"A Blessing," James Wright

James Wright, "A Blessing."

Today is our last opportunity to revise our Submissions Portfolios before they are due tomorrow.  Please be sure to follow the formatting of the sample linked to on yesterday's post.

Also be sure to take time to name the two most effective reading blogs in the comments to yesterday's post.

"Unfortunate Location," Louis Jenkins

"Unfortunate Location"

In the front yard there are three big white pines, older
than anything in the neighborhood except the stones.
Magnificent trees that toss their heads in the wind
like the spirited black horses of a troika. It's hard to
know what to do, tall dark trees on the south side of
the house, an unfortunate location, blocking the
winter sun. Dark and damp. Moss grows on the roof,
the porch timbers rot and surely the roots have
reached the old bluestone foundation. At night, in
the wind, a tree could stumble and fall killing us in
our beds. The needles fall year after year making an
acid soil where no grass grows. We rake the fallen
debris, nothing to be done, we stand around with
sticks in our hands. Wonderful trees.

--Louis Jenkins

Our next two days are designed for revision conferences.  I plan to spend time with every one of you going over at least one of your submissions from this first quarter. 

Your submissions portfolio is due, printed, at the beginning of class on Thursday.  When compiling yours, please follow the model I placed on the class notes page, here.

Your only other responsibility between now and Thursday is to name two blogs from your class that you think have the most interesting reading logs of the quarter.  Who read the most interesting or challenging stuff?  Who responded to it in the most thoughtful way?  Pick two from your class and name them in a response to this post (please designate your class, "ETY1," e.g.) before the end of class Thursday.

Submission #4: Blog Assignment

Our submission portfolios will be due next Wednesday.  I will have a sub-folder open on my Homework folder for you to drop a file in by 8:00 a.m. that day.  Your file should contain revised versions of only three of the four submissions you have made this quarter. 

Remember that these submissions need to be true analytical arguments, not evaluations or personal responses. Today, I'd like us to practice telling the difference between these three.  On your blogs today, I'd like you to do some collecting:

(1) Name and link to two blogs, from any of our three classes, who have nice argumentative claims in their submission #4 and quote those claims in your post.

(2) Quote lines from two blogs, from any class, where they are working in the mode of either personal response or evaluation.  Quote any lines in which, for example, they might say that their subject is "worthwhile for everyone" or "good" or something like that (that is, evaluative) or if it talks in first person about how they feel about something.

"Three Dog Night," Faith Shearin

"Three Dog Night"

In the old days, before houses were warm,
people did not sleep alone. Not even
widows went by themselves into

the cold sheets of night. Rooms were
lit with lanterns and children were
encouraged to jump on their beds,

warming themselves, before they
crawled inside. You might sleep with
your cousin or sister, your nose

buried in the summer of their
hair. You might place a baked potato
in your blanket to help it remember

warmth. A fire would be lit but, after
awhile, it would smolder down
to the bone silence of ash. Everything

was cold: the basin where you washed
your face, the wood floor, the windows
where you watched your breath

open over the framed blur of snow.
Your hands and feet were cold
and the trees were cold: naked,

traced in ice. You might take a dog
to bed or two or three, anything to lie
down with life, feel it breathing nearby.

--Faith Shearin

"Joy in a Random Universe," Helin Chasin

"Joy in a Random Universe"

Sometimes I’m happy: la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la. Tum tum ti tum. La la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la.
Hey nonny nonny. La la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la. Vo do di o do.
Poo poo pi doo. la la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la. Whack a do. La la la la la la la la. Sh-
boom, sh-boom. La la la la la la la la la la
la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la
la la. Dum di dum. La la la la la la la la.
la la la la la la la la. Tra la la. Tra la la
la la la la la la la la la la. Yeah yeah yeah.

--Helin Chasin

Submission Portfolio: Points of Emphasis

We are moving into our final submission before our 1^st quarter portfolio, so it is a good time to start paying closer attention to your own analytical style.  When I grade the portfolios of your work, here again are the key elements I will be looking for:

(1)    Claims—On the “left side,” do they contain nice general observations of Setting, Character, Action, or Style?  On the”right side,” do they contain nice general inferences about the tone effects caused by these observed elements? 

Also remember that your claim can be just a left side claim or a right side claim—they don’t always have to have both. 

(2)     Description—Do you do a nice job of making specific observations/descriptions that support your claim?  Do you occasionally use figurative descriptions?  Do you ever compare elements to other, outside examples that your reader might know?  (“Watts looks a little like Zack Galifianakis on a bad hair day.”)

(3)    Discussion—Do you elaborate, even if just a little, on the tone or theme of your subject?  Do you occasionally use figurative descriptions of tone?

Some common mis-steps that you should look out for in your own writing:

(a)    This kind of writing should not be in the first person: no “I” or “I feel,” etc.  So-called “academic third person” sounds more authoritative and credible.

(b)   Write in the present tense when describing your work.

(c)    Do not “evaluate” the work.  That is, avoid descriptions or attempted inferences that claim elements of the work are “amazing” or “masterful.”  In analysis, we care not that you like the work; we care about how the thing works—your job is give us one way to look at the way the piece creates an artistic effect.

(d)   Avoid making inferences that refer to “the reader” or “the viewer,” like “These images help the viewer see the artist’s point more clearly.”  These are inferences we usually make when we don’t know what else to say—your work is to tell us the “point” of that work, to put it into your own words.

Look for examples of these points of emphasis in a future blog post.

Short List 2.21.12

1.  Leanne Shapton: Thursday Nights Out. 
Shapton has a style that almost makes you think you could be an artist. You think this partly because her watercolors all seem drawn with a fat brush, are more water than color, and don't seem to care about staying in the lines, if there are even lines.  It's also because she's making art out of the spare minutes of her life.  A friend in a chair, a friend at a restaurant.  Makes you realize how much art is happening around you at all times.

2. "Urnatur," an eco hotel featured on the blog Anthropologist.

When I first saw this photo and video spread, I thought that it was only a place for faeries, or at least people from Iceland or whatever remote northern European woods it was located in.  And then we figured out it was a hotel.  We could stay there.  We never, ever will, but we could.  That sense of possibility lets my imagination take quick trips there every once in awhile.

Places like this always prompt me to wonder "what if?"  The simplicity, the proximity to nature, the lack of wires and wi-fi and, well, electricity, doesn't look threatening here as much as it does liberating. 


3.  Reggie Watts, "I Just Want To"

Kind of like Leanne Shapton, Reggie Watts makes you want to buy a piece of audio sampling equipment from a local pawn shop and start making your own amazing music.  Even my 7 year old, when watching this, said "Dad I want one of those."

"Fishing on the Susquehanna," Billy Collins

Today's poem: "Fishing on the Susquehanna," Billy Collins

Today: Nominate the best work from submission #3.  In a comment to this post, identify the class (e.g., "ETY1") and the names of the two blogs with the most impressive formal podcast responses for submission #3.

In addition, browse the class short lists and come up with one or two possible subjects that look the most interesting to you and would be good subjects to observe and discuss as a class.  You don't need to post those anywhere--just have them in mind for when we re-convene as a class.

"The Sacred," Stephen Dunn

Today's poem is found at The Writer's Almanac.

This week's SAT error type: Parallel Structure.  Here is a link to what OWL has to say on the subject.  The short exercises on this error type will be due on Thursday along with vocab homework, and parallel structure will be tested in some additional questions on that test, along with some review questions from the past error types we have studied.

Two submissions this week: Sub #3, from Podcast Week, is due on Tuesday.  Sub #4, an interpretive response, is due on Friday.  A short List is due tomorrow, too. 

TODAY, visit the blogs of peers who posted informal responses to the same episode of This American Life that you did, read their responses, and post at least two comments that agree or disagree with their remarks, briefly expanding on your reaction to their ideas.  Browse the blogs of students in this or any other class.

After commenting, work on your draft for Submission #3.

"Music, when soft voices die," Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Music, when soft voices die," Percy Bysshe Shelley

Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory,
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

--Percy Bysshe Shelley

"February Ground," Marge Piercy

"February Ground"

Three feet of snow in twenty-four hours
on top of seven inches. Not really
credible here. On the fourth day
we found the car under a six
foot drift and dug it out.

At first we could not open doors.
The post office shut for two days.
Our road had vanished into a field.
We felt the sky had finally
fallen and drowned us.

Six weeks: now patches of ground
emerge from white fortresses.
How beautiful is the dirt
I took for granted. Extraordinary
the wild green of grass islands.

Having the world snatched
from us makes us grateful even
for fence posts, for wheelbarrow
rising, for the stalwart spears
of daffodil uncovered.

Everything revealed is magical,
splendid in its ordinary shining.
The sun gives birth to rosebushes,
the myrtle, a snow shovel fallen,
overcome on the field of battle.

--Marge Piercy

Today, choose a podcast from yesterday's short list, and listen, taking notes for things like useful quotations.

By tomorrow, you should compose an informal blog post of 100 words about the episode you are responding to.  This response should note comparisons and contrasts between the 2-3 segments in your episode that you plan to focus on: compare and contrast observations between these segments or thematic/tonal inferences.

Please title your post so that it includes the title of the podcast you chose, like this: "Podcast response:  Notes on Camp."

Podcast Week: The TAL Shortlist

Today's love poem: "Windchime," by Tony Hoagland.

And here is our podcast shortlist for this week.  Today, we'll listen to the intro segments for each, and tomorrow, you need to choose one to listen and respond to for submission #3, due Monday.  Be sure to bring some headphones with you to class.

Middle School

Notes on Camp

Music Lessons

"Having a Coke with You," Frank O'Hara; Podcast Week

Today's poem is presented here by its author in one of the view videos available of him reading his own work.  Watching it is one of the best ways to get a feel for the conversational insouciance of O'Hara.  He's both breezy and deeply affecting at the same time, and it looks easier to pull off than it is.

This week at The Spartan Reader is Podcast Week.  Instead of your usual shortlist, I will provide you with a short list of This American Life podcasts that you can choose from and prepare an interpretive response to for submission #3, which will be due on Monday of next week. 

Today, we will watch a video version of one of their stories that appeared on their Showtime television show.

"Flirtation," Rita Dove

Today's poem: "Flirtation," by Rita Dove.

Friday's agenda:  Four comments on blogs from a section other than your own.  Try to leave two on submissions, two on reading responses.

Regroup for multi-eight, room 1(b). 

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.

from Walt Whitman's Preface to the 1855 Edition of "Lyrical Ballads"

"This Poem Doesn't Care That it Isn't a Sonnet," Laurie Lamon

Today's poem is located at Willow Springs.

Today, prepare submission #2, which is due at the beginning of the day on Friday.

It should be interpretive.  If you are having trouble deciding on a proper subject to interpret, try browsing the constantly updated links to artists of all kinds at "It's Nice That"and "Wall to Watch."

"Astrolabe," Dawn Potter

Dawn Potter, "Astrolabe"

 This week, I would like submission #2, which is due on Friday, to be an interpretive response.  What text you analyze is still up to you, but I would like your response to be interpretive in nature (of some text that compels you to draw inferences about an implied meaning or tone), rather than a review (which is evaluative) or a critical response (where you are responding to an explicit main idea).

Today, browse the blogs of your classmates and leave at least three comments on blogs, telling them (a) one item on their short list that would be the most interesting, most appropriate for an interpretive response, and (b) what you think they might be able to analyze about that piece--what they should observe and infer about it. 

Hill short list 2.7.12

1.  This Must Be The Place
As stated on their web site, TMBTP is a "series of short films that explore the idea of home;
what makes them, how they represent us, why we need them."  Three short video clips depict dramatically different settings that each, in their own way, count as a home.

2. A Restless Transplant
Guy quits his job in NYC with some fashionable magazine, buys a van, travels around the west surfing, camping, and taking pictures.  Brief captions accompany the photographs that document this trip, which I have been following for a few months now.  I can't decide if there is a purpose to it, or if he is learning anything, or if he is just accumulating material for a book so that he can somehow cash on in it all.  But I keep watching.

3.  Bout Time: Claressa Shields
Short film about a high school student in Flint, Michigan who is training to be a boxer.  Some desperate images of the city and her surroundings contrast with her own sanguine attitude, but she admits this is all a tool to help her survive a situation that ruins most people. 

"Here, Bullet," Brian Turner

Here, Bullet
If a body is what you want,
then here is bone and gristle and flesh.
Here is the clavicle-snapped wish,
the aorta’s opened valves, the leap
thought makes at the synaptic gap.
Here is the adrenaline rush you crave,
that inexorable flight, that insane puncture
into heat and blood. And I dare you to finish
what you’ve started. Because here, Bullet,
here is where I complete the word you bring
hissing through the air, here is where I moan
the barrel’s cold esophagus, triggering
my tongue’s explosives for the rifling I have
inside of me, each twist of the round
spun deeper, because here, Bullet,
here is where the world ends, every time.

Today:


1. Sub #1 Nominations: Finish nominating the two blogs with the most impressive and interesting submissions from last Friday.  Simply identify, in the comments to last Friday's post, the two blogs that have the most authentically analytical responses to their text.

2.  Inference Exercise: Two parts for this exercise, which will need to be printed (to copier 2035) and handed in today.  (Part A) Browsing blogs for a class other than your own, copy the best interpretive response you have come across, paste it into a word document, and then deconstruct it into its analytical elements by underlining all statements of observation, italicizing all statements of inference. See the sample document "deconstructing a text" on the school notes page for an example of how this is done.  The last paragraph is coded (in blue and red) to show obs. and inf.

(Part B) Again, browsing the blogs for a class other than your own, find one response that contains no analysis of its text.  Copy it into your document, too, and then provide a brief, 3-5 sentence informal discussion of what you believe they could have inferred and analyzed about their subject.  Ideally, their text will be something with an implicit main idea, but one that they simply did not actually analyze, perhaps because they are still a little confused about the nature and process of analysis, which is perfectly understandable. 

3.  In addition to your name in the header, please add your email address to this document because our class blog will be going private soon, and I will need an email address in order to give you access.  Probably best to use the address you used for your Blogger account.

4.  If you have time, you may proceed to compile short list #2, which is due tomorrow.

"Autopsy in the Form of Elegy," Josh Stone

In the chest
in the heart
was a vessel

was the pulse
was the art
was the love

was the clot
small and slow
and the scar
that could not know

the rest of you
was very nearly perfect.

Today: Name the two blogs that contain the most impressive submissions this week.  Please identify your class period, too.

Poetry Out Loud Results

To all of our 2012 contestants,  first let me convey how impressed Ms. Barrett was today.  "Head and shoulders better than last year" was one comment she made, and I agree.

The judging was especially difficult compared to past years; several of the contestants could have represented Homestead in impressive fashion, and I wish you could all go state.  But we had to choose one, and in the end accuracy points ended up making a difference in the final standings--it was that close.  So here are the results:

First Place: Monica Dollive
1st Alternate: Clair Pranger

Finalists: Danielle Wildrick, Sahand Emamian, Darby Cook

If she is able, Monica will represent us at the state finals in Indianapolis on Saturday, February 25.  Congratulations to her, and to everyone who participated.  By competing today, you asked more of yourselves than is common, and you should be proud of that.

"At the Galleria Shopping Mall," Tony Hoagland

"At the Galleria Shopping Mall," Tony Hoagland

Just past the bin of pastel baby socks and underwear,

there are some 49-dollar Chinese-made TVs;

one of them singing news about a far-off war,

one comparing the breast size of an actress from Hollywood

to the breast size of an actress from Bollywood.

And here is my niece Lucinda,

who is nine and a true daughter of Texas,

who has developed the flounce of a pedigreed blonde

and declares that her favorite sport is shopping.

Today is the day she embarks upon her journey,

swinging a credit card like a scythe

through the meadows of golden merchandise.

Today is the day she stops looking at faces,

and starts assessing the labels of purses;

So let it begin. Let her be dipped in the dazzling bounty

and raised and wrung out again and again.

And let us watch.

As the gods in olden stories

turned mortals into laurel trees and crows

to teach them some kind of lesson,

so we were turned into Americans

to learn something about loneliness.