Scrap Happy

Whenever I see the warning signs for addiction, I can’t help thinking about my relationship with scrapbooking. Not to minimize the challenges people face in overcoming their demons, just to acknowledge the similarities between all kinds of fixations. As I talk to my students about the secret codes groups develop in their communication, I use scrapbook lingo and insider knowledge as examples. When I mention photo split squares fluttering out of your clothing and a few students non-verbally react with knowing glances at their friends, I know I’ve found a scrapping sister (or maybe brother someday). When I tell the story of seven year-old Keilana dragging a friend back up the stairs to slide down again in sleeping bags because “you can’t make a decent page with only two pictures,” the croppers get it. But the biggest connection seems to come when I admit to having staged my kids’ activities to match stickers or paper I want to use. Sad, but true. Also very common in scrapbooking circles. We’ve tried to get our children to eat popsicles adorably. We’ve draped our babies over pumpkins. But more than anything, we’ve dumped our kids in giant piles of leaves raked just for picture-taking occasions. I don’t think my kids have ever spontaneously played in the leaves, but I have many pages of pictures of them doing it--because there’s lots of really cute autumn paper. In Betsy Franco’s Fresh Fall Leaves, the kids are having fun. I wonder if it was their idea?

http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Fall-Leaves-Betsy-Franco/dp/0590962965

http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Betsy-Franco/1941168

The F-Word

When I used to team-teach a Rhetorical Criticism class at Chico State, the four of us would divide the semester’s lectures up according to our interests and strengths. The course goal was to teach students a variety of techniques for examining communication artifacts and determining their type and impact on human interaction. Given that I was often the only female instructor on the team and that my thesis had been a gender-specific critique, I always opted for teaching the Feminist Criticism lecture. Which was an interesting communication exercise in itself. First, I would get the “huffers”--baseball hat-wearing guys in the back row of the lecture hall who would slam down their pencils and engage in loud, impatient expulsions of air when they heard the day’s topic. Real Renaissance men. And then I would get the bulk of the rest of the class who would vocally object to being called feminists--even though they had already agreed by raise of hands that employment, family planning, and education should be equally shared. The very definition of feminism. I always felt I’d found the real F-word. So, what’s a forward-thinking gal or guy to do? Well, if you’re Robert Munsch and pretty much one of the best children’s authors ever, you write a kick-hiney book about girl power called The Paper Bag Princess. In this story, Elizabeth has a thing for Ronald, but has to get her open-up-a-can on when he is carried off by the dragon. It’s pretty fem-tastic. You should read it.

http://www.amazon.com/Paper-Bag-Princess-Classic-Munsch/dp/0920236162

http://robertmunsch.com/