doubt, before I crash out.

I recommend all of the above, by the way.

The handouts, though. I'd best get back to those.

Banks' "Raw Spirit": Making a Splash

I've been reading celebrated Scottish author Iain Banks' non-fiction Raw Spirit: In Search of the Perfect Dram. I felt I needed a bit of background and further knowledge of my current favorite beverage--Scotch--and this book seemed a lively entry-point and initial tour. So far, it more than suits. (And, I'll be looking for the novels by Banks that I haven't yet read.)

Today, I want to share a passage that has nothing to do with alcohol, though it does involve high spirits. Enjoy.

At Glenaladale, despite the fact I am 49 and Les very nearly is--Les rarely allows an opportunity to pass when he can remind me I am a whole three months older than he is--we spend a significant amount of time and effort skipping stones, trying to hit large stones with small ones while the former are in flight, throwing stones at logs, using thin or circular stones--spun--in our attempts to produce duck's farts, and sweatily heaving the largest rocks we can manage up to the tops of small cliffs so we can throw them into the water and so produce Really Big Splashes.

(Look, growing up is about this sort of stuff no longer being the only way you're allowed to have fun, not about having to give it up altogether.)

I've always thought so, and it's good to find my own sentiments in a book. Wouldn't you agree?

Make some splashes of your own.

Cheers!

Homework: Water Adventure Non-Fiction

Or, Happily Annotating.

This upcoming semester, I will be teaching a fairly recent water adventure book: Tori Murden McClure's A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. As the front cover sets forth, McClure becomes "the first woman to row alone across an ocean."

I've taught a fair amount of water and underwater nonfiction (and fiction), but I am particularly looking forward to reading and teaching this book with my classes. For one, McClure fails her first attempt to row across the Atlantic. The majority of the volume concerns this first voyage, this first attempt, and that seems fitting too. We shall see; I've read enough to know this book will work well, but I am in the midst of a true reading, a committed reading, with the classroom in my mind.

I don't just mean concocting vocabulary lists, quiz questions, and essay topics, but also conceiving exercises in practical imagination. For example, in a few minutes, I'm going out to the garage to pull out a handy blue tarp to be folded into the dimensions of McClure's rowboat, a robust 23' x 6', more or less. And if you imagine being confined to a space like that for, say, three months, there's more less than more involved.

Okay, where's that tarp?

Or a cardboard mock-up?

The possibilities . . . .

One reason why I teach, frankly: feeling out the possibilities, invoking the practical imagination.

McClure, Tori Murden. A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean. New York: Harper Collins, 2009. Print.

Annotations: Richard Henry Dana

Dana, Jr., Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative. New York: New American Library, 1964.

I should just quote Dan Duane's handling of this fine book in his Caught Inside--this fine book by educated Easterner Dana, college boy turned deckhand--but I won't. Wonderful guidebook through the world of a crewman as Dana ships out from the East Coast all the way down and around Cape Horn, up to California, and back. The chapters regarding California in the 1830's are classics, worthy of attention in a non-fiction English class treating local materials--though by "local" I must be including Santa Barbara and the Southern California coast. (Just as Duane does, I particularly like Dana's education via the Hawaiians' "work ethic": If we have enough money now for food, drink, and fun, why would we work?) California was part of Mexico at the time, and that aspect alone can provide the basis for good discussions into what students understand of California history. (I'm still looking for that Amazonian tribe and its queen that gave California her name.)

My parents believed in educating us even in our choice of comic books, and I first encountered Dana's story at a very young age through Classics Comics. I recall being captivated by the illustrations and dialogue presenting the tossing of cattle hides from clifftop to beach and then shouldering the hot, heavy hides through the surf out to a waiting boat. Why not throw those hides off the cliff instead of carrying them down? That seemed like an amazingly good question to ask, for me, at age 10 or so. (Years later, as an abalone diver on the North Coast, I'd remember this panel from the comic book and toss my own heavy lead weightbelt from the bluff down to the tideline. More recently, I tracked down a copy of that comic book and found those illustrations pretty much as I recollected.) In my 20's, I read Dana's narrative because Melville had read it and been influenced by it, and I kept the book on a shelf for revisiting.

P.S. In the Classics Comics version, the Hawaiians are edited out and replaced with Mexicans; I guess a comic book wouldn't have enough room to explain how Hawaiians were to be found working in Mexico's California. Still, the culture clash of work-driven 'Mericans and laid-back "natives" remains almost intact. Recall: Dana wanted to highlight the racism and cultural incomprehension that is so reprehensible.

Annotations: Robert Daley's TREASURE

Daley, Robert. Treasure. New York: Random, 1977.

If you have any interest in treasure-hunting and lost Spanish galleons, this gripping tale of Mel Fisher's long, often quixotic quest to find the Atocha and all the gold and silver that sailed inside her is the book for you. Mel Fisher's offbeat can-do attitude ranges from being inspiring to being terrifying; he puts himself and family members at great risk, financially and physically. The chapter detailing the unfortunate and accidental, though possibly preventable deaths of his eldest son, daughter-in-law, and crew members is very moving. I have read and reread this book for sheer engagement ("enjoyment" doesn't seem the right word) many times.

There are other versions of this story out there. I've looked at them, but Daley's narrative is the one for me.

Annotations: Lynne Cox, Swimmer

Cox, Lynne. Grayson. New York: A.A. Knopf, 2006.

I underestimated this book when it first came out, annoyed and distracted by the childishness (I thought) of the cover; also, I had thought the book a fictional fantasy of human-cetacean bonding. In fact, Grayson is a true account, well described, of the 17-year-old Cox's encounter with a seemingly lost baby whale during one of her usual training swims at Seal Beach, California, and of her efforts to swim with the whale, leading it away from the beach and the possibility of a fatal grounding, and to find the whale's mother . . . all while swimming. No boat, no jetski, no kayak, no surfboard, no airplane, no helicopter--and no wetsuit. Cox swims and swims and swims with the baby gray whale. As she describes all that water-time, we get vividly rendered scenes of swimming amidst schools of anchovies, with grunion, with tuna, with bat rays, with dolphins, and whales. Yes, the mother whale arrives to collect her errant offspring, and Cox heads for shore after about three hours in those rather chilly waters off Seal Beach. A well-told tale: I am glad that I have now read it, and I will give copies to family and friends as presents in the future.

This book could be a good English 90 or 92 text.

---. Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer. New York: Harcourt, 2005.

I discovered Cox's aquatic autobiography late in 2008, though I don't know how I had overlooked it before that. I love stories of open water swimming and of the strength of body, mind and spirit that such a pursuit demands. Jenifer Levin's novel Water Dancer has been a favorite novel on this topic for the last 25 or so years of my life--and I still love and prefer that novel to this book--but Swimming to Antarctica has the definite advantage of being non-fiction, of being a set of true tales. (I say "advantage" because students often prefer the non-fiction, the documentary, over stories that are merely made up. Fiction has its own advantages.) Cox is a very determined individual, more positive thinking than anyone I know, and with the life experiences and adversity to back up her positive modeling.

I recommend this book, and I started recommending it before I even finished it, as I read through that first chapter. I am now recalling the chapter in which Lynne Cox sets a record for crossing the English Channel at age 16, and I am wanting to know more; I want to reread now. Where's my copy of Swimming to Antarctica?

(Isn't that the best response to any book?)

Annotations: Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, with James Dugan. The Living Sea. New York: Ballantine, 1975.

Jacques Cousteau has always been one of my heroes. I have been a diver most of my life because of my father, my Uncle Bob, and Captain Cousteau. Here is one of his classic texts, a little dated now (originally published in 1963), but still a fine introduction to life in the sea and to human efforts to enter, to observe, and to understand that undersea life.

More importantly, perhaps, this book guides us through the earliest period of scuba-diving and the slow process of applying this new technology of diving to exploring the underwater world, revolutionizing the whole fields of marine biology and oceanography. I've always been a particular aficionado of this early period when scuba was new--and Jacques, remember, was a crucial co-inventor of scuba--and I have always loved reading about that learning curve, that series of trials and errors. Mostly, I just love going underwater with my hero. (Cousteau's famous ship, the Calypso, is the star of much of this book also. Cousteau and her crew are predominantly French, so they needed a container on shipboard that could hold enough wine: a stainless steel "barrel" able to hold three tons of prime vintage!)

I would use excerpts from this book and the next, but the style doesn't work as well as the subject matter does. For a truly inspiring author from this early period of scuba, I turn to Honor Frost, as we shall see.

Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, with Frederic Dumas and James Dugan. The Silent World. New York: Ballantine, 1977.

My favorite of Cousteau's books, originally published in 1950. I always wanted Cousteau to be my father when I first read as a young man--and even as I reread--his description of introducing his two sons to the undersea world. In this volume, we get the true beginning of the scuba-story, complete with the free diving foundation, staving off starvation during World War II through spearfishing (with curtain rods, actually). This book provides the beginning and middle of the "menfish" dream that inspired Cousteau in his efforts to penetrate and plumb the depths; the end of that dream still lies in the future, I would hope and claim. Every diver everywhere owes something to Jacques; when warming up after my own dives, I wear the signature red stocking cap in honor of the Calypso's captain and crew.

Note: The undersea world is actually quite noisy; everybody who puts his or her head underwater for any length of time knows this, and so Cousteau has received a certain amount of criticism and even ridicule for his apparently inappropriate title. If you actually read the book, you find the episode in which his two boys are so excited as their father puts masks on their faces and regulators in their mouths and brings them underwater amongst the fishes, so excited that they can't stop talking, not even to breathe properly, talking so much that the regulators keep falling out of their mouths. Cousteau attempts to focus his children--and safeguard them--by pointing out that the sea is a "silent world" and they need to stop talking for a bit -- and perhaps participate in that "silence" or at least listen, but the two boys are simply too excited by the wonders before them to listen to their father. Who can blame them?

Hence, his quite appropriate and memorable title.

Annotations: Eddie Would Go

Coleman, Stuart Holmes. Eddie Would Go: The Story of Eddie Aikau, Hawaiian Hero and Pioneer of Big Wave Surfing. New York: St Martins, 2001.

I like this book, and I like to use it in my English 93 classes.

At first, I felt the book presented a key Hawaiian figure, Eddie Aikau, in a fine, though perhaps too journalistic way. By that I mean, when I assign books to my students, I want the style and the organization as well as the obvious subject matter to be worth attention and emulation, and I underestimated Coleman's presentation at first. His style on the level of the sentence is solid, though unremarkable; however, his organization on the chapter level and within each chapter is intelligent and thoughtful, worth close attention, especially at the English 93 level.

I also appreciate this book for the heroics and the frailty of the main figure, Eddie Aikau. I appreciate the presentation of Hawaiian history, of the difficult and necessary Hawaiian Renaissance, and of specific personal and social issues that waylay the people in the book. The writing is accessible and engaging, and yet in assigning the reading, I can be demanding in terms of student understanding and retention of information in ways that seem perfectly appropriate and useful.

I have teamed this book with three documentaries: Heart of the Sea, Surfing for Life, and Bustin' Down the Door. The first two videos offer significant models for living that our students deserve to be faced with: legendary and extraordinary Rell Sunn, her pioneering surf-career, and her fight against breast cancer; Doc Ball, Fred van Dyke, Peter Cole, Woody Brown, Rabbit Kekai, Anona Napoleon, among others--all surfers in their 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's! Both videos offer lots of history and social issues as well. The third documentary--Bustin' Down the Door--had a mainstream theatrical release in the summer of 2008, so you may have seen it recently. Eddie Aikau and his brother Clyde Aikau both appear in the film, though the focus is on the Australian and South African surfers who galvanized the sport, who created a professional sport, of surfing. Coleman devotes a chapter to the material in the Bustin' DVD, so using the video is actually essential. (Besides, the tale of Rabbit Bartholomew and Shaun Tomson is gripping in its own right.)

Annotations: Chowdhury & Clark

Chowdhury, Bernie. The Last Dive: A Father and Son's Fatal Descent into the Ocean's Depths. New York: Harper Collins, 2000.

A detailed document of a tragedy, psychological profiling, and clear-eyed descriptions of diving, salvaging, and aquatic adventure . . . and yet I can never keep the specific details of the book in my mind. Perhaps the father/son issues are too close to home for me, though I don't think so. I'm glad I read the book, and yet I guess I need to reread it.

Clark, Eleanor. The Oysters of Locmariaquer. New York: Harper, 2006.

I love this book, and I even learned to love oysters after reading it. While I prefer more localized books for this project, I enjoyed learning the French history and processes of oyster-farming. Clark writes lyrically at times, and her more everyday paragraphs still sing. I love reading practical material, but I really love practical material in a clear, individual style, with a voice that sounds like itself, not like anyone else, and yet that uniqueness is an invitation, not a barrier, to go deeper and further into the subject. Am I gushing too much?

Annotations: Birkett, Blossom, Blum

As part of a research project, I have produced an annotated bibliography of 129 nonfiction texts, all associated with aquatic subjects.

Here are three more entries:

Birkett, Dea. Serpent in Paradise. New York: Anchor, 1998.

This is an annoying book that I finished more to find out about Pitcairn Island, the most isolated inhabited island on the Earth, than to discover anything more about the author. Generally, I like such a mix of autobiography, obsession, history, sociology, and adventure, but in Birkett's hands, the narrative becomes a spiteful, depressing pile of gossip and innuendo at the expense of the Pitcairn Islanders who were good enough to welcome Birkett to their very small island. Still, worth reading once to find out what has been happening to the Pitcairn Islanders since Fletcher Christian and his crew of mutineers began to populate this refuge after the Mutiny on the Bounty. Or, barely worth reading? I'm still debating that one.

Blossom, Laurel, Ed. Splash: Great Writing about Swimming. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco, 1996.

Blossom's anthology is a mix of fiction and nonfiction, actually. It's a fine collection that brings together classic short pieces (Cheever's "The Swimmer" and Updike's "The Lifeguard") with a full array of poetry and practical nonfiction all on the theme of swimming. I wish that Ben Franklin's lessons on how to swim were included also, but I know where to find that piece anyway.

Blum, Mark. Beneath the Sea in 3-D. San Francisco: Chronicle, 1997.

I love this photographic wonder: just as the title says. Whenever I teach essays regarding the ocean or fish or even just looking closely to discover truly, I bring this book and pass it around. Chronicle Books has a winner here.

Annotations: Bascom, Bentos, Berrill & Berrill

As part of a research project, I have produced an annotated bibliography of 129 nonfiction texts, all associated with aquatic subjects.

Here are three more entries:

Bascom, Willard. The Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography. New York: Anchor, 1990.

Great book. If I had been able to read this book at age twelve, I'd probably be an oceanographer. Bascom has led a vital, varied professional life within that general rubric of oceanographer, and he obviously relishes challenges and learning from challenges. Bascom's narrative lives up to its title, since he was a forerunner in many oceanographic fields. An excellent book to show the advances of technology through the hands-on efforts of actual scientists. I can imagine using excerpts in my English 1A classes along with other essays on practical scientific topics.

P.S. I love the chapter in which Bascom and a fellow scientist use the most modern tool at the time for measuring the ascending depths of the beaches in Washington and Oregon: lead and line. One man drove the amphibious craft from deep water through the surf and up unto the beach, and the other man heaved and retrieved the lead-weighted line, calling out specific depths as they careened through whitewater and onto the sand. Then, Bascom and company hit surf and sand again and yet again. (After such labor, Bascom went on to birth Waves and Beaches, the standard academic text on the subject for many years.)


Bentos, Carlos. A Crew of One: The Odyssey of a Solo Marlin Fisherman. New York: Penguin Putnam, 2002.

Bentos tells a good story, and he has the experience to back it up. Most marlin fishermen work in teams. Bentos does it all--solo. A good book to set beside Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, though Hemingway is still the better writer and tells the better story.


Berrill, N.J., and Jacquelyn Berrill. 1001 Questions Answered About the Seashore. New York: Dover, 1957.

The title tells you all, or pretty much. Some of the material is outdated, but the ambition of this book and the practicality of approaching science through reasonable Q & A predates the Frequently Asked Questions so common, and rightly so, today. I like to browse in this book, and I am planning to offer sections to students to model inquiry, response, and habits of organization.

Annotations: Ahrens, Ambrose, Bartholomew

As part of a research project, I have produced an annotated bibliography of 129 nonfiction texts, all associated with aquatic subjects. I read far further in water-related fiction and nonfiction in the last eight months, but I decided on the specific bibliography in relation to teaching my courses, English 1A, English 93, and the prospective elective "Literature and the (Aquatic) Environment." Of course, not all 129 books on my list would suit our courses, but I had to read (or reread) to discover such fitness or lack of fitness. I share my findings for each one itself and for the critical model at work.

Here are the first three books in the bibliography:

Ahrens, Chris. Good Things Love Water: A Collection of Surf Stories. Cardiff, CA: Chubasco, 1994

This is a playful collection, good on details and in touch with the early days of the Southern California and Hawaiian surf-scenes. Mostly, Ahrens shares stories from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. He sets up each story, and then lets the narrative unfold. Ahrens has a bit of a chip on his shoulder--past teachers had told him he'd never be a writer--but that just adds energy to the delivery.


Ambrose, Greg. Shark Bites: True Tales of Survival. Honolulu, HI: Bess Press, 1996.

The perfect beach read, in its way, with these stories of shark attacks in an accessible, brief form: "bites." Not much in the way of science, but the emphasis on the human element makes this volume good for borrowing to use with students.


Bartholomew, Wayne "Rabbit," and Tim Baker. Bustin' Down the Door. New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

Set mostly in the mid-1970s, Bustin' Down the Door is a useful history through the eyes of a key participant in the short board revolution and in the Hawaiian/Australian explosion when the trash-talking sports from Down Under discover that the native Hawaiians, frustrated by the history and legacy of oppression by outsiders, consider such trash-talking to be disrespectful to a potentially fatal degree. The book documents both Rabbit's career and the development of professional surfing.

The DVD of the same name would be a wonderful companion; the DVD is better at focusing on the developing dream of professional surfing, as surfing as an actual sport in popular culture, than the book. The DVD would be the better choice when teamed with Coleman's Eddie Would Go.


Postscript: Good sports writing and popular science writing can be golden for our students. Real-world-based prose (if that phrase works for you); usually accessible to the common reader, though usually demanding as well; often quite dramatic in nature; replete with information, imagery, and action.