Using Blogs in the Classroom

With technology advancing each day and new systems used in class rooms, it can be difficult for a teacher to expect his or her students to be tech-savy and know how to work these new advances. I would definitely use blogging in a class-room from grade 9 and up. I feel any grade lower than 9th would be a bit too early to expect them to create their own blog account.


However, I don't know exactly what I would assign my student to post on their blogs. But then again, the best thing of blogging is anything can be submitted and posted.

This particular class is one of two in which I've had to submitt responses and assignments on blogs. It was interesting to post papers and ideas in which not only my teacher would read, yet anyone in the world could have access to.

In retrospect to assigning blog posts to a high school class. I think it would be interesting to have students post ideas/ journals responding to a particular question in class, then, just as in english 495, the students would be required to respond to their class mate's posts.


The only concern is how often I would have them do a blog post. Once a week? Once every two weeks? It would have to be a trial and error to find how often this assignment would be enough without seeming overwhelming.

I think for a high school class reading classic literature, good assignments would be a paper (wiher analytical, persuasive, argumentative, explicative, etc), a journal entry or response (to a prompt in class) or a general response to a text. I believe it would be beneficial for the students to respond to eachother's works and bring that into class for discussion.

Writing Ficiton V. Writing about Fiction

Writing about fiction and writing fiction itself is a huge compromise of events and meanings behind the work itself. When writing about fiction, one can analyze the meaning behind a certain phrase or language. The in-depth analytical stand point an author states has a wide variety of angles to take on. The paper may be much easier to write compared to creating an actual short fiction.
I enjoy analyzing fiction because you can go to many lengths and construct an analytical standpoint from many points of view. There are many ideas in analyzing fiction such as language, tone, point-of-view, characterization, setting, themes, undertones, structure and the list goes on.

Writing about fiction is much easier than the actual process and completion og writing fiction itself because messes are easier to make than cleaning. In other words, it is easier to deconstruct a literary work as oppossed to constructing one. When our english was assigned wo write the short story titled, "Under What Circumstances..." I was guided with a setting and title, thus helping me create what I believe to be a wonderful short story, however, the second set of short stories, "X happened in Y land..." I was stumped and couldn't conjure any type of fun or intersting short story.

Writing fiction is much harder than writing about it. I enjoy both but respect literary legends able to construct beautifully written prose. I think the most challenging aspect of writing fiction is not reiterating what has already been written and constructed, but rather being completely origional and creative in ones writing style ideas.

The Study of Myths v. The Creation of Myths

Studying myths seems much easier than actually creating and writing one. When our class was assigned a certain type of myth (mine being "Sacred Places), I was interested in what different cultures found sacred and relayed through mythical stories. Many of the myths studied were from generations ago and are strong in the particular cultures that believe in them. Studying a myth is basically learning about different myths and the views the culture takes on them, the myths also seem to influence the cultures perspectives on many every day events, such as the creation myths.
Because studying is a form of learning, and I am in school to learn, it is much easier to study than create an origional myth. Which I am having difficulty with.

Now that I am responsible for writing an actual myth, the pressure is on, the myths found in our text book covers world-wide myths from generations back, knowing this makes the idea of creating an exciting and interesting myth nerve wrecking.

I was origionally going to do a FEMALE DIVINE myth, being one of the most interesting betrayal of the female... uh... divine, but it's now turning into a trickster-myth instead. Trickster myths are a little more easy going and fun, making this process easier.
Creating a myth is fun but challenging because one doesn't want to re-make a myth or reinvent common ideas. Creativity is an issue for me here.

But hopefully with practice and reference to the study of other myths, mine will be decent.

As far as redirecting this information into a future class room. I think teaching the students different types of myths, their guidelines, formats, etc. is really good before having them create one themselves.
I don't think I would have a website created for each student because it may be a little too much to ask from them. Luckily, a computer class should cover that, or I would assign this to another portion of the class so they have only one difficult item to tend to at a time.

Under What Circumstances Would someone Love a Dirty City?

Night after night I hear the subway running fast through my sleeping town. She wakes me at precisely 4:45 am, with her whistle, that loud and powerful whistle. She is my mother waking me up every morning, telling me it’s time to go to work at the small factory across town.
It smells of sweat and morning breath two hours into the shift. Men of all ages grunt as they pull and push heavy machinery into drive-able positions. I staple the cushion onto the framing of what looks like a chair, but for some reason is called a seat.
Twelve hours have passed and I am finally released for my lonely walk home.
Veteran men walk with their hands in their noses, portraying the damage of post traumatic stress disorder. I try to walk away from them, but they don’t mind anyone near their territory, as long as the loud airplanes above aren’t around. When the planes make their welcome home noises, the men remember the bombs overhead, and force themselves into a safe place, usually a stranger’s car or a local restaurant sleeping for the evening.
Aged women selling their insides for a cheap price whistle at me. Their whistles are different than my mother’s. They are appealing, sensual, forceful and dirty. My mother’s is loud, consistent and clean. I like her call during the night, I ignore the other calls: continue walking forward three blocks—turn right, up stairs, open door. Home.
I am a bastard son. I have no father. My mother wakes me up every morning at the same time. I work every day around bad breath and salty water. My neighborly ways are to ignore women who are too good for me and men who have seen the world.
I am tired, good night, mother. Don’t forget to wake me up.

13 year old prodigy on Conservatism

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/27/jonathan-krohn-13-year-ol_n_170642.html

Explicating Vs. Actual Writing of Poetry

I've written poetry for a majority of my life, and never really considered how much time and energy renowned poets put into their works.

Explicating is a fun and exciting process of understanding poems in new ways. Every individual may recognize a phrase to mean something other than someone else may think. That is the beauty of poetry. Thus far in my college career, I have been lucky enough to attend classes where explicating poetry was a huge factor, giving my experience under my belt in regards to knowledge of breaking a poem down to its core.

Writing poetry is now a harder challenge than it once was because I know how I can play with word usage, dialect, metaphor and simile, etc. Having fun with placing words together to form a secret meaning or the actual truth in a poem is very exciting. I love having the knowledge of what other famous poets have possessed.

It will be fun to introduce this new found knowledge into a classroom environment. Having high school and junior high students learn to read and understand difficult poems by poets such as William Wordsworth, Shakespeare, and the list can go on.

I am very excited to practice the new "exercises" I've learned in my future classrooms. These being: "wrecking the first person," "found poem" and the classic haiku. We also participated in a "poetry slam" and I think allowing students produce their own dramatic poetry, then acting it out would be a good relief and way of expression for them.

Now that my college education is near complete, I am looking forward to using the tools learned from CSUN and applying them in a classroom environmet.

Wow, I'm Exciting

Hiking Mt. Baden-Powell
July 4, 2007
Was a rush, but it was
Also the hardest thing I
Have ever done
Physically
And
Mentally.

The pictures turned out
Great, though!
And, I got to take a hot
Shower
Followed by a long
Nap
Afterwards.

But my biggest rush
Occurs during my season
Of training for
A private circus’s
Trapeze dancing.


I study this art while
On break from
University.

California State
University,
Channel Islands,
That is.

It’s like flying
Over the moon
When the wind is rushing
Through my hair—
The ants on planet earth
All wave at me while I
experience
Total excitement—
Orgasmic excitement.

I took up trapezing
To keep
Busy.


My marriage didn’t last long.
I was on the first cover of
This little magazine
“Playboy”

Who’d a thunk me bearing
My body—
Made beautiful from
Trapezing—
Would cause such a scene
With my old man.

Does anyone know
How long my marriage
lasted?
No, not my first marriage.
Yeah, the one with
Joe,
Joe
DiMaggio.