Crank Deconstruction

At first when I started reading Crank I was just flying through the book. I was reading at a very surface level in the sense I was just reading the words on the page. I did notice of course that the words were disjointed, that they sometimes formed shapes that seemed to correspond to what was being talked about on that particular page. But I didn't really do much deconstructing of the text and the language beyond that.

I unfortunately missed the Deconstructive Theory presentation, but I'm sure it was wonderful. So I had to do some digging through the chapter to get caught up, and I helped myself out, as it is a pretty hefty complicated theory, with some useful Wikipedia advice. I found the following on Wikipedia: "Deconstruction generally attempts to demonstrate that any text is not a discrete whole but contains several irreconcilable and contradictory meanings; that any text therefore has more than one interpretation; that the text itself links these interpretations inextricably; that the incompatibility of these interpretations is irreducible; and thus that an interpretative reading cannot go beyond a certain point" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deconstruction). That made it a bit easier for me. So after doing that I changed the way I read Crank about halfway through. I started reading for these different interpretations that were parts of a whole. This made the reading so much more interesting in ways. For example, on page 195, the chapter called "I slithered down the hall," could be broken down using deconstructive theory. I read the whole thing first as a complete text. I then read just the words on the left hand side of the page. There were gaps that my mind filled in, but really were missing words that made it seem incomplete. The emphasis on the left, the message I got was the story of a girl washing in a shower, her leg infected, and she is angry and sad. If I opened the book just to this page and read, it would be unclear as to whether the angry purple welt she describes is a bruise from being beaten by Adam, an old wound of sorts, or something else (like the tattoo that we know it to be). But the interesting part for me was when I read just the words on the right hand side of the page: "shed...skin...found...Kristina...beneath" (195). Taken in context with the title of the page, it was like a mini poem of a metaphor of a girl to a snake. In context with the story this made the fragmentation of her mind even more profound. She was Bree in Albuquerque, but she takes a shower in Reno, and literally washes that self away with the dust and dirt and everything else.

I continued to read the story in this way, picking apart the different meanings and constructions behind the language. I didn't go so far as to decipher individual words, and what their meaning could be, what we assume their meaning is, and then the other meanings that may linger behind that which add layers to the understanding of the story and the message, but I found this as a really interesting, if not overwhelming at times, way to read a text. I would be intimidated to teach this particular theory to secondary students myself without some further instruction and help getting a handle of the theory, and I would worry that they would find it time-consuming and tedious and horror of all horrors...boring. But I really liked the text, and liked experimenting with the theory.

Crank: How it scared me

I appreciate Crank, I've never taken so much time and thought about how frightening the state of addiction is. At first I thought the story would be hard to follow. The strangely designed prose, I thought, might throw me off and the idea that short, poetic pieces could relay an entire stort wrought with so much pain and tragedy was not something I could immediately grasp. But it became clear the story would be easy to follow and, the book, a quick but greatly impacting book.

The deconstructive theory group's presentation offers a strategy to put the sometimes oddly laid out sentence/stanza structure in perspective. When the words are randomly strewn across the page, or seemingly randomly strewn, I get the feel for a state of chaos. Or, when one word is set apart, the focus becomes greater for that word. If the four lines before it all culminate with one WORD, then obviously that is done to make some sort of point. In other cases comments by separate characters would be paralleled in the writing. Chase's comments and Bree/Kristina's would be placed juxtaposition to show their parallel similarity and inherent differences.

But the thing about this book that I will remember was how hard it hit me. Addiction, it seems worse than solitary confinement in the world's most hardened prisons. The way it can ruin a life without the person even taking a step back, then the clear vision of hind sight only serves as a kick in the ass to remind you of the turmoil you let your life descend into. I really felt a little frightened after reading the book. This was a girl with a cushy life. All that changed were her influences, a summer around the wrong people and a little self-consciousness went a long way in the wrong way.

Crank

I am glad that the Deconstructive Theory group presented before we read this book- I think that it helped me while reading the text and it also helped me to analyze what exactly I was reading.

Before I read the book, I was not sure about how I was going to like it. The cover seemed different and it was not something that I would have gravitated towards if picking my own book. However, I was very impressed at how well the book held my attention and how quickly I read the book.

I really liked how the author not only had crank represent a drug, but crank also seemed to be another character in the novel. For me, this helped to solidify the idea that this drug played a part in almost every area of her life.

Another part of the book that at first I was disappointed in, but later appreciated, was the ending. I was expecting Kristina to have her baby, come clean and represent more of a success story. While some of this was true (she had the baby and had, for now, come clean) it did not seem as if she would remain a drug-free person. Unfortunately, this is normally the case in real life. Many teenagers who use drugs end up in situations such as this and they often battle with this monster for the rest of their lives.

I think that this ending was very appropriate because I think that it teaches students the reality of things- you cannot just start using addicting drugs and quit when you want to. The fact that Chase went off to college and Kristina was home, raising a baby on her own hits home for many high schoolers- they don't want to be the ones sitting at home while their friends are away enjoying college.

I would definitely recommend this book for high school students. I think that it would be something easy for them to relate too and I think that it also teaches them that choices have consequences and they cannot always be fixed easily.

Crank Structure

When I first began reading Crank I thought I would be incredibly annoyed by the way the text was shaped on the page. However, once I got into the book I couldn't stop reading it, literally. I found that the text construction gave the book a flow that my mind couldn't break out of, so I just kept reading until I was nearly finished in one sitting. The shapes of the text give each page a different flow and show the reader that certain sentences, words, or phrases should be given more emphasis than another. I chose a few pages as examples of how I interpreted the text.

On page 69 each line is only one word, making a straight vertical line down the page. When I first read this I read it word by word, sounding like I couldn't put a sentence, or even a phrase, together. I think that this depicts Bree's (or you could say Kristina's) feeling while she's on the drug. I just pictured her mind running a hundred miles an hour, her thoughts completely changed from her normal state, and this is what could come out of her mouth. Especially at the end of the page the last four words "you crash real hard" are all double spaced and bold. I found this page a successful way to show the effects of the drug on her mind and body.

Another passage I was interested in was pages 88 and 89. There are five words that are indented to the right, while the rest of the text is indented to the left. I really liked this passage because you could read the five words indented to the right, "coaster car climb drop monster" as its own entity. Through these words you can still get the meaning of the passage, that the drugs make Bree rise then fall and crash like a roller coaster, without reading the whole description. Another example of this that I liked was on pages 326 and 327.

The last passage I want to mention is from pages 405 to 407. This is a perfect example of using the movement of the text to describe the meaning on the page. Pages 405 to 406 demonstrate the rhythm her life used to have before she did drugs, with the words on the page having a pattern of five descending words in a line. Then, on page 407 when she discusses getting high all the words are scattered around the page, showing that she has lost rhythm of her old life before the drugs.

I really enjoyed the different textual patterns throughout the book because the text's meaning could change depending on how you decided to read the words, which changed from page to page.

What were some of your favorite pages?

Crank and Censorship

One of the reasons that we are reading Crank during the same week as our discussion of censorship is that last fall the book was challenged and Ellen Hopkins became very vocal about the issue of censorship.

Hopkins wrote a play-by-play on her livejournal, beginning with an entry on September 17 and extending through the next several months. After reading the book and Hopkins' entries, what do you find to be either persuasive or not persuasive about the school's choice to cancel her visit? What issues and values are at stake?

You might also browse the American Library Association page on censorship for more information on the history of censorship in schools, intellectual freedom, and concrete steps teachers, librarians, and other community members can take if a book is challenged. Are there any resources or ideas that might help us make sense of the challenges to Crank?

Crank discussion

Here are several interlated questions to get us started discussing Crank:

• In what ways is Crank YAL? How does it work as a "problem novel"?
• What did you find powerful, surprising, or troubling? What made it so?
• What was the ideological message of the text? To draw on our discussion of deconstructive criticism, any mixed messages? If so, what do we (re)make of them?

As always, try to refer and/or quote specific passages in the text as support or to generate discussion.

Week 13: On-line class (Tuesday) and Crank discussion/activity (Thursday)

I'm sorry for the late notice but, as I said in class, I will need to miss class this upcoming Tuesday. Instead, we'll do an on-line discussion.  So...no face-to-face class Tuesday, 4/13. 

On-line discussion:
Your on-line participation will take the place of the 1-page critical reflection listed on the syllabus.

• Read Crank by Ellen Hopkins and the articles in the coursepack on censorship/selection. 
• I will post several "discussion starter posts"  to focus discussion.
• Before Tuesday, choose a discussion strand that interests you and write an initial comment that responds to a facet of the prompt. If you want to discuss a topic that doesn't seem to be captured by any of these posts, feel free to write your own post to start a new strand of discussion.
• Return to the blog sometime between Tuesday and Thursday, skim the discussion strands, and respond to at least 2 other people's comments.

Remember that comments don't have to be lengthy, as long as they are responsive and substantive.

For Thursday:

Please bring your copy of Crank. We can spend a little time extending the discussion we will have started on the blog, but we'll spend the bulk of our session exploring how the text is shaped by the fact that it is written in verse. We'll use a modified form of Reader's Theater to explore the questions: What changes when we attend to the shape and sound of the poetry, rather than reading it silently to ourselves? What does this say about language? Meaning? (Deconstructive theory) Although I have already selected some of the poems from the book that we might use for this activity, if you have particular favorites, please mark them as options for your group to present. 

I know some of the content in the book may be more or less comfortable to members of the class and that everyone has different comfort levels "performing" in front of groups. I've structured the activity in a way that I hope everyone will be able to make participation choices with which they feel comfortable. Despite the fact that I've just used the word "comfort" three times, I also hope people come willing to take some risks!