Part Duex

This is just as, if not more, hilarious.
Yes it is.

I know its supposed to be sound, but I'm adding video; so there!

This is hilarious period
If you disagree, you are wrong

Blog #4: Fiction

I found that writing about fiction was really interesting and made me think a alot about the elements of the story and it helps to make the story more enjoyable. Writing fiction on the other hand was just fun. It was fun to come up with a persona that was like me in a way but not like me in others. It was cool to make the character use the dorky jokes that I wouldn't neccesarily use. Actually, I probably would say the dorky jokes anyway.

I'm not sure what impact writing about fiction had on my fiction writing because I have spent the last two years writing about fiction and not really writing a lot of fiction. At any rate, this writing about fiction didnt have much of an effect on my story but I imagine the last two years of writing about fiction has in some ways. I certainly am familiar with the elements of fiction but in my writing I didn't think much about that. All I really thought about was being at least a little funny and therefore interesting. I used the circumstances prompt and tried to make all the detail unnecessary or at least, strange. I got a kick out of it.

I will surely have my students write about fiction in my classes but I might not use the writing of actual fiction in all my classes. I do think that it helps to understand the elements of fiction and how they are used which could make reading it more interesting for students but I don't think that I will always need to make it more interesting as long as they can relate to it in some way.

Blog #3: Myths

Creating a myth, much as creating poetry, helped me to understand how the elements of mythology work together. More so than from just reading mythology, which i am known to do. I think a lot of people learn better by doing than just be studying, or at least they learn some other element than they would just by studying something. So creating mythology serves to broaden my understanding of it. It also helps me to become engaged in it. Mythology is already an interesting subject to me and this puts me in the middle of it which makes me more interesting to me. And I'm already a fan of me.

Besides being informative, writing mythology is really a fun writing exercise because it is not governed by the same literary rules that I am used to in academic writing. Suspension of reality and disbelief can be at an extreme because its ok to be completely magical and un-real. At the same time, plot structure and even grammar can be played with because things don't necessarily have to flow perfectly from one thing to another. Much mythology has somewhat difficult to follow plot lines and a lot of those old crazy people didn't know anything about grammar anyway.

I would use this in a classroom to get students thinking about mythology and get interested in it. Like the found poems, mythology can be a safe way to be creative while not having to be overly self-conscious because its just a crazy myth. Students can have fun with it and create some strange magical stories that don't even have to make that much sense. It can get them writing and even having fun with writing. Also, as I said before, actually doing it can help them to gain a fuller understanding of the elements of mythology and how they work together in the actual stories.

Peanut Butter!

Blog #2: Poetry

Writing about poetry got me really thinking about imagery for the most part. Since that was the main focus of my explication paper, imagery was very fresh on my mind. So when it came time to write my "Wrecking the 1st Person" poem imagery was still my main focus. More than structure, rhythm, rhyme, meter, and other such poetic devices, I think that imagery is the most powerful aspect of poetry. In my "Egypt" poem I focused a lot on the images of the desert and of the chaotic and violent situation. Colors, actions, and sound played a large part in the poem's effect. That is why i had everyone walk around in a circle. I wanted people to sense the closeness with a large group of people and also to hear the footsteps of everyone around them. Closing the eyes helps people to focus their senses so they can see and hear the images but also it contributes to the sense of chaos because they are not sure what is happening around them. That poem came from an experience I had in a rural marketplace in Egypt where tourists never really go so my fiancee and I were quite a spectacle. A crowd of children began following us that grew into a crowd of adults as well. It became a mob mentality quickly and people began touching my fiancee in inappropriate places. Consequently, my elbows began swinging in people's faces, it was scary.

For my "Found" poem I did focus more on rhythm and structure but I didn't like it nearly as much. Putting the nursery rhymes together was fun and interesting but the end result was too repetitive and a little boring I think.

Writing about poetry and writing poetry are very different things but I do think that they compliment each other. Writing about poetry gets you thinking about the elements of poetry and how they affect the reader. How the sound and images and other aspects work to make meaning for people. Having all those things in your mind when you sit down to write your own poetry allows you to utilize those aspects and make much more interesting poetry. I think. On the other side, having written poetry you have a deeper understanding of what goes into it and can therefore comment more appropriately on it.

Both of these assignments would be great creative assignments in my own classroom because they allow students to be creative but not take full credit for the work and therefore not have that intimate relationship with it that leads to shyness. Especially the "Found" poem. Its like being a DJ, taking other things and mixing them into something new. I really enjoyed doing these poems and hearing everyone Else's as well. Doing the presentations in class was great but I wonder how that would fair in a high school classroom, or even worse, junior high. Those students might be less inclined to participate in something like that.

Blog #1

Blog #1:
Hallo,

I am Nick. I live in Reseda and I spend my time playing, recording, and producing music. I love many types of music including but not limited to Country, Ska-punk, Metal, Rock, and anything else that has more guitars than synthesizers. I play the guitar and sax and I dabble in bass and drums. Also I train and work with horses. I am about to graduate college, get married and start my career as a teacher; hopefully in that order.

I am very afraid that something will not work out this year with school, or whatever credentialing program I decide to go with and that I will not be able to begin working and stop being a "starving college student." That used to be a title I liked, but now its getting very old. My hope, then, is to get a job this summer and begin teaching in September. That leads to a whole new level of anxiety: how will I deal with students? how will I structure my class? how will I grade papers? Do I even know how to grade papers? Do I know how to teach effectively? will anybody care? etc...

I have always enjoyed learning and being in school in general. Teaching therefore, will allow me to never have to venture into the "real world."

I'm not sure about technology, it will depend on what is available where I'm going to teach. Hopefully that will be somewhere in the boonies where there won't really be a lot of technology. I imagine that I will use movies and perhaps the internet to add more material to the class however. I tend to be a year or two behind technology, also fashion.