Announcements

I hope you're all well and enjoying the new year!  This looks like a cool contest, in case you're interested: http://www.tigblog.org/group/rfpoetry/

Jennifer

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Film of a poetry reading by Jeanne Boland's students (Odyssey School) after a semester of study of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (including an RJI unit) and then a trip to the Middle East.

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Beloved poets...  I have an opportunity for our digital (and other) poems to be SPOTLIGHTED on an educational site called EdSteps, and I really hope you'll do it--follow the link to see the full announcement/request, and PLEASE submit your work!!!  I'll be glad to help w/submissions if you need, and would like to hear back if you do submit so I can track how your submissions are handled.  --Jennifer

From EdSteps:

There a number of ways someone could submit work.
 
They could go to EdSteps (www.edsteps.org) and in the middle – lower right select “Submit Work.” Students will be asked some basic information about themselves (name, grade level, etc.), can upload the file they want to upload and then will be asked to answer a few simple questions about the work creation process. As part of this, the student will be asked if he/she is over 18. If he/she is not, he/she will have the option to either have the permission slip mailed to a parent/guardian or emailed to a parent/guardian in either English or Spanish.

A student could also create an account through EdSteps. You will see the option to do so in the upper-right corner on www.edsteps.org. The benefit of this is that you can upload more than one piece of work without having to include the same basic information multiple times. You will also have an Epsilen account and will be updated on the progress that is being made on EdSteps (when a continuum is available, for example).

Finally, we could take care of the uploading process. All we would need in order to do this is a signed permission slip (IN THIS CLASS'S FILES) and the file with the work. We can take care of all the other information.  Email Jennifer for details (jdeborahklein@gmail.com).
 

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If anyone's free to help pull the last things from my walls and help pack a few last things, I'll need some help Weds and Thurs this week.  Much appreciated, many free books will need a good home.

If you haven't yet, please upload your digital poem online... see instructions in the TIGed announcements for ACW.

:  )

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Ok, so here's the deal.  The video button is for streaming videos from YouTube.  I set up an account and already linked it to the TIGed page, so all you have to do is upload your film to this class account (sorry--might be possible to move accounts if you've already uploaded it?).

Username: AdvancedCW

Password: smarocks

Please upload your work as soon as possible--the kids in Nablus would like to be able to see our work as part of their digital poetry workshop this summer!

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This is an amazing poem--"Shake the Dust" by Anis Mojgani. It's definitely a new favorite--thanks, I think, to Jade... pretty sure you're the one who handed it to me... Watch it to the end and enjoy.

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Turns out Mark just changed the address and didn't link it--here's his blog:

markinnablus.blogspot.com/

If you have time to read a little before class, do--if not, you can explore his writing more after we talk to him today.

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This is a link to Linda Grant DePauw's daughter's rock album...

www.myspace.com/lotusdog

Turns out Mark Turner turned his blog off... rat.  But here's a link Linda sent me right after our DVC, for info on her board game...

www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/25859/herstory

 

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This is a link to One Nation Many Voices, the site that had the great Arab American short film contest winners.  Coli asked for it and I thought others might want to check out some of the other films--there are a ton.

www.linktv.org/onenation2007/films/view/238

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www.youtube.com/watch

www.voicesbeyondwalls.org/youth_media/2008/intensive_care_unit.html

These are the two links for the Palestinian digital poetry/storytelling pieces from Shufat Refugee Camp, West Bank.

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Please watch this incredible piece and try something similar... don't want to give it away with too much explanation ahead of time. I saw this in Vegas at the teacher training and immediately thought of you guys. Have a great weekend. Jennifer

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www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/08/ramadan_2009.html

A collection of photos of Ramadan, collected from across the Muslim world.

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A little Dave Barry, courtesy of Emily Broadwell--enjoy!

http://www.miamiherald.com/dave_barry/

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I just posted a great biography of William Burroughs, since we hit on the Beats today.  Take a look--it's in a couple of parts and really worth the time.  I'll bring in a film about his "cut up" style, too--weird and fascinating.

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I just posted "Part 1" of "Swimming to Cambodia," an exceptional live performance of a one-man play written and performed by Spaulding Gray.  This is some of the best monologue (or, better put, "performance fiction") I've ever seen in my life, and seeing this film in the early 1990s changed my writing style forever.  This is just the first section--Spaulding Gray commited suicide several years ago, and the DVD and VHS are out of print (and going for a fortune used on Amazon), so someone posted the entire film in parts on YouTube.  Once you watch the first part, the others will pop up for you -- you should get every section of the original play, though the sections may come up out of order.  Watch it.  The whole thing.  Really--it's exceptional writing, and it was a tragedy to literature and theatre that he cut his career short with a nose dive into the East River.

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Sorry I've been too busy to post new work for you.  Here are two--Amiri Baraka has long been a fave of mine.  Saw him perform at Bard once and he maintained rhythm like a jazz drummer (I'll explain what I mean by that in class).

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Be sure to add a passage from your childhood language piece, if you're willing to share--I loved all of them.  Please also see a new poem Falastine Dwikat posted for us in the student writing section--let's really get her involved in our class.

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Hi all.

I've posted a collection of poems Betsey Coleman at CA put together for her Poetry of Witness section--it might give you some new ideas, as she pulled poems from a wide variety of sources, cultures, etc.  Take a look.  Below please find a few names you might not have thought of, which I hope will help diversify your investigations Thursday.  I've been careful to include variety--writers of fiction, poetry, and theatre.

Poets:

Nicanor Parra, Pablo Neruda, Mario Benedetti, Claribel Alegria, Octavio Paz, TONS in Africa (ask peers who took African Lit), W.S. Merwyn, T.S. Elliot, and many more--see FILES on our TIGed classroom home page for that poet list I thought I'd lost...

Fiction Writers:

Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Luisa Valenzuela, Jorge Cortazar, José Saramago, Rubén Darío, Margaret Atwood, Vladimir Nabokov, Don Delilo, John Irving, William Burroughs, Kathy Acker...

 Playwrights:

Edward Albee, W.B. Yeats, Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, Jean Paul Sartre, Anton Chekov, Lorraine Hansberry, Eugene O'Neill, Samuel Beckett, Coleen Hubbard...

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Please look in the FILES tab to the left for a really interesting collection of Poetry of Witness put together by Betsey Coleman at Colorado Academy for her first RJI unit.  I think she included some really cool work, links, and resources, and it's interesting for all of us to see what another teacher assembled for her students.  Cool stuff--essential questions and all that at the end are my work.  :  )

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www.adab.com/en/modules.php  --  Link to several poems by Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish.

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Here's the link for the RJI Photos from Palestine.  I don't think it'll ask you for a password... s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm86/poetryofwitness/

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www.andreagibson.org/bio/biography.html -- See Andrea Gibson's biography (which includes some fascinating ideas about writing), and explore her official website.

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I love you guys--great postings so far.  Here's "Photograph," as Coli suggested--it's one of my favorites, too, and has a softer tone I think you'll like.  Please make sure you watch all of them, a couple of times, even, and go on YouTube to explore her work more.  The way I'm having you explore her work is basically what I'm hoping you'll do for your own presentations, and when another student presents a writer you like, I hope you'll explore more in the same way.  I'm making a discussion category that's a sort of "check this out," category, so you can offer each other links and even embed YouTube videos for each other when you find something cool. 

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