Tag Archives: writing

Writing Robots

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My last teaching post was wrapping up the three courses (at the 100 level) that touched on literature whether as a composition or literature course. Today I’m going to tie together some thoughts on the third of the three composition level two classes that are taught at the community college level NC, (I’ve already covered ENG 112-Argument Based Research and ENG 113-Literature Based Research) ENG 114-Professional Writing and Reporting, along with some reflections on day two of UNCC Writing Project day two of Teacher Research week. (For my day one post check this post out).

grade2 (1)One of our sessions today in the research week was to think about common core and the issue of assessment. The website I played around with is called Paper Rater. I entered one of my academic and published articles as well as a student essay. I won’t go into crazy detail about this, but my essay scored a 91 which is an A at most college level classes (another participant had the same result), and the student essay scored an 87 which would be a B in most college levels. These programs use math and look for certain patterns and such, but what about style, humor etc? The student essay is one that I gave an A to. A low A because of some grammatical issues, but definitely an A because it was a really well researched, and fun to read essay on LeBron James.

How do you feel about the possibility that your work, or the work of your children (family members etc) would be graded by a computer? How would a robograder work with a lot of the work that was completed in ENG-114 where we focused on professional writing. This class was in a computer classroom, and we decided to set it up as a service learning project. We collected tabs for the Ronald McDonald House, and used the charity as a way to write proposals, resumes etc. The students applied for jobs with the “charity,” and prepared persuasive PowerPoint presentations. This was a class about designing and presenting professional documents. Is there a robot for that yet?

I participated in a lot of great informal conversations about teaching and writing, and the teaching of writing. I really needed this week as I prepare to return to the classroom. I even started finalizing my lesson plans with Day 1 and Day 2 of one class almost complete. I have 28 more classes to go, and the other whole class to finalize plans for, but I really felt I made progress today. How do you grade that?

I will continue the teaching posts (maybe tied in with research week although tomorrow I may not have time to blog) with the next about the 200 (sophomore) level literature classes I taught and prepped. See you there.

Making Mobile

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Most of this week I’ll be participating in Teacher Research Week as a Teaching Consultant in the UNCC Writing Project. I attended last year with some very specific projects I wanted to work on. I actually thought I had two major projects to work on this week, but I’ve decided that I want to leave myself more open this year to new ideas and possible projects.

This morning we had some great presentations and conversations about the idea of college readiness. What do our students need to become successful college students? I also expand this to career readiness. What do you want your future employees to have or to be able to do?

20130617_134606We spent a lot of time writing, and right now I am finishing this from a new location in the library. I am in love with this space! The picture I have doesn’t really do it justice, but there are areas to spread out for reading, studying, charging your various devices. LOL.

Much of my day has been spent trying to find a way to make something for an open enrollment (free!) online class. I tried a variety of apps on my phone in my endeavor, but so many of them fell short.

  • Tumblr – I’ve had the app on my phone, and I know a lot of people love it for microblogging, but you can’t create a new page/blog without going to the website so I wasn’t impressed with its functionality.
  • Google Drive – I love my Google Drive, but you an’t make a file public to share on the go (or at least not on the app, and going out to the desktop version of the website is clunky) so that wasn’t working for me.
  • WordPress – I couldn’t create a new blog without going to the website. The app has a lot of functionality, but not being able to create a new actual website was a major issue that kept me from completely the project with WordPress.
  • Google + – I was really excited about trying to use one of the new Google + communities because the look of the app is so nice, but gain, you can’t actually make a community via the app you have to go out to the website.

I finally had a lightbulb moment and reinstalled Evernote. I’m having a few sync issues with it, but it allowed me to create, completely on my phone, a notebook that I can share with anyone who has the link. You can see it here.

Ultimately do I HAVE to have the ability to do everything I want on my phone? Maybe not, but it definitely makes my life a lot easier when I want to do a lot on the go. It has me looking at my lesson plans, and thinking about what technology I want to use to provide links etc to my students. It will also factor in as I have to seriously consider what will replace my netbook. It can’t run for more than 2 hours without being plugged in. Oh netbook, you served me well.

Chapbook Review: RIVERWALKER by Brenda Bowen

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Whenever I see, hear, or think of the word assume I picture Jack Crawford from Silence of the Lambs writing the word on a legal pad. He underlines it, saying to Clarice,“If you assume when I send you on a job, Starling, you can make an ass out of u and me both.”

And yet, I still make assumptions. When I pick up a chapbook of poems I assume they are probably going to be themed as that is the trend, and because of that assumption the title of said chapbook sets up a given expectation before I even open the book.

When I started reading Brenda Bowen’s chapbook Riverwalker I envisioned a book of lyrical, nature based poems. Instead I found a slim collection of poems that are observant and contemplative to nature, but not in the way I thought. Let me try to explain by using the poem that I feel is like the ars poetica of the book, “Fairy Tale.” I am going to use the poem in its entirety as I will skip quoting from others to give you a feel for the whole book via this one poem:

Fairy Tale

Jagged pot
split in two

I let go of your hand
for the grassroots level

the stones in the road
fly up beneath our bicycle tires

I make a church out of words
(someone told me to do it)

I let go of your hand
for poetry

A fairy tale can be a story with magical and imaginary beings and lands, or the phrase can be describing a situation that resembles the idealization of the fairy tale’ think fairy tale weddings and happily ever after.

The speaker of this poem made me think of the Jack and Jill story. We want Jack and Jill to find an easy solution, but this poem does not present that. The poem is sparse, and yet can be read on a variety of levels just like a fairy tale which can be for children, but whose morals can also be applied to adult life. This is a poem about choosing, perhaps, the more difficult path which is the somewhat solitary life of the poet.

This is just my attempt at interpreting this particular poem, and through it, the book as a whole. I also chose this poem to exemplify the book because of the stones. I see the poet as picking words like stones from the river, ever so carefully. The river is a place that Bowen returns to as a way to reflect back on the rest of the world.

-Riverwalker is available from Folded Word Press in print and ebook formats

Thursday Poem Share

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2013 has been a fairly quiet year for writing and publishing (if I compare to previous years), but I do have two poems in the current issue of UCity Review. Take a stop by. I also submitted poems yesterday which I had not done in a month. I sent two packets out. I had actually thought I’d submit to a contest and to a particular journal, but both had fees so I had to pass right now as I try to stay on a strict budget for the rest of the summer. Ah waiting for a paycheck!

I don’t have a new poem for this week. I tried all week to write on a note I had made: dance. I brainstormed different scenarios with this, but nothing came to fruition. I’m OK with that. I have several ideas that came to me this week, however, that I’ll try to start drafting today. I also think my poem from two weeks ago (the one about the guitar) might want to be a short story. Hmmmm. Haven’t tried one of those this year.

So this week’s poem is an older one that I’ve submitted a few times, but I’m not as sure about it. I don’t know that I have shared it here before. If I did, sorry!

Sadie Hawkins

You wrote her single spaced,
single paged notes. She pictured
you begging your sister
to fold them for you
so that they were
at the height
of teenage origami art.

She dreamed you gave up
your dessert for the
panda bear stamp
that reminded her
of a CSI TV show -
how the handwriting expert
always pointed out
hesitation as a sign of forgery.

Your stamping was amateur,
lacked conviction.

On the phone you told her
you loved her so quickly
she didn’t have a chance
to try saying, “I love you, too.”

First friends for two months.
Then, the “going out”
of two weeks. The break up
was two days away
because she wanted to dance,
and you didn’t own a sport coat.

-

As always feel free to comment on my poem and/or post your own (or link) for discussion. All poems (or other genres) will be taken down one week from today.

In additional poetry news I have to give a shout out to Raymond Luczak’s How to Kill Poetry. This brilliant book does a terrific job of responding to a wide variety of poets that have come before us, and even puts a cheeky eye towards what a future poet may write. What a terrific mix. I can’t decide where to put this book in my house because I have shelves for poetry, but I also have a shelf of poetry textbooks. I could SO teach this book. Someday I hope I have the chance.

Speaking of teaching, kind of sideways, I also like to look to other creative people for discussions of their process. The documentary Brief Encounters is an excellent one about a photographer.

Look forward to seeing what you guys have been up to :)

Thursday Poem Share

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I’m back on the Thursday Poem Schedule so I’m taking down Friday’s poems. I should have poem share up on Thursday next week as well, but it may continue to fluctuate a bit this summer. Stay tuned! Here’s today’s poem.

–poem is out of here :)  

This poem came out of a moment walking at the mall (can you tell! LOL), and I went with it. It has been through several handwritten revisions, and I’m still not quite sure about how the individual stanzas wrap up, or how the ending does. On my last revision I started thinking I might try a revision into a form. Any ideas what form I might have been thinking of? Please feel free to discuss my poem and/or post your own work in progress (any genre) for discussion.

I’m going to mention a few reading items real quick. 1st up is that I finished one big hulk of a book: IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. While this isn’t my favorite of his books it was an interesting read. I found myself marking quite a few places where the book itself was about the act of writing itself.

Next up is The Writer’s Chronicle which has become, over the last year, my go to writing magazine to read. Only problem? Wish it didn’t have such great articles and interviews because now I have another book I want to buy – of course!

Finally I have to mention a great poetry read: Blood Almanac by Sandy Longhorn. I took so many notes while I was reading this book. These poems have a quality to them that makes you want to slow down. I found myself reading and then re-reading. I especially loved to read many of them out loud because Sandy has a great ear for the poem.  It is hard for me to pick a favorite so I instead suggest you click through and read the samples on Anihinga’s website, and then maybe pick up a copy?

See you next week everyone!

Three Courses in One – Part Six

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Moving into part six of my Three Courses in One discussion (the link will take you to part five which can help you get to any of the earlier ones). Today we will move into the poetry section of these courses. For my face to face classes I had planned four weeks of poetry to coincide with National Poetry Month.

To start I assigned a section of the textbook, and I discussed How to Read a poem as well as the “history” of poetry. There are so many different poems that I could start with (besides those in the textbook), but I do often enjoy using something by Taylor Mali since you can compare text to his performance of the text. We had in class discussions, writing assignments (academic and creative), and I discovered that my poetry “training” served me well in the classroom. I was better able to respond when a rogue question came up. I can study and teach lots of things, but the more you know really can make you a better speaker. This got me thinking about how I could use my poetic world view to teach other topics. That should pop up in other lessons I discuss as I go through other courses.

For week two I called the week The Art of Saying. I focused on thinking about the why of poetic choices. We discussed literary terms such as Denotation and Connotation. Week three was called Poetry Nuts and Bolts. Here I got into more of the literary devices: symbols, simile etc. Quite a few of my day students did their final projects by writing poems. I don’t know if they did that because it was the end of the semester, and they needed to finish their project or because they really wanted to try. Either way, I enjoyed reading their words. One of the activities I developed during this time was using a modified version of the game Scattegories. I think this is a good way to think about avoiding cliche. If I role an S and the topic is pasta do you want to be with everyone else saying spaghetti or are you going to try to find a different word so you get a point where no one else does?

I also talked about forms versus free verse briefly during the third week. I developed my linebreak exercise during this course. I won’t share it in full detail (sorry!) cause I use it for my online classes as well, but it gives you a chance to think about why an author chooses to place words in specific places.

Week four was called Sounds and Symbols. We talked about sounds and word play. Depending on the class I could go into a variety of activities. Some could be more basic or we could get into more advanced lessons thinking about how sounds actually effect you physically, and how you can use that in writing. Discussions on rhyme and rhythm also went in well here.

I’m already running out of space! But, I want to mention a few things on covering poetry in these classes. First off I was able to have more engaged discussions with my day class. Discussions were where I really saw the differences between the two classes. My day class had a better grasp on how to analyze and discuss whereas my night class either struggled or just didn’t have the desire to go beyond a base consideration of the work we were doing. I’ll address this a bit more in a later post when I talk about the final results of the class.

When I had the online class later on I only spent two weeks on poetry with them. They used the poems in the textbook along with chapters on how to read/analyze poetry. They had already spent a lot of time with literary terms so I think their ability to discuss poetry had a stronger foundation. They discussed the ones in the book for a week, and then the second week they had to do a written response. The textbook had a poetry and paintings section which I decided to use. They could either write an academic essay about how a particular presented poem and painting worked (or didn’t) together, or they could choose a painting of their own to respond to via poetry. The revisions of these were similar to prior revisions. If they did the academic they had to research and add sources. If they did the poem response I helped them revise, but I also asked them to reflect on the process of responding via poetry as part of their revision.

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully I can finish up next time with the mixed genre section before moving on to another class.

Anyone recall their early studies of poetry? In class or on their own? Is there anything you wished you had covered? Feel you missed? Best assignments etc?

Make Friday Write

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Sorry I wasn’t at the computer yesterday my friends, but I’m back for a Make Friday Write posting instead of Thursday Poem Share. My schedule for next week looks good for me to post on Thursday. Here is my poem for this week. Feel free to leave your poems (or other types of writing) and/or links to them in comments so we can all join in the conversation about our work. A week from today I will take down any poems (including my own).

– Ok, down a day early :)

This poem has only been through a few drafts in my notebook because I did take the long holiday weekend. We had a family get together at our house Saturday, and then Sunday I drop up to Pittsboro, NC (about 2 hours away) to read as part of the NC Poetry Society Series. I love going to this reading (three poets together without an open mic in a lovely bookstore), but I was slightly disappointed that I didn’t have any book sales this time. My books have been out for a while though so that may change when the new one comes out in September. I did get to hear some terrific poetry, and I had some terrific conversations with other writers which made the trip more than worthwhile. Also we visited with some family before heading back.

I’m gonna squeeze in a quick movie mention here because it fits in with poetry. I watched LEMON THE MOVIE on Netflix which follows the spoken word artist Lemon Anderson as he works to get a new presentation of his work onto the stage. One of my favorite things that he said (besides his poetry) in the film was, “peace of mind is defined by space.” Nice.  I decided to order the book that his play was based on. I love spoken word and other types of performance, but there is a part of me (comparing to my reading) that wishes other forms of poetry had a larger place in the pop culture/consumer world.