3/30/2007

I had all last week to update this blog with Friday’s activities. I had no other school-related work on my agenda other than to create one piddly little post so my poor widdle students who had a little sniffle and couldn’t make it here on Friday could have a little dose of English class to help them recover over the long, English-class-free Spring Break.

And I didn’t do it.

One word, people: Dedication. Your nation’s public educators at work! On it!

Anyway. I had a lovely week. I’ll discuss some of my activities on Monday’s post.

On Friday we discussed the most profound and important topic in the whole curriculum. Much more than a mere literary device (although it is also that–merely one of the most important of such devices), it is also the territory of life’s most profound existential questions, including such popular queries as “What for?” and “Why me?”

I am speaking, of course, of the great unknowable, Irony.

As you’ll see on the worksheet posted below, there are a few different major types of irony. I’m not going to explain it all here, so check out the worksheet. There is one very simple definition of irony, however, that ties all the types of irony together, and it is this: Irony is an unexpected twist. The different types of irony have to do with who is “unexpecting.” In fact, philosophy-lovers in the audience, if you remember back to the days we were discussing Subjectivity and Objectivity you’ll see that those concepts play a crucial role in differentiating dramatic irony from situational irony.

Anyway, after defining and discussing these things at considerable length, we celebrated the impending vacation by enjoying a slightly frivolous entertainment, which simultaneously reinforced the ideas we discussed about irony. The show we watched was the episode from season 4 of Seinfeld known as “The Face Painter.” While we watched, we stopped for the commercial breaks to discuss and fill in the different types of irony listed on the worksheet.

If you’ve never seen this episode, you missed a real treat. It features some especially stupid conversations between Elaine and her boyfriend, Putty. It also describes an interesting conflict between Kramer and a monkey named Barry. At one point in the show, zookeepers explain that the fight is making Barry depressed, that he is even curbing his “auto erotic” activities. Of course, it was precisely at this moment that our venerable principal (and I mean that word with all its implications and honorific power) stopped by to look in on my class. Another lasting impression created! Of course, I stopped the DVD immediately and, while not acknowledging any problematic content issues, in fact betraying no knowledge whatsoever of our fearless leader’s presence, began to quiz the students in a rapid-fire drill about irony types and definitions to prove that we were learning something big and important–something that could justify the inclusion of such controversial subject matter as simian onanism.

That is all. If you missed today, download the worksheet, watch something funny, and fill it in.

Mt

Downloads: Irony types and definitions

3/29/2007

Today we went to the writing lab to mold the story nuggets and brainstorm ideas we had into a rough draft of a story.

You’ll need some sort of rough draft to work with here on the Monday after Spring Break.

MT

3/28/2007

Today we read the story that most students agreed was their favorite reading of last semester, “The Yellow Wallpaper.” I was extremely surprised by how much students enjoyed this story last semester. I never read this story in high school, and when I read it for the first time in college I thought is was kind of silly and overblown, but amusing. But now that I’ve read it several times, I think Gilman is a genius and this story is a tremendously affecting work of art.

Anyway, a lot of kids seemed to connect with it.

I started out the day by reminding students that their next book report is due on April 13, and also that, for 10 of the 50 points available, they are required to actually procure and bring to class the book they are going to be reading this Friday. It looks like there will be two books due in April, and two books in May, and then we’re all done.

After that, we reviewed the terms we discussed yesterday, objective and subjective, and I added a couple of terms to those. Under subjective, I added the term “first-person,” which is pretty much a synonym for “subjective.” I also added the term unreliable narrator. This refers to the fact that subjective narrators, who are participants in the story they’re telling, suffer the same inadequacies that regular people do in trying to convey a message. Sometimes the truth is obscured by faulty memories, ignorance, lying to protect oneself, or even mental illness. Most subjective narrators have one or more of these “failings” and would be considered “unreliable.” Most of my favorite stories have unreliable narrators, which I enjoy because I like authors that play with these ideas about truth, and whether or not humans can ever know it.

Under objective, I added the term omniscient. This is a word made of the Greek roots omni, which means “all,” and scient, which means “knowing,” or maybe “aware.” An omniscient narrator is one that can see the truth of the story’s events, and can also see into the characters’ actual thoughts and feelings. As far as I know, all omniscient narrators are objective narrators, that is they have no part in the events in the story, but stand apart as sort of a disembodied mind, retelling what it saw. We should also keep in mind that some omniscient narrators actually can only see into the thoughts of some characters, but not others. If this is the case (such as in the story “The White Heron,” in which we knew only what the little girl was thinking), we say that the narrator has limited omniscience, which is kind of an oxymoron, but that’s a discussion for another day.

After all this, we finally got around to reading “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and discussing the author’s use of an unreliable narrator to tell the story. I think most of the classes enjoyed it, and I sent most people off with a copy and an admonition to anyone enrolled in the stop-motion animation class this semester to adapt the story as a stop-motion film. Imagine that you might animate the wallpaper using standard cell animation, and then the lady slowly taking on 3-dimensionality as she emerges from the graphic background. Someone’s got to do it. C’mon.

Anyway, I think that’s enough. If you weren’t here today, there’s a copy of the story available for download at the end of this post.

MT

Downloads: The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

3/27/2007

First day of 4th quarter! Whee!

And also, we had what I think is one of the most interesting discussions of the whole course: the subjectivity/objectivity talk.

Subjectivity and objectivity are terms that have to do with points of view, or, if you prefer, perspectives. I mean those words in a literal sense, as in, the physical position from which you watch a particular event. Are you the person performing an action; are you a particicipant in the event? Or are you separated from the action, physically, psychologically, or emotionally?

To grasp the distinction, it might be useful to envision a football game in a large stadium. The action in this case occurs on the field as the players try to move the ball back and forth. If the main action is on the field, then it is the audience who are the uninvolved, “objective” observers. They are separated from the action on the field by several different “barriers”: lack of expertise, lack of protective uniforms, actual fences that prevent them from stepping onto the field, security personnel that would arrest them if they tried, etc. An audience at a large sporting event is about as physically “objective” as you can get, although physical separation isn’t everything, as we’ll see momentarily.

On the other side of the divide, the “subjective” perspective of the game action is represented by the players on the field. One student today pointed out that to picture a player’s point of view you actually have to imagine the bars of the facemask in front of your eyes, which is a nice way to visualize the difference between subjective and objective. The subjective view is in some ways more limited than the objective (players stuck in the middle of the action sometimes are distracted by other players trying to hit them; sometimes their view of the main action is blocked by, well, blockers, etc.), but in other ways the subjective observer knows more than the objective one. For example, some of the players on the field know what plays are being called and where the ball will be moving before the play actually begins. And there are other things “subjective” observers know: A player on the field might have partied with some of the other players on the field the night before, and might know certain things about those other players that objective observers in the crowd would never know–would never want to know! Also, subjective observers are subject to emotional swings and biases that objective observers might not be party to: Clearly, every player on the field has loyalty to one particular team, a fact made clear by their uniforms, if nothing else.

Once we set up these definitions we can mess with them however we want. For example, is it really true that the fans at a game are “objective” observers, disconnected from what goes on on the field? Of course not. Fans have their own opinions, biases, memories of past triumphs and failures, and they are “ubjects” within their own spheres of events which involves the players and the action on the field. Fans at a game don’t have an “objective” view at all, except, maybe, in a strictly physical sense.

Which brings up my next point: Is there really any such thing as an objective observer in this world? After all, don’t even spectators in the stands have some knowledge about the personal lives of players, and some opinion about the outcome of the game? Is anyone truly “objective,” that is emotionally, physically, and psychologically separate from the “action” they are observing?

In order to plumb the murky depths of this philosphical question, we played a party game that I made up. I think this party game is going to really take off this year. It’s called Subjectivity/Objectivity Charades. Here’s the gist: A couple of volunteers take a pre-written scenario out in the hall to rehearse its performance as a silent pantomime. The rest of the class sits patiently engaging in light “small talk.” The performers then re-enter and perform their charade. After the performance, everyone sits down to write. The “objective” observers (the students in the audience) write down what they saw the people do. The performers tell the story from their “subjective” view as characters in the little play. Then we all compared notes.

This revealed two things: First, none of the “objective” accounts were exactly the same, indicating that nobody in the room had a truly “objective” view of the action, unimpeded by distance, angle, or personal biases. No purely “objective” view existsed. The second revelation was that the subjective observations of the characters in the play were more interesting and detailed, although only be hearing several accounts could we piece together the “truth” about what happened.

Anyway, all of this is like life and important to storytelling, which we’ll be getting started with on Thursday.

MT

No downloads.

3/23/2007

Last day of the term.

Some rejoiced, others mourned.

And why did they mourn, oh great and wise sage of the English class?

The doleful cries of the failing students were caused by caring too little for too long, and caring too much too late. I would advise all students to seek a path which transverses the base of that giddily oxygen-free mountain top and bridges that grief-filled valley. This is the path known to all the great sages of yore as “Doing at least a little bit of homework as it is assigned.” This is the course I recommend to all young paduwans.

Anyway, here’s what we did today:

Students took a few minutes to complete the expansion of one of their “story nugget” ideas into a slightly more complete form, using the worksheet I have attached once again to the bottom of this post.

When most were mostly done with that, we grouped up into threes and fours and worked on the right column of that sheet. This required students to summarize their current story ideas for the group, and it required that group members contemplate the details about plot, setting and character that they were being told and then to give productive feedback, including additional ideas, suggestions for changes, and basic questions about where the author was planning on taking the story from there.

I had planned to do that for about 30 minutes or so, but some classes found that the time was too short and they were still productive, so they just took the whole time. For classes that did finish, we spent the last 25 minutes of class reading the story “Harrison Bergeron,” by my current favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. If your class didn’t get to read, feel free to stop by and borrow a copy. It’s a funny story with a lot to make us think about.

Happy end of semester, and, as always, a peaceful DPF to you.

Mt

Downloads: Story development and feedback worksheet

3/22/2007

Well, hello!

Today was another instalment of the multi-part trial I like to call the Boredom Test. This test consists of the following: I decide on a particular activity or reading that the class may or may not find boring. (Okay, let’s be honest: When I choose a Boredom Test activity, I can pretty much guarantee that over 75% of the class, if encountered by this activity and/or reading in their normal life, would immediately be struck with a narcolepsy-like petit-mal seizure, instantly rolling their eyes back in their heads, crumpling like rag dolls to the floor, and contentedly snoring for an hour or so.

These Boredom Tests make certain demands on teacher and student alike:

• The teacher has to construct an environment redolent with possibility; as students walk in the door, they need to be expecting NOT to be bored. Now, this can be dangerous, of course, and care must be taken not to create an expectation of any specific level or type of interest that will be involved, for once the student understands that there is a Boredom Test in store, and not a visit to Charles E. Cheese’s pizza emporium, or a rocket ship ride to Uranus, or a packet of Smarties and half a can of Mr. Pibb…what? Wait. Oh yeah. Once they realize that this is freakin’ English class and not exactly as fun as even a scant barrel of monkeys, they will immediately FAIL the Boredom Test (by becoming bored) before it even (technically) starts. So, teachers, beware!
• The student has a parallel responsibility. The hapful youth must strive to not be either a big huge jerk, or just a regular jerk. Big huge jerks are people who think everything is stupid before they even try it. Regular jerks are people who try things a little bit, and then say they’re stupid even if a smart person they respect (like a teacher) tells them repeatedly, and in various ways, from a multitude of angles and perspectives, that the thing might actually be good. So, students must under no conditions assume the attitude that the thing being presented might not be good. It is their solemn duty.

Now that the roles are clear, I will explain the nature of today’s Boredom Test:

I chose a story by the great 19th century writer Sarah Orne Jewett, “The White Heron.” This is a delightful (seriously, I’m serious here) tale about 10-year-old Sylvia, who has recently moved from an industrial town to live in the Maine woods with her grandmother.

This story, like all of Jewett’s tales, is chock full of beautiful details about the natural world, and also possesses a genial tone which gives one the sense that, although there is sadness in Jewett’s world, nothing truly upsetting or perverse could ever happen. I love how Jewett writes, and so, after assuring the class several times, from several different angles, that this story is GOOD, I proceeded to read it to them.

(And I must note that the class was delighted to find that there was even a picture in the middle of the story! A definite crutch–a helping-hand in the midst of a Boredom Test mire.)

Anyway, we read and enjoyed the story. Come get a copy from me if you weren’t here.

After that, we continued our quest for story ideas. First, we continued browsing through popular media stuff to gather little “story nuggets.” See yesterday’s post for a description of a “story nugget.”

After that, students selected one of their nuggets and used the attached worksheet to expand it into a slightly fuller idea. Today, students on their own filled out the left-hand column. Tomorrow, we’ll work with other students to fill in the right-hand side. If you missed today, first watch TV, read a fashion magazine, or listen to the radio for an hour and while you’re doing that come up with a list of 5 or 6 basic ideas for a story–just little ideas, a sentence or two. Then download the attached worksheet and fill in the left-hand column.

That is all. Congratulations to all those who passed today’s Boredom Test. There will be gold-plated award statuettes with your names custom-engraved on the base for you tomorrow. I join with the academy in saluting you and all you do.

MT

Downloads: Story development and feedback worksheet

3/21/2006

Okay, so I couldn’t resist telling the one (joke) about the difference between Republicans and Democrats today in class. If you heard it, you know it’s pretty much true, and also directly in line with one of the major themes of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” which contemplates, among other things, the idea that humans are perfectly accepting of utter cruelty as long as it doesn’t directly affect them or their families. But once it does, look out! The whole world flips upside down and suddenly nothing is fair anymore.

Anyway, today in class we discussed “The Lottery.” The basis of our discussion was the worksheet students filled out yesterday. We talked about tone, symbols, and theme. We also spent some time drawing comparisons between the story and modern life: What kinds of “lotteries” can we see in our community, in the country, in the world today? We talked about everything from the oppressive group-think sometimes observable among high-school students, to mid-East “honor killings.” There are plenty of examples in the world today of the kind of cruelty and willful ignorance displayed among the “decent” townsfolk in Jackson’s story.

The funny thing is, I’ve never much liked this story, but yesterday’s discussion made it seem like a worthwhile read. Thanks, students.

As for work today, after that discussion we talked about brainstorming story ideas. One way of coming up with ideas is to browse through popular media to look for random/odd/interesting stories or settings or characters, and then letting your creative impulses take you from there. To that end, I distributed various magazines and newspapers throughout the class, and invited students to spend a half-hour browsing and brainstorming. The end goal was to have a piece of paper with 3-5 story “nuggets.” These aren’t complete story ideas, with plots, characters, and settings. These are just “nuggets” of ideas–little tiny descriptions or details that interest you. Tomorrow, we’ll take one or more of those “nuggets” and develop them just a little more in preparation for a group brainstorm.

Also tomorrow, a quiet story about a nice little girl in which no one gets killed. Finally, a story that doesn’t end in murder. Won’t that be exciting!

MT

No downloads.

3/20/2007

Oh man. School was rockin’ today.

We did our part in class today by finally connecting all this stuff we’ve been thinking about tone in music with tone in writing. It was tone-rific! OR tone-tastic! It was a tone-tacular.

Okay, I think I lost everyone on that last one.

Here’s the gist of it: While in music, artists can use pitch, volume, instrumentation, rhythm, tempo, and voice–among many other tools–to create tone, writing is an entirely different beast. Here’s a description of a few of the writer’s tools, with reagrd to the creation and maintenance of tone:

• Word choice: What emotions do your descriptive words convey (adjectives, adverbs, and verbs)? Consider the difference in tone between saying “a fluffy marshmallow,” and “a bloated marshmallow.” I rest my case. Bloated, indeed. The very thought…
• Sentence structure: Long chains of short, simple sentences create a different rhythm and tempo than long, complex sentences. Sometimes short sentences rush readers through suspenseful events. Sometimes they slow people down, with all their subject/verbs and periods breaking up the action. Different sentence structures do different things depending on context, but it’s something that an author mindful of tone should consider.
• Plot organization: A linear plot that follows a logical order of events creates a particular feeling that is quite different from a non-linear plot told in a stream-of-consciousness style. Do you want the events to be crystal clear in the mind of the reader, or do you want to create an air of mystery or intrigue by keeping some events secret as you reveal others?
• Choice of details: Not all writing is super-descriptive. Some writers want to move you swiftly through the plot and not to get distracted by “ambient” detail. Other writers tell their whole story through details that careless readers may miss. This is a major tool in your writer’s toolbox for creating a specific feeling or tone in your story.
• Dialogue: The characters who speak in your story are a lot like the singers of the pop songs we listened to. As a writer, you have to give each speaker a personality, and a unique way of expressing themselves. The dialogue in your story goes a long way in establishing a particular tone, whether it be lighthearted or depressing; dark and moody, or frivolous.

Anyway, we discussed all of this. If you want to see more examples of each of the “tools” mentioned above, check out my lecture notes attached to the bottom of this post.

After that discussion, the class read “The Lottery,” by Shirley Jackson (which you can pick up from me tomorrow, if you need it) and filled out a worksheet review of theme, symbol, and tone, which is also attached to this post.

Tomorrow, we begin the process of brainstorming for a new story. Unbelievably, I have the feeling that tomorrow will be even more exciting than today.

Excelsior!

Mt

Downloads:

Tone lecture notes

“The Lottery” worksheet

3/19/2007

Thank goodness it’s Monday, everyone!

Short and sweet is the post today.

Reverse is my diction, despite the conventions that are modern.

Sound like Yoda, do I, but stupid-er.

Okay, enough. Today we kicked off class with the semi-monthly book review. Yes, book reports were due today, and various people in the class reviewed their books for us. We had a wide variety of books, including books about werewolf lovers, evil carnies, righteous carnies, a book of Romantic poetry (that’s the Wordsworth, not the Steele kind of Romance), and a book about how to sleep better. Great stuff. If you weren’t here and don’t have a book report form, I’ve re-posted it at the bottom of this post.

For the second half of class, we revisited our list of song tones from Friday. I had various people argue about the tone of a specific song, then we listened to the song again for a few moments and each decided for ourselves. One fact that is undeniable on a day like today is that tone is in the “ear of the listener,” so to speak. The authors/composers/singers of these songs certainly have some attitude in mind when they record, but we as listeners get the final say, based in part on how we feel at the moment of listening, as well as our knowledge (or lack of knowledge) about the artist and their general ideas. So we had some disagreements, and that was a good thing.

All of this stuff has been to set up the idea of “tone” in writing. Tomorrow we’ll connect specific ideas about tone that we’ve built up in music to writing, and then we’ll read another exciting story, which we’ll mine for ideas about theme, symbols, and tone.

Until then, happy Monday.

Mt

Download: Book report

3/16/2007

So, last semester I had students fill out a little evaluation sheet at the end of the semester. One of the questions I asked was about which activity students had most enjoyed during the course of the class, and a huge number of students said that the thing they most enjoyed was the thing we did today.

So here’s the thing we did today: I described what I could about this vague idea of “tone.” Since it’s kind of hard to figure out what to look for and how to describe it once you find it, I’ve decided to use music to get into this discussion. The thing about the word “tone” is that it refers to the sense of sound, so using actual sounds seems to help us to develop the type of scrutiny and the vocabulary we need to talk about tone in a literary sense.

Anyway, the activity goes like this: I create a playlist of music with a wide variety of styles, moods, and, well, tones, and students listen attentively to the song. When any individual student wants to move on to the next song, they put down their pencil. As long as 75% of the class is still holding a pencil, I let the music play.

Before we started listening, we developed a list of what to listen for. This is a list of actual attributes of the songs that we then use to figure out the emotional content that the artists are trying to convey. Here are the aspects of music most of the classes came up with:

Pitch: How high or low (or both) is the general pitch of the music and voice? If it’s polytonal, do the tones create harmony or dischord?

Tempo & rhythm: Is it fast or slow; regular or irregular?

Volume: Is it loud or soft or both?

Instrumentation: What kind of instruments are used and how many?

Voice (of the singer): Diction (pronunciation, etc.), texture, pitch, rhythm, etc.

Of course, there are many other aspects of music we could talk about, but this was a good enough list for students to draw clues about the music’s general tone.

Roughly speaking, we approached tone by noting the types of details listed above, and then asking, “How does the artist want me to feel when I hear this?”

Here’s the list of songs we listened to, in case you liked one and wanted to hear more like it. (Note: First period had an extra song not on the list below–it was #12, and it was Pizzicato Five’s “It’s a Beautiful Day.”)

	Song Name	Band	Album
1	A Winter’s Sky	The Pipettes	We Are The Pipettes
2	America	Simon and Garfunkel	Bookends
3	American Errorist (I Hate Hate)	NOFX	The War On Errorism
4	between the bars	Elliott Smith	Either/Or
5	Big in Japan	Tom Waits	Mule Variations
6	Boots of Spanish Leather	Bob Dylan	The Times They Are A-Changin’
7	Burning	The Baptist Generals	No Silver/No Gold
8	Click Click	The Beat	I Just Can’t Stop It
9	Cosmia	Joanna Newsom	Ys
10	Dynamite!	The Roots	Things Fall Apart
11	For The Price Of A Cup Of Tea	Belle & Sebastian	The Life Pursuit
12	Hoboken	Operation Ivy	Energy
13	Juxtaposed With U	Super Furry Animals	Rings Around The World (Disc 1)
14	Mr. You’re On Fire Mr.	Liars	They Threw Us All In A Trench And Stuck A Monument On Top
15	Naked as We Came	Iron And Wine	Our Endless Numbered Days
16	Paragraph President	Blackalicious	Blazing Arrow
17	Robot	The Futureheads	The Futureheads
18	Round The Bend	Beck	Sea Change
19	Rule	Nas	Stillmatic
20	Seven Swans	Sufjan Stevens	Seven Swans
21	So Says I	The Shins	Chutes Too Narrow
22	The Fox	Sleater-Kinney	The Woods
23	The Gloaming	Radiohead	Hail to the Thief
24	Wouldn’t It Be Nice	The Beach Boys	Pet Sounds

Anyway, on Monday we’ll discuss the notes on tone and try to figure out how to represent some of these same “tones” we’ve heard in music in our writing.

A good weekend to you all.

MT