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Pong, The Walking Dead, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us: How Developers Utilize Player Agency and Reader Response to Challenge Tradition and Convey a Narrative of Loss (WARNING: SPOILERS)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 18:56:00 +0000

*******Before you read on too deeply, please be aware that this post will contain SPOILERS for the above mentioned texts of The Walking Dead, Bioshock Infinite, and The Last of Us.*******

INTRODUCTION

Since the first iteration of the Magnavox Odyssey hit the consumer market in 1972, players became active agents in manipulating digital worlds. Although almost unfathomably simple relative to the technical milestones that modern video gamers are accustomed to, players of the "paddle-based" Pong experienced an unfolding narrative in many of the sames ways modern gamers are currently experiencing when safeguarding the character of Clementine from zombies (The Walking Dead), rescuing Elizabeth from a life of imprisonment (Bioshock Infinite), or escorting Ellie across the United States to possibly save the world from a fungal-based outbreak turned apocalypse.

The narratives created by players playing Pong may be labeled as simple relative to the three contemporary video game narratives as described above, yet they are narratives non-the-less. As these players from the 1970s unboxed their first Odyssey consoles, connected the hardware, and sunk hours of their lives into marveling at their own capacity to control the "ball" and volley it back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth across the screen with their friends, stories were created. Stories about how the competition and rivalry between player/paddle A and player/paddle B deepened throughout their experience with the game. Stories about how player/paddle A's "ball" just snuck past player/paddle paddle. Stories about how a group of engrossed Pong players "trained" to achieve the "highest score" and gain bragging rights over the budding community of competitive players.

At this moment, a new frontier of storytelling was created. A frontier of storytelling that challenged the formerly passive nature of an audience member merely watching a pre-constructed narrative unfold via text or movie, to audience members becoming active player agents in the experience, working to construct narratives as they progressed through the experience itself.

As player bases boomed and the mainstream, consumer market demonstrated to the world that there truly was an interest in video games/gaming, budding hardware and software manufacturers began to work toward capitalizing on and creating experiences that utilized the individual audience member's own agency to create a variety of narratives. Nintendo's first consumer console, the Nintendo Entertainment System, released in 1983, pushed the medium's capacity for storytelling as the hardware's relative computational capability afforded software developers the ability to develop more complex expressions of otherwise traditional literary storytelling techniques in digital form (e.g., setting, atmosphere, characters, conflict, plot arc, etc.). In contrast to the extremely minimalist expression of Pong Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. establishes a clearly identifiable/relatable setting, protagonist, and antagonist. Although equally minimalistic relative to today's technological capabilities, the digital expression of traditional literary techniques allowed player agents of Super Mario Bros. to not simply watch Mario fight foes to rescue the Princess, but to literally become Mario and battle the antagonists themselves to create their very own narratives of what it was like to rescue the Princess. In this form of early digital story telling, the narrative ended the same for all player agents, yet the "journey" to the resolution became a relatively unique experience across different player agents.

46,800 Page Views?!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 14:27:00 +0000

Hello, folks. The last time that I updated this blog was nearly 3 years ago (on July 7, 2010. to be exact).

For a research project with my summer teaching job (Upward Bound at Bemidji State University), I recently fired up my old blog and realized that, since being purchased by Google, Blogger has a TON of metrics that you can use to view and monitor the traffic taking place across your blog.

While browsing through these metrics, my mind was quickly blown; I quickly discovered that my little old blog has a total of 46,800 total views from its conception 5 years ago.

46,800 views?! Are people really that interested in what I once said?

Well, I am taking this huge number as an inspiration to fire my blog back up and pump out some more entries (let's see if we can drive this total even higher).

Thank you if you have been checking in with me over the literal years, I think it is really cool, and I really appreciate it.

I will do my best to post more critical explorations of my teaching career thus far (I have officially earned tenure in the state of MN!), as well as issues on my mind (I am EXTREMELY interested in the way video games can tell a narrative at the present moment, and I feel a post in the works about that right now!).

Thanks again, everyone, and stay tuned.

-Rick Lee Filipkowski

Tinkering with USTREAM

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:13:00 +0000

Hello again edu-tech enthusiasts!

If you have not checked out the USTREAM website yet, I highly recommend sitting down with it for a while. From what I have learned while playing with the utility thus far, USTREAM is an online utility capable of broadcasting live video & audio from any compatible computer (basically, anything relatively new with a webcam) or mobile phone (a bit more limited to newer, higher-end smart phones). Once "broadcasters" create a live feed (or "show" in the USTREAM vernacular), additional viewers can "tune in" and converse about the live content via a USTREAM-hosted chat room, all occurring live, in real time. Furthermore, USTREAM records and archives live feeds for later viewing, as well as allows users to upload archived content to additional video hosting and social networking utlities such as YouTube and Facebook.

There are definitely some interesting possibilities here - students could create, broadcast, and / or view shows ranging across various topics, classes could be broadcasted live to absent or distance-based students, and the list goes on and on.

Bellow is my personal USTREAM feed embedded into this blog posting (did I mention that it is very, very easy to embed video, audio, and chat feeds in external sights?!?). I'm going to be tinkering with this utility quite a bit, so don't be surprised if you run into some live streaming randomness in the window bellow.

Online video chat by Ustream

CI 5410 Final Project

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:03:00 +0000

The bellow link leads to my self-developed, wiki-based final project for CI 5410. It was a pleasure working with all of you!

http://teachingfictionandpoetrymanual.pbworks.com/Teaching-Fiction-and-Poetry%3A-a-Short-Repository-of-Useful-Resources

Take care!

CI 5410 - A Throwback to Poetry; Exploring Tone Through Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:00:00 +0000

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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While browsing the interwebs to help me brainstorm ideas for this week’s assignment, I came across the following page utilized by Susan Somers-Willet (a writing instructor at the University of Texas - Austin) to help facilitate her poetry and performance class. In addition to publishing assignment ideas specifically related to performance poetry, Somers-Willet has crafted assignments applicable to many other poetic genres / styles.

http://www.susansw.com/318performance/assignments.htm

For this week’s assignment, I would like to appropriate (and of course modify) Somers-Willet’s “Performance Poem #1” assignment which you can find about 2/3 of the way down the page:

“Performance poem #1”

For your first performance assignment, you will perform a poem by someone else. The poem you select should be one by which you think both you and your audience could benefit. Your performance should last at least 1.5 minutes long and should be memorized (although you may have a partner on book during your performance). For some tips on memorization, read "Memorizing a Poem" in SLAM pp. 50-55. For this assignment, think of the poem as a script for performance.

You will be graded on (in order of importance):

• Your performance and interpretation of the poem. You can fulfill this by simply addressing the question, "What separates my performance from a mere recital of the poem?"

• Your use of performative aspects that don't involve props, costumes, or other "outside" assistance--such as voice, tone, sound, rhythm, use of space, and gesture (you will get the chance to use props or costumes in your other performances). The key here is to strive to engage the audience in your understanding and experience of the poem.

• The effort you have put into understanding and interpreting the poem's performative aspects. Your audience can easily tell when you've put in the time and effort to not only memorize the poem, but to understand what the poem means to you and sharing that with an audience.
Now that you have the basic foundations of this performance-based assignment…

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MY SPECIFIC MODIFICATIONS
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Materials: Copies of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Song’s of Experience.
Time span: About 2-3 class periods.

Although I am fairly confident that an upper-class, college student could successfully engage Sommers-Willet's extremely open task (after all, the course is a 3XXX level English course), I highly doubt that a middle and / or high school student could independently negotiate the

-wide open selection of ANY poem to perform
-isolation of intended meanings / purposes to guide their performance
-performance of the poem in a way that clearly and effectively communicates an intended interpretation / meaning to their audience.

The following modifications are designed to incorporate necessary scaffolding by re-framing the activity around the communication / consideration of tone across William Blake’s Songs of Experience and Songs of Innocence. Per usual, further modify this activity to YOUR unique learning context.

1.) Begin by exploring the specific differences between performing a poem and reciting a poem. To do so, the following question set may be useful:

-What sort of meanings can you communicate when you recite a poem? Perform a poem?
-Are there meanings that a performance can communicate that a recital may not? How so?
-How would you characterize a recital? A performance? What specific features might you notice?
-What are the potential effects of a recital on the listener? What are the potential effects of a performance on the listener?

Further probing questions?

-How might you talk when reciting / perform a poem?
-How might you move when reciting / perform a poem?

In addition to the discussion you and your class generate, a simple YouTube search will yield further multi-modal examples of performances and recitals.

Whatever is generated, conclude on the following core concepts:

*People perform poems to amplify and / or create meanings that the text alone may not necessarily be able to communicate.

*Tone can be greatly amplified / created / emphasized / revealed when a poem is performed vs. simply recited.

2.) If your class is not familiar with the concept of tone, provide them with the necessary background contexts re definitions, uses, and so on.

*More important to this activity, discuss how tone is created (in poetry AND every day life) via the complex interactions between:

a. ) the base meanings of specific words we chose

b. ) the additional meanings created when we VERBALLY communicate said words (e.g., the inflections we use, the intensity or lack thereof in our voices, and so on)

c.) the additional meanings created when we NON-VERBALLY communicate said words (e.g. the way we stand, move, our facial expressions, and so on)

d.) the surrounding social, cultural, political, and so on contexts we are located while communicating.

Again, in addition to the discussion that you and your class create, a simple YouTube search will yield TONS of rich examples to further explore the creation / communication of tone.

3.) Distribute examples of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence to ½ the class, and Songs of Experience to ½ the class.

NOTE: the idea here is that these poems have DRAMATICALLY different tones which can be further amplified / revealed via the specific decisions students make while performing them.

4.) As a class, in groups, and or individually, have students read their poem and identify a.) WHAT specific tone it creates and b.) HOW, specifically, the text alone creates this tone.

5.) Once students have identified both the specific tone, as well as how the text contributes to the establishment of this tone, have them explore the following question set:

-How can I amplify / emphasize / reinforce / reveal the tone of this poem?
-What specific word choices / phrases contribute to the tone I want to amplify?
-How, specifically, might I perform them? What sort of energy, or lack their of, might I use? What sort of inflections might I use in my voice?
-How will I act / look / move when I perform? Will I look angry? Sad? Happy? Depressed?

6.) In class and as homework, have students further consider the decisions they will make and rehearse.

7.) In class the next day, have students perform their poems, potentially switching back and forth between examples from Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience.

NOTE: again, the idea here is to clearly show your students via co-performance the nuanced ways in which specific performance decisions can greatly influence diverse tones that are communicated to audiences.

8.) As a sort of post analysis / reflection activity, have students write a short paragraph responding to the following questions:

a.) What SPECIFIC decisions did I make during the performance of my poem that were successful / communicated my intended meaning / purpose / tone?

b.) Why SPECIFICALLY do I think this / how SPECIFICALLY could I tell?

c.) If I were to perform this poem again I would change the way I _______ because _______.

d.) If I were to perform this poem again I would note change the way I _______ because _______.

CI 5410 Week 11 – Assignment; The School Newspaper Muse

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:51:00 +0000

INTRODUCTION

In their introduction to exercise #41 titled “The Newspaper Muse: Ann Landers and the National Enquirer,” Bernays and Painter (2005) quote Joyce Carol Oates’ treatment of the everyday newspaper as a rich source of fictional fodder:

“…it is the very skeletal nature of the newspaper, I think, that attracts me to it, the need it inspires in me to give flesh to such neatly and thinly-told tales, to resurrect this event which has already become history and will never be understood unless it is re-lived, re-dramatized” (120).

Although there exists a virtually infinite pool of easy to access and transport print AND digital news material at your fingertips to use for this sort of activity (just think of your own used newspaper that you would otherwise throw away and / or the myriad of online local, regional, and national newspapers!), I argue that students often feel relatively dissociated with local, regional, and / or national events to which they may perceive little to no personal proximity. Whether influenced by adolescent egocentrism and / or the seemingly universal human tendency to pay less attention to information one perceives to hold little to no influence over their lived experience and / or identity, I argue that the creative potential of Bernays’ and Painter’s (2005) intriguing exercise could be negatively compromised if students perceived their available pool of news stories to likewise hold little to no relevance to their own lived experiences and / or identities. After all, when readers don’t personally know the individuals involved, incur any personal costs, and / or incur any personal benefits in relation to a given news story, what is their incentive to care? If my students are anything like me, they frequently have a difficult time finding an incentive to read on and / or “do” anything with the news stories they consume.

Therefore, this assignment will require students to

1.) identify

AND

2.) “give flesh to”

the “neatly and thinly-told tales” found in their school’s own newspaper to which they ideally perceive a higher degree of relevance to their own lived experiences and / or identities.

PROCEDURE

-Acquire enough copies (and some extras just in case!) of your school’s newspaper to ensure that EACH student has their own copy to work with.

NOTE: although I imagine that students will logically perceive larger degrees of personal association with coverage of more vs. less recent news, feel free to dip back into the archives and acquire a diverse range of newer and older editions of your school’s newspaper (you never know what exactly will trip a student’s creative trigger!).

NOTE 2: also, because “school news” isn’t reported / doesn’t occur in a vacuum, encourage students to consult outside news sources for more information if an event or issue trips their curiosities. In other words, although the “school news” should be a rich enough ecosystem in which to navigate this activity, encourage students to explore other news ecosystems if they wish.

-After acquiring and distributing school newspapers, students will

identify ONE headline off of which to develop a story

write said headline at the top of a sheet of paper as a sort of tentative title / lens to help them frame their story

develop their story! (I’m thinking about 1-2 pages as one night's homework here, but like always, the assignment parameters and drafting times you chose depends on your own unique learning context!).

Encourage students to be as creative as possible, and remind them that they can take their stories outside of the school walls (just because events may occur in the school doesn’t mean they have to stay there!).

**NOTE: Before jumping into the creative portion of the activity, it might be necessary to establish some ground rules re what is / isn’t appropriate when utilizing familiar people, places, and things as writing catalysts. For example, clarify with your class that it is NOT acceptable to use their fiction as a guise to ridicule and / or harass other students, teachers, administrators, community members, etc. In other words, create and enforce rules re your own unique learning context.**

CI 5410 Week 10.2 – Chapter 4, exercise 23; “An Early Memory, Part Two: The Reminiscent Narrator”

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:46:00 +0000

The following creative example is in response to PART TWO of Bernays' and Painter's (1990) exercise titled An Early Memory: The Reminiscent Narrator.

In PART ONE of the exercise, B&P challenge writers to recollect and recast the event on the page via the perceptions and emotional tones appropriate for a child. As a result, B&P argue that writers will run less of a chance of intentionally influencing reader's perceptions of what is written, and simply report the basic "facts" of the memory instead. In PART TWO of this exercise, however, B&P challenge writers to re-color the same event, but this time through perceptions and emotional tones appropriate for an adult. As a result, the objective of this exercise is two-fold:

1.) explore the underlying "meaning" of the memory that writers simply "reported on" in PART ONE, and

2.) do so by recasting/recoloring the memory in a perspective, point of view, and overall emotional tone appropriate for an adult.

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The Neighbor's Moat

Impulse control, as I’ve heard some psychologists call it, has never been one of my strong suits. When the feeling of not knowing makes my skin crawl, I do not have the control to push it aside and focus even for a second on the other things in my life that I desperately should do, or desperately need doing. In comparison to the mountains of fly-infested dishes piling gradually higher in the sink, to fixing the relationships corroding in the acid bath of my decisions, I cannot or will not tolerate being so uncomfortable in my own skin.

When I was seven years old, I received the first glimpse I can recall of what I am capable of when confronted with the impossibility of not knowing. As I kicked a favorite soccer ball back and forth in the open lane of grass separating the reclusive neighbor’s house from my childhood home, I noticed that some sort of construction was taking place in the adjoining back yard – the majority of grass had been completely removed, and a deep, freshly-dug, moat-like trench lined the rear of the house. Propelled by my impulse via the guise of accidentally kicking my soccer ball closer and closer to the curious scene, the ball suddenly vanished from my sight, followed by a quite, yet noticeable, splash. As I peered into where the ball had disappeared, I noticed that the trench was filled with a rather high volume of water, most likely from the combination of the intense rain we’ve been having that summer, as well as the contractor’s inability to understand the concept of adequate drainage.

The trench wasn’t just moat-like, but a real moat in every way that I could logically discern. Like a real moat surrounding a castle, this moat-like trench surrounded a structure that could need guarding if the owners wished. Like a real moat surrounding a castle, this moat-like trench was deep and filled with dangerous looking water, deep enough and watery enough that it could trap an intruder for later judgment. But, I could not figure out if it was indeed a real, honest-to-God moat, or a fake moat-like substitute. Because I have never seen a real moat, I was worried that my comparative criteria were flawed, and I decided to test my hypothesis further. If it was a real moat, a real intruder would indeed become hopelessly trapped, I concluded.

Having devised a reliable experiment, I began to brainstorm possible subjects, focusing on my younger friend and adjacent neighbor Kevin, who I thought best fit the profile – like me, he couldn’t resist a construction site. But unlike me, he wouldn’t be calculated enough to immediately perceive my designs for him.

Kicking the ball briskly through my yard to Kevin’s, I did my best to look like a normal child at play. But, my twists and turn did not even carry me half way through the yard until I was intercepted by my mother shaking out the foyer rug on the front steps, and placed under the lens of her scrutiny.

“Why are you so dirty?” she immediately demanded, noticing the physical most indications of my plot.

“Just playing,” I returned, doing the best to focus my attention on clumsily dribbling the ball at my feet than her eyes carefully assessing me. “Can I go over to Kevin’s?”

“You look like you are up to no good,” she turned over over in her mind. As she continued shaking out the rug, the increasing cloud of dust, dead skin cells, and dog hair masked any potentially remaining tells. Finally, her struggle with the rug had won her immediate attention, and she sent me on my way with nothing more than a warning to not get my clothes any dirtier than they already were.

Kevin’s dad answered the door, and I asked if Kevin could come out and play. Flying out of the front door, Kevin stole the ball at my feet, and I engaged him in this play to keep up appearances.

“Hey, you wanna see something really, really cool?” I asked after quickly growing tired of our game of cat and mouse.

“What is it?”

“I found a giant hole in their backyard that looks like a moat.”

“Like a castle?”

My heart raced so suddenly at the quick progression of my experiment that I found it nearly impossible to speak. But this was a different type of racing heart than getting yelled at for getting my clothes too dirty, or running from the adjacent neighbor’s German Sheppard that we shot it with the hose. This was the first taste of the racing heart that now runs me.

“Just like a castle,” I managed to choke.

I reenacted my initial surprise and curiosity at discovering the neighbor’s construction site, and Kevin continued to fall hook, line, and sinker, just as my father would say after returning home with the latest piece of electronics that he didn’t really need. After allowing Kevin several victories in king of the hill atop the construction site’s small, scattered piles of dirt, all conditions but one were in place to initiate my the final stage of my experiment – Kevin was still much too far away from the edge of the moat-like trench.

As fate seemed to have it, Kevin had a stronger kick than he expected, and the soccer ball plummeted into the watery chasm of the moat-like trench following a final victory kick. As he leaned over the moat-like trench to recover the results of his miscalculated contact with the ball, the final condition of my experiment fell into place. As if out of instinct, my impulse immediately reacted, and the accelerating momentum of my seven-year-old form sent Kevin falling head first into the watery prison bellow, his screams to my back as I retreated to assess the outcomes of my experiment.

From a secure vantage point behind the utility shed in our backyard, I could hear Kevin’s cries bellow hopelessly from the moat-like trench. Although I could see an occasional hand desperately brush the rim of what was once merely a moat-like trench, Kevin was not exiting the hold of the honest-to-God moat under his own power. As Kevin’s mud-covered hands continued to rake back and forth across the edge of the now-confirmed moat, the sheer joy of knowing surged through me, my impulse tearing my body from the safety of the utility shed and sending it running and skipping around the backyard. If anyone was watching me, they would have seen the normalist, happiest child in all of Oakdale.

As I tumbled and zigzagged my way home, my mother was already lying in wait for me in the open threshold of the front door, hands on her hips, telephone in hand, my father standing slightly behind her with arms sternly crossed on the now dust, skin, and dog hair-free foyer rug.

“Kevin’s father is on the phone,” she yelled frantically at me as I approached. “Did you push Kevin into that hole in the neighbor’s backyard?”

“Yes.”

“Why on earth did you do that?” She was begging now, completely bewildered by such a guilt-free affirmation to such a dreadful question.

As I excitedly explained that Kevin helped me to test if the moat-like trench in the neighbor’s backyard was indeed a real moat (and that it had passed the test wonderfully), she rudely interrupted, simultaneously informing me that I was not allowed to play with Kevin anymore because I hurt him so terribly, and apologizing to Kevin’s father for my behavior.

Uncomfortably shifting his position on the foyer rug, my father asked me a question that I have pondered in various tenses and terms ever since the day I discovered the neighbor’s moat –

“Was it worth it, son?”

More than you or anyone else can possibly imagine.

CI 5410 Week 10.1 – Chapter 4, exercise 22; “An Early Memory, Part One: The Child as Narrator”

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:44:00 +0000

The following creative example is in response to Bernays' and Painter's (1990) exercise titled An Early Memory, Part One: The Child as Narrator. In this exercise, B&P argue that although the phrase "write what you know" has become completely cliche, it does hold extremely true: "Your own life - and your memories of it - have an intensity and immediacy that are useful in creating fiction" (64). However, B&P argue that it is integral for writers to explore and consider their proximity to their own memories, more specifically, the idea that "it's not just what you know, but how you see it, shape it, and enhance it with your imagination" (64).

In part ONE of this exercise, B&P challenge writers to recall and write about an event in the most objective voice possible, working to NOT color the recollection with current/adult perceptions, feelings, wishes, and so on. In other words, B&P challenge writers to present the "facts" of the recollection as accurately as possible, coloring the event with perceptions and emotional tones appropriate for a CHILD. As a result, the recollection should present the narrative "without nudging the reader or in any way explaining what she has written" (65).

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I lose sight of my favorite soccer ball as it bounces down the big field of green grass between the two backyards. As I run to find it and kick it back up the field, I see that the neighbor’s backyard looks really different – there was a huge field of grass yesterday, and now there are tall mountains of dirt all over the place. I pick up my ball and run into the yard. I have to run fast because mom and dad wouldn’t let me go over there. They would say that I would just hurt myself.

What I find looks like a big, brown castle – a huge trench is dug around the back of the neighbor’s house, and it is filled with muddy water just like a moat. I kick the ball around in the dirt for a while and climb all over the dirt hills. The ball bounces off of one of the huge mountains and falls down into the muddy water, and I wonder if this moat works like a real moat. If real moats are used to trap people and keep them out of castles, a good way to test the realness of this moat would be to push my friend Kevin in and see if he got stuck.

I walk over to Kevin’s house with my ball under my arm and see my mom on the front steps shaking the dust out of a rug. I try to walk by without her seeing me, but she stops me and asks,

“Why are you so dirty? You look like you’re up to no good.”

“I’m just playing,” I say bouncing my ball off of my knee. “Can I go over to Kevin’s?”

“Sure,” she says waving the dust out of her face. “Just try not to get any more dirt on your clothes.”

Kevin’s dad answers the door and I ask if Kevin can come out and play. I wait on Kevin’s front steps bouncing the ball off of the side of their house, and Kevin's dad tells me to stop it. After he sees my ball, Kevin comes outside and steals it from me.

“Let me show you something really cool,” I say.

“What is it?” he asks kicking the ball past me.

“I found a big hole in their backyard,” I say pointing to the neighbor’s house. "It looks like a moat."

“Like a castle?” Kevin asks.

“Just like a castle,” I say. I feel good that I am able to get Kevin to come without him knowing what I am going to do to him.

Kevin runs ahead of me with my ball, and we both wave at my mom as she shakes the dust out of another rug.

After we kick the ball around in the dirt and play king of the hill on the mountains for a while, I tell Kevin to look at the moat. As he leans over the hole, I run up behind him, push him as hard as I can, and run. I hear Kevin splash into the water and start crying as I cross into our yard and hide behind the side of our house. At first, I feel good because I proved that the moat was a real moat, but then I get scarred and run home because Kevin doesn't stop crying. I can still hear Kevin crying my entire way back.

As I walk up our front steps, mom is waiting for me with her hands on her hips and the telephone in her hands. Dad is standing behind her in the house with his arms crossed.

“Kevin’s father is on the phone,” she says, pointing the phone at me. “Did you push Kevin into a hole in the neighbor’s backyard?”

“Yes,” I say, spinning my ball in my hands.

“I knew you were up to no good,” she yells. “Why on earth did you do that?”

I tell her that I wanted to see if the neighbor had a real moat or not, and Kevin helped me test it out. Mom tells me that Kevin's dad is really mad at me and doesn't think I should play with Kevin anymore.

“Was it worth it?” dad asks from the inside of the house.

I drop my ball and start crying.

CI 5410 Week 9.3 - Chapter 3, exercise 13; "Funny - You Don't Look 75"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:42:00 +0000

The following reflective example is a response to Bernays' and Painter's (1990) exercise titled Funny - You Don't Look 75. In this exercise, B&P discuss the reader's need to "know" certain basic facts about characters, including their general appearance and approximate age (39). To practice communicating the aforementioned details to readers, B&P challenge writers to list the subtle ways in which basic facts about their characters can be conveyed (41).

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Non-physical markers of age:

-Type of car driven

-Smell(s) inside of house and / or car

-Pictures on display

-Technologies found in home and / or on person

-Furnishings

-Types and styles of food stocked in cupboards

-Medications / health / hygiene items stocked in medicine cabinet / bathroom

-Music displayed / listened to

-Literature displayed / read

-Amount / type of nick nacks

-Presence / amount of stairs

-Stores shopped at

-Social locations frequented

-Activities / hobbies interested in

Physical markers of age:

-Walking speed / gate

-Posture

-Hair color / style / pattern

-Reflexes while walking / driving

-Personal style

-Overall physical shape

-Overall physical health

-Complexion

-Most / least frequent topics of conversation

-Most / least frequent tones of conversation

-Personal lexicon / vernacular

CI 5410 Week 9.2 - Chapter 3, exercise 14; "Naming Your Characters"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:38:00 +0000

The following creative examples are from Bernays' and Painter's (1990) exercise titled Naming Your Characters. In this exercise, B&P caution writers against simply pulling names out of a hat when naming their characters. Instead, B&P challenge writers to carefully consider how the names they give their characters help convey a sense of a particular character's role in your fiction (42). To practice this calculated selection of character names, B&P challenge the writer to assign names that "fit" the bellow character types.

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A petty, white-collar thief who robs his boss over several years:

Marcus Conroy
Seth Pierce
Gordon Chilling

An envious, bitter woman who makes her sister miserable by systematically trying to undercut her pleasure and self-confidence:

Carolyn Bender
Danielle Lynche
Selma Thorne

A sweet young man too shy to speak to an attractive woman he sees every day at work:

Miles Quinn
William Greene
Rick Filipkowski

The owner of a fast-food restaurant who comes on to his young female employees:

Lou Piles
Frank Boyle

A grandmother who just won the lottery:

Mable Bodewell
Beatrice Sykes

CI 5410 Week 9.1 - Chapter 2, exercise 9; "Mining Memory"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 18 May 2010 01:35:00 +0000

The following reflective examples are in response to Bernay's and Painters' (1990) exercise titled Mining Memory. In this exercise, B&P encourage writers to view their lives as far from boring and dull. Instead, the authors suggest that writers take the time to "store away for future use the odd, funny, sad, and suspenseful things" that happen to them (28). After all, you never know what little thing can spark a detailed story!

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Over about the past week...

Things that pleased me:

1.) The observation that all morning doves (at least I think they're morning doves) sing the exact same two note tune.

2.) Ginger "asking" me to let her outside by barking and spinning in a little circle vs. just peeing (or worse) in the house.

3.) Annie "asking" Ginger to play by barking and moaning like a board little child, only to be completely ignored as Ginger simply isn't in the mood.

4.) Ginger looking at me in complete bewilderment (or is it defiance?) when I throw her the ball.

5.) Hearing hidden frogs croak over the noise of "Dancing Nancies" playing on my iPod.

6.) Tasting my first home-made, grilled "No Name" steak of the Spring.

7.) Paying less money for a delicious imported beer than I would for a mass-produced Diet Coke at the Kitty Cat Klub's daily happy hour.

8.) The cashier at Trader Joe's double-bagging my groceries without my having to ask.

9.) Being offered a small gig at the Dunn Bros. coffee near my home.

10.) My machinist father fixing my broken iPod case vs. myself having to replace it.

Things that made me angry:

1.) Annie biting at bees (and usually getting stung in the mouth at least once) EVERY Spring since I've had her.

2.) 65 pound Annie getting herself hopelessly tangled on a tiny stick, bush / tree branch, and / or one of her own turds.

2.) Ginger trying to "sneak" rabbit turds, even though I repeatedly yell at her for eating them.

3.) Waiting for at least one dozen cars before I can cross Hadley Avenue.

4.) Teenagers vandalizing the Oakdale Nature Center - MY suburban getaway.

5.) Walking into any Walmart in the United States. Enough said.

6.) Facebook status updates fishing for sympathies.

7.) Getting furiously passed by BMW man while stuck in a traffic jam on Highway 36.

8.) Listening to how much money has been offered to MN Twins player Joe Mauer.

9.) Getting "no-showed" by a client who begged me to fit them into the schedule.

10.) Not being able to find pre-made hamburger patties at Trader Joe's.

CI 5410 Week 7.1 - Place-based Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 02:34:00 +0000

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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Kowit (1995) encourages practicing poets to draft an “object poem” in the third chapter of our course text; in other words, a poem concerned with rendering some sort of object (no matter how idiosyncratically obscure, arbitrary, or absurd) AND its larger meaning(s) to the poet and / or reader via extremely vivid detail and reflection. For this week's assignment, I would like to transform Kowit’s (1995) “object poem” into a “place poem;” as you’ve probably guessed, a poem concerned with rendering some sort of place (again, no matter how idiosyncratically obscure, arbitrary, or absurd) AND its larger meaning(s) to the poet and or / reader via extremely vivid detail and reflection.

I offer the “place poem” as a paired activity to the “object poem” and / or a standalone activity as such a task requires students to exercise similar skills with manipulating and managing vivid detail and reflection to render / make concrete otherwise abstract emotional, idiosyncratic associations with specific places.

Much of this assignment will refer to some unique detail management vocabulary ("snapshots" and "thoughtshots") created by writing instructor Barry Lane. Although I will be as detailed as possible with this vocabulary throughout the following assignment description, feel free to consult Lane's the formative source (cited bellow), as well as a wiki chapter regarding his work that a group and I created in our
CI 5461 writing method’s class.

Lane, Barry. After THE END: Teaching and Learning Creative Revision. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. 1993.

Wiki chapter:

http://ci5461teachingwriting2009.pbworks.com/After-THE-END%3A-Teaching-and-Learning-Creative-Revision

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PREPARATION
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Lesson duration:

To account for adequate pre-writing, drafting, peer workshopping, and revision time, I recommend stretching out this activity over the course of 1 full week and really getting into it! However, feel free to adapt to your unique learning context.

Materials:

Some sort of handouts teaching the detail management vocabulary necessary for the lesson. Check out the example-laden handouts I found online as they should do just the trick!

Handout 1

Snapshot

Snapshots allow the reader to be drawn into the story and for the story to come to life. Snapshots are used when the writer zooms in and looks closely at details. It is especially important to pay attention to more than physical details. Students often focus only on sight, but remember that there are 5 senses which play a part in creating a scene or a mood in a story. Challenge your students to appeal to several of the reader's senses rather than focusing only on one. In the example below, look at how the mood is created by the details provided.

“I went inside. The smell of hot cocoa flowed throughout the house. The fire crackled in the small red and brown bricked fireplace. My mother was stirring the beef soup. My two year old brother was quietly playing with wooden blocks that had little letters carved in them. My father sat playing a slow, sad song on his beautiful country guitar. I took off my parka an hung it on the brass coat rack. My mother gave me a bowl of hot beef soup and cocoa. The broth felt warm running down my throat. The feeling of warmth spread all over me.”

Original URL - http://www.wku.edu/3kinds/rjpssrevise.html

Handout 2

Thoughtshots

Thoughtshots are another way to include detail in your writing. A thoughtshot allows the writer to pause and reflect on a particular event or a detail. For example, you could write
My mother always sat down in front of the television after dinner.
But a thoughtshot would be far more interesting to read. Here is an example:

“I don’t know why my mother always sat down in front of the television after dinner. Perhaps it was the only time she really had for herself. My sister and I always had to do the dishes. My step-father usually went out to the garage to work on the old Buick that he always thought he could get up and running someday. Maybe Mom just liked being alone with her game show. She always watched Jeopardy with Alex Trebeck. I think she thought Alex was handsome and smart. Maybe she dreamed that Alex would come into our living room one day and swoop her off to game show land. Mom knew a lot of the answers on Jeopardy, and she’d call them out to the television as if those contestants could hear her. “Where is China!” she’d yell. I always thought it was sort of dumb, and I remember one time my best friend Angela was over at my house. She heard my mother and looked at me like I was weird.”

Original URL - www.granadateachers.com/mason/docs/essays/thoughtshots.doc

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Procedure
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STEP 1: CREATE A WORKING DEFINITION OF "PLACE"

Begin with creating a working definition of what counts as a “place.” As students offer different places, write them down on the board, grouping them into categories such as macro (cities, states, countries, and so on) and micro (their rooms!) places. By the end of this step, come to a class understanding that a “place” can be…

A.) Far as well as near
B.) Big as well as small
C.) Natural as well as man-made
D.) New as well as old

And so on and so forth. For this activity, my only recommendation is that you confine “place” to the concrete / physical realm vs. abstract emotional states of being (at least for this step!).

STEP 2: PREWRITING

In their journals, have students list places that they have been, yearn to go to, love, hate, fear, and so on. Encourage students to cross and otherwise not be confined by the categories that you have created earlier. Also, require them to record ONE concrete / physical detail appealing to the 5 senses they associate with each place. If they get hung up on one place for more than a few seconds, tell them to move on and keep going (this is just an exercise to get the poetry juices flowing!).

Next, come back as a large group or break off into small groups and have each student pick ONE place with which to share…

a.) ONE concrete / physical detail associated with it
b.) how the place makes them feel

As students share their prewriting, record emerging patterns and relationships between the emotions associated with each place and associated sensory details. If all goes well here, you will be able to uncover some striking and fun associations between abstract reflections and the sensory details used to support / validate such reflections.

If this desired pattern doesn’t necessarily emerge, be sure to state the following concept:

“Poets carefully combine sensory detail and explicit reflection to build scenes and SHOW vs. TELL readers their understanding of people, places, and things.”

STEP 3: TEACH CONCEPTS OF SNAPSHOTS and THOUGHTSHOTS

After students are comfortable with the larger conceptual frameworks (see earlier handouts for your assistance), have each student choose ONE place that they have brainstormed either during or since the prewriting activity to “zoom in” on and write their "place poem" about.

Start the “zooming in” process with writing as many snapshots as possible. Again, emphasize mining ALL of the 5 senses! If you wish, create a sort of chart and / or graphic organizer to help students manage this process.

Then, continue to “zoom in” by writing as many thoughtshots as possible. Spark thoughtshots by asking questions such as…

-What does this place remind you of?
-When in your life were you exposed to this place?
-How does it make you feel?
-What did you do in this place?
-Where you alone in this place? Or was someone with you?
-If you were not alone, what was the other person’s relationship to you?
-How did they make you feel?

And so on. Really, the sky is the limit!

STEP 4: DRAFTING

And now to the fun part… After you have reviewed the handout examples (as well as other examples you find), have students begin to combine and re-combine snapshots and thoughtshots to create their “place poems.” For their first draft, don’t worry about purpose too much. Instead, just let them go!

STEP 5: WORKSHOPPING

After students have a draft (even if the draft is nothing more than a more thorough collection of disassociated snapshots and thoughtshots), put them into peer review groups and have them explore patterns that they “see” emerging. To assist groups, supply them with guiding questions such as…

-What is the main idea of the piece?
-What sensory details help build and support this idea?
-What is the tone of the piece?
-What sensory details help build and support this tone?

Whatever prompts you wish to use, come to the following class-wide understanding by the end of the workshop:

“As poets combine sensory detail and explicit reflection to illuminate a person, place, or thing, they DO NOT haphazardly through details and thoughts around; instead, the decisions they make about what details and commentary to include work to build and support a specific purpose! In other words, they carefully craft their details and thoughts to reveal something specific about a person, place, or thing!”

After your class is comfortable with this conceptual framework and have reviewed many textual examples of purposeful use of snapshots and thoughtshots, have students revise their poems around a specific purpose. For their next revision, have them “weed out” the snapshots and thoughtshots that do not help build / support a purpose, and further develop the snapshots and thoughtshots that do.

STEP 6: RE-WORKSHOPPING

In peer review groups, continue to have students identify their purposes and scrutinize the effectiveness and relevancy of their supporting snapshots and thoughtshots.

STEP 7: FINAL DRAFT

Lather.

Rinse.

Repeat until you want students to submit a final draft demonstrating keen use of snapshots and thoughtshots to build / support a purposeful poem. For instructor assessment and student self-reflection purposes, consider requiring an “author’s statement” in which students articulate a.) their guiding purpose and b.) the specific decisions made re their use of snapshots and thoughtshots to support their guiding purpose.

CI 5410 Week 6.1 - Poet Presentation; Eireann Lorsung

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 02:06:00 +0000

Link to Google doc of presentation handout:

https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0Acd1iDMEKW-IZGQ0Mjlkc3FfNzB3bnh6cnZkeA&hl=en

Prezi presentation:

Eireann Lorsung on Prezi

CI 5410 Week 5.2 - Poem #4; "Real Job"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:45:00 +0000

Real Job

“I hope you’re doing this for the right reasons.”
She told me.
“And not just trying to put off getting a real job.”

A real job?

A real job?

What job is more real than using what little I have
to give something
to give anything
to another?

And I’m not talking about giving money
or toys
or fashions
or anything that one may use as ammunition against another.

I’m talking about giving freedom
hope
love
safety
a future
even if it’s only for 50 minutes a day.

What job is more real than using what little I have
but seeing the same things day in
and day out?
racism
hatred
discrimination
even when people say that it’s not intended.

Nah
It’s fake
Baby
Just as fake as the real world that you live in

So if it makes you feel any better
I’ve made it all up
Just like I’ve made up my mind.

CI 5410 Week 5.2 - "Penny for Your Thoughts"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:44:00 +0000

Gemineye's "Penny for Your Thoughts" effectively challenges various gendered stereotypes concerning sexuality / sexual relationships; mainly, the assumption that men are more preoccupied with and / or take more pleasure from participating in carnal acts of sex vs. forming intimate emotional relationships.

The primary poetic "device" that Gemineye utilizes to challenge the aforementioned gendered stereotype is a sort of semantic "inversion" or "twist." In other words, just as he begins to form a rather vivid, sexually explicit scene, he quickly and creatively inverts his meaning to reinforce a sense of emotional vs. carnal intimacy:

"Getting intimately closer as we approach the
Climatic altitude of nude, mental, sensational… conversation.

Because I’m trying to get to know everything about you
From the neck… UP."

Via the first portion of the above "stanza," notice how Gemineye begins to construct his scene via utilizing words that connotatively resonate with a sense of explicit sexuality (e.g., "climatic," "nude," and "sensational"). However, just as the listener assumes / expects Gemineye will complete his scene with a final serving of sexually explicit detail (e.g., the "typical" male attitude / response), he redirects attention away from the carnal body, to the emotional mind. Similarly, just as the reader assumes / expects Gemineye to be interested in his partner from the neck down (carrying further implied sexual connotations via drawing attention to the stereotypically sexualized female organs), he again inverts his meaning to draw attention to the symbolic center of his partner's emotional vs. carnal self.

However, via the use of these semantic inversions, notice how a sense of explicit sexuality is not purged from how Gemineye conceptualizes his relationship with his partner. Instead, I argue that Gemineye's use of this sort of poetic inversion effectively allows this raw explicitness to transition from his partner's body to her mind, losing absolutely no power as this border is crossed:

"I want to lick every inch of every crevasse
So I can get an oral fix from each orifice
And taste you passionate... IMAGINATION."

Again, when the reader assumes / expects Gemineye to complete this scene via referencing some sort of carnal, sexual act, he immediately shifts this sense of explicitness away from his partner's physical body, to something that is not physical. In short, I argue that this poem would not be nearly as effective if Gemineye completely purged it of it's sense of explicit sexuality. Instead, this sense of explicit sexuality creatively exoticizes and sexualizes the emotional characteristics of his partner, characteristics that men are typically assumed not to be interested in forming a truly intimate and / or satisfying relationship with.

Gemineye's use of this semantic inversion would not be NEARLY as effective if "Penny for Your Thoughts" was simply recited vs. performed:

"I’m penetrating every entrance… to your mind."

For example, the pause denoted by the ellipses does not guarantee that the listener will stop and process for the necessary amount of time for the inversion to "work." However, when performed, Gemineye consciously pauses, gives the listener adequate time to process part one of the semantic inversion, and then proceeds. As a result, the silent "rests" created by these pauses can be interpreted as the "loudest," most meaning-dependent features of the poem. In short, if not performed, the core quality of Gemineye's poem would be rendered ineffective.

Although Gemineye's use of this semantic inversion is definitely creative, effective, and admirable, I found the aggressive, intense tone that he utilizes to perform his poem to strangely contrast with his intended purpose. Via the utilization of this aggressive, intense tone, I argue that Gemineye perhaps unwittingly reinforces the potentially destructive gendered stereotype that men are inherently aggressive, angry beings. Although Gemineye's focus shifts from the body to the emotions across his semantic inversions, his aggressive, angry, and intense tone remains static. While his tone remains unchanged across these semantic shifts, I feel as though Gemineye is sending the message that male anger cannot be diffused; instead, it can only change forms and "must" otherwise be directed at something.

CI 5410 Week 4.3 - Poem #3: "R.I.P."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:11:00 +0000

R.I.P.

When I am dead, my dearest,
don’t you dare dance upon my grave;
my heart has grown rigid,
rests from your wandering gaze.

Though death now keeps my conscience,
dance far away from me;
don’t chance my bones collecting,
an essence of a beat.

When I am dead, my dearest,
don’t you dare dance upon my grave;
my heart has grown rigid,
at last enjoying peace.

CI 5410 Week 4.2 - Assignment #3; "Dude, your poem sucks because _______"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:14:00 +0000

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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Although the following activity is a bit of a knock-off of the “A Difficult Poem” exercise as found on page 145 of our course text, I argue that the following modifications stand to render the overall task more analytical in nature.

Due to the creatively terrible writing required of this task (more on that in a moment!), I imagine this activity to take 2 class periods (introduced / assigned as HW on day ONE, reflected upon on Day TWO).

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SPECIFICS
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After you and your class have started to get a working handle on the formal elements of poetry (perhaps after you have completed the “Poetry Scavenger Hunt” activity), require that your students complete the following:

DAY ONE

1.) Have each student select ONE (or TWO maximum) formal elements of poetry to critically “spoof” / “suck at.” (e.g., imagery, general clichés, meter, alliteration, assonance, and so on).

2.) Swear them to secrecy / do not let them share their selected target elements! (They will critically identify / discuss what is being “spoofed” / “sucked at” on Day TWO).

3.) Using targeted element(s) as the meta-purpose guiding their writing, have students write a poem of any length in which targeted element is creatively “spoofed” / “sucked at.”

4.) Remind students that EVERYONE’S poem will absolutely “suck.” Model / set the worst possible example by selecting an element to “spoof” / “suck at” and create an atrocious poem of your own. Then, read it aloud and have the class tell you what SPECIFIC formal element of poetry you are “spoofing” / “sucking at” and WHY.

5.) Remind everyone to keep things appropriate!

6.) Whatever is not complete in class, assign as homework.

NOTE: I can foresee a large portion of students selecting elements potentially easier to “spoof” / “suck at” than others. For example, I would argue that it would be easier for students new to exploring formal elements of poetry to consciously write a terrible simile than a terrible rhyme scheme. To prevent this uneven undertaking of elements, consider assigning quadrants of the room and / or groups specific elements that they will be required to target in their poems.

DAY TWO

1.) Either as a class and / or in small groups (again, whatever you deem appropriate to YOUR unique class and learning context), have students read each other their poems, critically listen, and complete the following sentence:

“Dude, you’re poem SUCKS because ____________”

…in which they will complete the above sentence via identifying a.) which specific element(s) are being “spoofed” / “sucked” at, and b.) how / why they can tell / "suck" so bad.

Other variations of this critical analysis could also include bringing in typed / written copies of the poems to physically mark on (the presence of marking on a physical may appeal to some learning styles, but wouldn't necessarily have to be required).

2.) As a class, critically select the poems that represent various formal elements of poetry best (er… worst!), and publish them in a “Suckiest Poems” anthology.

Have fun!

CI 5410 Week 4.1 - Assignment #2; "Poetry Scavenger Hunt"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:02:00 +0000

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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Before diving into any specifics surrounding the following assignment idea, I would like to share a confession with you – even though I’m an English teacher, I loathe, and I mean LOATHE, the study of formal poetic elements. Although I absolutely delight in discussing / manipulating arguments, language, and multimodal text, I have always perceived the breaking down of poetry into its myriad of constituent parts to be an EXTREMELY painstaking, unfulfilling, and otherwise anxiety-filled process. This sort of process reminds me of deconstructing / solving a complex math problem, where pluses, minuses, and multiplication symbols are substituted with iambs, troches, and feet (and believe me, I am B-A-D at math!). As a cumulative result of such focused study of these elements, I feel as though I do not have the time (let alone mental energy) to make sense out of and / or appreciate any beauty that a given poem possesses. In short, where some people find delight / beauty in discussing / manipulating these formal elements of poetry, I find anxiety, fear, and frustration; emotional responses presumably shared by many students undertaking such a task!

As I engage in further self-reflection in the attempt to figure out WHY, specifically, I have such a negative attitude toward the study of formal poetic elements, I feel as though the anxiety and distaste I experience stems from how I was expected to learn these elements as a student; through the largely decontextualized, non-authentic “decoding” of some random poem forced upon me by the teacher. Although our course text does a nice job of clearly exploring these poetic elements, as well as contextualizing them via the selection of some fairly beautiful / good poems (at least by my subjective criteria / opinion), I did not have a choice in this matter! I did not have the choice to handle a collection of poetry that I was fascinated by and was able to identify with forever whatever reason! I wasn’t able to flip through pages and select a poem that I found meaningful at the time, a poem that resonated with ME! I was not able to reap the benefits of others co-engaging / coaching me through the process (other than the author of the handbook, that is).

As I argue that many of our students perceive the study of formal poetic elements to be similarly decontextualized, non-authentic “decoding” exercises of random, arbitrarily selected poems that they cannot / do not personally identify with, I urge you to consider the following assignment.

Before I further jump into any specifics, I argue that this activity should take 2-3 class periods as I argue that authentic, potentially “dirty / gritty” exploration is crucial to the activity’s overall effectiveness. But more on that in a moment (again, adjust to YOUR unique learning context).

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SPECIFICS
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Materials needed

As you are no doubt a committed teacher of literature, you ideally have not only a shelf, but an entire ROOM stocked absolutely FULL of diverse texts; poetry and prose, old and new, traditional and non-traditional, English / American and world-centric, male and female, textual and visual, and so on and so forth. In other words, you will ideally have a large library of literature reflective of the diverse students and learning styles that walk into your classroom each day. If you feel as though your library is lacking, take the time to “stock up” before considering this activity (for a quick fix, see what you might be able to borrow from other teachers). Ideally, you want to have a textual selection that you are at least relatively confident that each and everyone one of your students can sift through and eventually find something that they identify with and find meaningful for whatever reason, even if they cannot articulate that exact reason to you!

If you feel confident that you have the library I so dramatically describe, on to the next steps…

-Make a textual mountain in the middle of your classroom however orderly or disorderly (sometimes this sort of study is messy business) you desire.

-After constructing and distributing some sort of simple worksheet / graphic organizer, quite literally set your students “loose” on the mountain of texts. Although the specific expectations you design are of course dependent upon YOUR unique learning context, I imagine requiring students to…

a.) find textual examples that somehow exemplify a range of specific formal poetic elements (e.g., iambic pentameter, imagery, alliteration, assonance, and so on)

b.) record them on their worksheets or journal pages

c.) state specifically HOW / WHY the example they isolated reveals some sort of desired poetic element

NOTE 1: You’re of course going to have had to give your students at least some pre-instruction to formal elements of poetry prior to beginning this activity for obvious reasons. However, I do not think that this pre-instruction has to / should be very intense. Again, my meta-rationale for this activity is that students will have an easier time / take more pleasure in exploring formal poetic elements if they have much more agency in the process; the agency to select their own texts, uncover the elements in the order they desire (almost a sort of self-scaffolding as they potentially work themselves up from easier to more difficult elements to uncover).

NOTE 2: AND THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT! If you simply turn students loose on this task without your guidance, I am very confident that this task will fail miserably. Instead, I suggest you keep the following actions in mind to keep students on track and provide them with the necessary guidance and scaffolding:

-Mill around the room, keeping an eye on who is having trouble. If they are having trouble with a Shakespeare text, suggest something that you believe they might identify with more closely (again, hopefully you are aware of your textual selection, as well as the personality and identities of your students).

-As groups begin to uncover poetic elements, STOP, verbalize the discoveries to the rest of the class (to fight the craziness of noise, perhaps schedule large-group check-ins every 10 minutes or so), and co-explore with your class the following:

1.) What, specifically, a group uncovered passage-wise (you can further read, act, and verbalize the passage).

2.) How / Why a given textual selection is a good example of a given formal poetic element.

-And finally, embrace the chaos!

CI 5410 Week 3.1 - Assignment #1; "From the Wolf's Perspective"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:30:00 +0000

Assignment #1; "From the Wolf's Perspective"

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
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For my first assignment idea, I would like to share with you a wonderfully creative activity focusing on teaching / manipulating PERSPECTIVE. I was initially exposed to this idea during my licensure program's dedicated writing methods class, and it has stuck with me ever since.

Again, the primary focus of this activity is to teach students how to consider (as well as practice manipulating for themselves!) the idea of PERSPECTIVE across textual and / or visual texts. I do not see why this activity could not be applicable to students across ages, cultures, AND learning styles – more on the potentially universal nature of this activity later. Lastly, although of course highly dependent on YOUR unique learning context(s), I imagine this activity to take approximately 1 - 2 class periods.

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SPECIFIC PROCESSES
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Materials

In preparation for this activity, stock up on a number of popular / common children’s fables. Although you definitely have a TON of options to work with here, the following common tales immediately come to mind:

-The Tortoise and the Hare
-The Three Little Pigs
-Jack and the Bean Stock
-The Ugly Duckling
-Hansel and Gretel
-Little Red Riding Hood
-Goldilocks and the Three Bears
-Humpty Dumpty

Basically, any pop culture children’s fables that the majority of students in your class are likely to be familiar with are game!

If you wish, bring in Xeroxed, text-centric print-outs of these stories, or if you dare (and have the access), try to bring in REAL children’s books filled with the child-like images / text with which these stories are commonly communicated. Basically, I argue that the more you can encourage personal identification with these stories (after all, many children were read to out of these children’s books), the more effective this activity will be.

Procedures

DAY ONE

-Split students up into small groups, assigning ONE fable per group.

-While in their small groups, have students read fables out-loud to their fellow group members. Encourage students to express the language in child-speak (e.g., how mothers / fathers might adjust their voices to represent different characters when reading to children – a harsh voice for the bears and a high voice for Goldilocks). Also, encourage students to take in and experience any accompanying visuals that may be present.

-Once groups have read their fables, have each group present responses to the following question set:

a.) Whose perspective do you believe YOUR GROUP'S fable is written from (e.g., Goldilocks or the Three Bears?).

b.) What SPECIFIC features of the text do you believe reveal this perspective (in terms of possible language and / or accompanying visuals).

c.) What SPECIFIC “lesson” is being taught via said perspective (e.g., re: Hansel and Gretel - you shouldn’t trust strangers).

-And now the fun part! Either starting in class and / or assigned as homework, have students re-tell their story via the perspective of ANOTHER character. For example, re-telling the story of Little Red Riding Hood via the Wolf’s vs. Red’s perspective. NOTE: Depending on YOUR unique learning context, you could have students complete this task collaboratively as a group, or require each student to work independently. However, due to maintaining individual accountability, I recommended each student be required to complete their own independent re-telling.

DAY TWO

-Have students re-form the SAME groups that they worked in the day before.

-Have each student read their re-told stories out-loud to the remainder of the group. Again, encourage students to really get into it and utilize different voices to represent unique characters.

-Reflecting on their re-told stories, have students individually respond to the same question set as the day before:

Again:

a.) Whose perspective do you believe YOUR fable is written from (e.g., Goldilocks or the Three Bears?).

b.) What SPECIFIC features of the text do you believe reveal this perspective (in terms of possible language and / or accompanying visuals).

c.) What SPECIFIC “lesson” is being taught via said perspective (e.g., re: Hansel and Brittle: you shouldn’t trust strangers).

-Within their small groups, have students discuss how, SPECIFICALLY now, they accomplished their changes in perspective via SPECIFIC language and / or images they decided to utilize. Furthermore, have them discuss how these changes in perspective influences the meta-lesson that their re-told story suggests to readers. For example, if re-told from the Wolf’s vs. Red's perspective, I would argue that the common fable of Little Red Riding Hood would teach a significantly different sort of lesson to readers!

Accommodating for Diversity and / or Learning Styles

If you have students in your class that come from different, rich cultures, DO NOT waste such an opportunity; instead, proactively utilize students' diverse experiences as yet additional learning opportunities for your class. Although other students’ cultures might not share the SPECIFIC fable of Little Red Riding Hood, you’re in luck; childhood fables of some sort are more or less universal across ALL cultures! In such a case, just imagine what sort of teaching and learning would take place if students from other rich cultures shared THEIR unique, culture-specific fables with their group members! In short, I argue that this activity could be very easily modified to include the re-telling of not only American-centric fables, but fables from across the many rich cultures with which your students might have valuable “insider” knowledge.

Furthermore, this overall activity is very conducive to visual learners and writers as well. For example, if students do not wish and / or have the ability to to re-tell their stories via text alone, or if they simply have a natural talent for creating images, encourage them to consider and re-tell their stories visually. After all, I don’t think I have ever scene a purely text-centric children’s book! In addition to having students think about how perspective can be communicated via text, do not neglect exercising their ability to consider the building of perspective via visual elements, too.

CI 5410 Week 3 - Poem #2

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:17:00 +0000

Gravity

Sinking into the flower-print, down cover, the depression created by our weight on the soft mattress is unwilling to separate me from the words escaping her lips in quick, breathless movements. “You and I are just too… different,” she chokes as we both sink deeper into the growing pit, struggling to inhale the stale air bellow. Crashing into a subterranean pool of memory, she reminds me of the instances where I am too logical, too scientific, and too practical to accept the life that she has laid out for us. As she uses our confined supply of air to argue one last time that the earth was created in a cold, calculated, seven days, a grin crosses my face in the dark. “What’s so funny?” she breathes into my ear, struggling unsuccessfully to sit up straight. She definitely would not accept that physics might have a will of its own.

CI 5410 Week 2 - Poem #1

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:07:00 +0000

Powerball

15. 32. 43. 44 -
46.
61.1 million dollars.
.1?
What does.1 even mean?
It means that all of our pain and worries are gone.
Ferraris, cigarette boats, and mansions.
Whatever we want.
That’s what it means.

As my heart begins to force the morphine through my already numb veins,
my faint pulse sighs a cold breath of relief;
for now, the marrow-spout at the base of my spine slowly ceases to throb.
With each slow heartbeat, the morphine attempts to convince my body that it will win;
for nearly a fraction of a second, I am able to forget the numbers that are the only honest voices I can trust.

The doctor whose face is usually stretched into a longer grimace by the morphine looks different today.
The motors of the hospital bed complete the work my broken body cannot,
placing me in a polite position to hear the results of this week’s marrow harvest.
He begins in his usual manner of gruffly clearing his throat and pointing at the beginning of my results with his index finger.
As his cold, analytical interpretation of my insides begins, I notice something that not even the morphine can obscure;
He looks at me while he reads my results.
His eyes don’t simply follow his moving finger.

“Your body is producing 1 X 1011 platelets.”
“Well within the normal range,” he clarifies as my radiated brain struggles to recall the word.

There are plenty of different numbers yet to fear.
It’s not time to hope yet.

“And, your body is producing about 10800 blood cells per liter of blood.”
“Well above the normal range,” he clarifies as he sharply taps his index finger on my lab report, the morphine inverting his grimace to some semblance of a grin.

As he continues to decode my fate,
the morphine slowly begins to retract its claws from my soul.
My few remaining hairs stand on end.
“What does all of this mean?” I whisper slowly.
The bed motors cannot work fast enough to get me closer to his voice.

15. 32. 43. 44 -
46.
61.1 million dollars.
.1?
What does.1 even mean?
It means that all of our pain and worries are gone.
Luxury cars, boats, and houses.
Ferraris, cigarette boats, and mansions.
That’s what it means.

CI 5475 Week 15 - Final Project; To Kill a Mockingbird Facebook Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:51:00 +0000

For my CI 5475 final project, I embarked on developing what I imagine to be a unit-long digital project utilizing the wildly popular Facebook social networking application. When paired with Harper Lee's canonical text, I argue that Facebook effectively scaffolds critical analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird via affording students incremental opportunities to…

-appropriate the roles & perspectives of self-selected / assigned characters of inquiry

-produce complete, multi-modal, research-based Facebook user profiles representative of the appropriated roles & perspectives of said self-selected / assigned characters

-engage the larger world of the text AND surrounding cultural, social, and so on contexts via participating in research-based, multi-modal-enriched, interactive role-play.

Before proceeding, please view the bellow link to Scout Finch’s profile created by myself to help contextualize and model the remainder of this explanation:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?ref=profile&id=100000518236624

NOTE: The above link navigates to an extremely stripped down, indexed version of Scout Finch's model profile. If you wish to view the complete profile either before OR after my detailed presentation to the class on Tuesday, December 15th, please befriend “Jean Louise Finch” (search for scout.finch.tkm@gmailcom; there are MANY similar profiles already active on the service) from your own Facebook user account to gain complete access.

PHASE I: CHARACTER ROLES & PERSPECTIVES APPROPRIATION

As students begin to enter the text, they will engage in detailed pre-reading and writing activities (e.g., text-based notes, bubbl.us maps, mind maps, and / or additional graphic organizers) to further investigate various characters that they find particularly interesting. Although students will have the opportunity to critically analyze final characters of choice in GREAT detail throughout phases II & III of the overall project, students will begin to “narrow down” their final choice via identifying, discussing, and overall exploring various characters’:

-Actions
-Attitudes
-Ideals
-Interests
-Personalities
-Relationships with other characters
-And so on

After students begin to get “acquainted” with and “sample” various characters, students will ideally self-select a character which they want to critically analyze to an even greater degree. If students do not come to a final choice via their pre-reading and writing, instructors can assign a particular character.

PHASE II: FACEBOOK PROFILE PRODUCTION

As students continue to progress through the text at potentially differing paces, they will incrementally create research-based, multi-modal Facebook profiles representative of various characters' unique roles & perspectives; in other words, students will "become" the characters they appropriate, making research-based profile production decisions to accurately represent "their" individual characters. As students incrementally create individual character profiles throughout the text, they will be required to base specific Facebook page elements on research-based, textual inferences (e.g., characters’ basic biographical information including birthday, relationships to other characters and family members, relationship status, political views, and religious views, contact information, education, and work information; as well as characters’ more detailed personal information including activities, interests, favorite music, favorite TV shows, favorite books, favorite quotations, and about me information).

For example, in Scout Finch’s model profile, I did not publish the non-research-based profile entry that Scout’s favorite book is Twilight. Instead, I deeply mined and re-mined the text to discover / re-discover that Scout enjoys reading The Mobile Register with Atticus during the evening (p. 22). For citation purposes, students can simply publish the specific page number / range leading them to make Facebook page-specific inferences.

Central to this portion of the activity is that students are NOT limited / restricted to creating a text-only profile while analyzing and developing appropriated characters. Instead, students will be required to identify and publish relevant, research-based visual content to complete their profile. For example, in addition to appropriated characters’ main profile pictures, students will be required to create annotated digital photo albums in which they must:

-gather research-based images from outside resources such as Google Images and Flicker.com that help further “flush out” and develop characters,

-as well as annotate selected images to further connect to and illuminate characters’ larger textual and contextual worlds.

Pictured immediately left is an image from Tom Robinson’s album titled “Walking around in my skin” which is likewise linked on Scout Finch’s profile page (NOTE: TR's profile and album were likewise created by myself to further contextualize and model the overall activity). To create this model, I visited Flicker.com, carefully gathering a collection of various creative commons images (via search terms such as "discrimination," "oppression," "slavery," and so on) to further explore what the world might be like through TR's unique roles & perspectives throughout the novel. For example, the image of a black man’s hands draped through red, white, and blue bars is paired with the following textual annotation to further “flush out” and develop what life must be like for Tom via his unique roles & perspectives in the novel: “And now here I sit in jail, falsely accused of raping Mayella Ewell when I was just trying to help her. Isn't working for a living to support your family the AMERICAN DREAM? If so, why am I behind bars? What crime did I commit?”

And again, students are NOT limited / restricted to publishing static images; they can also publish video artifacts by uploading and / or linking to Google Video and YouTube content – more on this in a moment.

Overall, I caution instructors that this phase of the overall project sounds MUCH simpler and quicker than it actually was / is. While creating Scout’s model profile, I wouldn’t doubt that I spent upwards of 10 or more hours mining and re-mining the text to gather and publish relevant, research-based Facebook page elements accurately representative of Scout's unique roles & perspectives throughout the novel. With that said, I argue that this overall project is MOST effective if thought of as an ongoing, highly RECURSIVE, “DURING” reading activity that should not be rushed. Instead, students will incrementally develop appropriated characters’ profiles as they mine, re-mine, revise, re-revise, and GRADUALLY come to understand how various characters function in relation to each other and the larger textual world.

PHASE III: MULTI-MODAL-ENRICHED ROLE-PLAY

As profiles begin to “even out” and become more “static” (I’m assuming that profiles will begin to take on this more static form as students continue to progress through the novel), students will then be encouraged to shift focus from developing individual characters, to interacting with characters appropriated by other students (if they have not already started doing so!). And this is where Facebook as a medium absolutely shines as the application was literally designed for this type of multi-modal social networking!

Although instructors could select specific issues of text-based inquiry for students to explore via appropriated characters' roles & perspectives, self-initiated, inquiry-based conversation is the ideal goal. For example, in Scout's model profile, I publish a text-based inquiry in the form of a Facebook “note” in which I further process Dill and Jem’s harassment of Boo Radley via the appropriated roles & perspectives of Scout herself.

As this Facebook "note" is then immediately visible to other appropriated characters who are Facebook friends with Scout, other students are then encouraged to contribute to my / Scout’s thinking via the appropriated roles & perspectives of THEIR respective characters. For example, in response to Scout’s original "note," another student appropriating Tom Robinson's character jumps in to further illuminate and process via research-based conclusions the experience Scout initially describes. Furthermore, students can "tag" other students / appropriated characters in each note to actively encourage participation and invite peer feedback. For example, notice how Dill Harris is tagged in this particular note, potentially encouraging and inviting the student appropriating Dill's character to respond and further contribute to my / Scout's thinking via Dill's unique roles & perspectives in the novel.

And again, students are NOT restricted to text-only interaction. For example, students can directly upload visual images / video as described earlier, as well as link to external images / video to further develop their thinking. Take a look at the exchange between Scout Finch and Tom Robinson regarding a link I / Scout posted to a YouTube video focusing on the Scottsboro Boys.

ADDITIONAL DURING / POST READING & WRITING ACTIVITIES

To help students more deeply appreciate and understand the larger cultural, social, and so on contexts in which To Kill a Mockingbird is situated (after all, the book takes place across the 1920s and 30s!), students can critically analyze unclear resonances via producing multi-modal wiki entries further elaborating specific Facebook profile fields. For example, I / Scout Finch mentions that she and her brother Jem enjoy reading and reenacting the adventures of Tom Swift. As I'm imagining an entire class will have no idea who Tom Swift is, why he is important, and / or how he might relate to the larger world of the text (I sure didn't!), students could create a short wiki entry for Tom Swift to further contextualize and create meaning for this piece of otherwise de-contextualized, period-specific information. And it would work quite easily, really; instructors just need to set up a class wiki and sit back while students create entries, further linking to and sharing said entries via their Facebook pages. For example, please view the sample wiki entry for Tom Swift that I / Scout Finch linked to on my / her respective Facebook profile page:

http://ci5475digitalwriting.pbworks.com/TKM-Class-Wiki

POTENTIAL CHALLENGES

To address what I can imagine is the reader's IMMEDIATE critique of my proposed project, I completely acknowledge that social networking applications such as Facebook are FREQUENTLY blocked in academic settings. However, I do not necessarily think that this attempt at institutional censorship negates the benefits of my proposed project; in fact, I argue that such censorship might have the reverse effect, further increasing students' and teachers' engagement, interest, and motivation with the overall task.

First of all, the incremental creation and revision steps inherent to this project CAN be accomplished while using school networks where the Facebook application is typically blocked; just in the alternate form of a wiki. Let me describe the process that I envision in greater detail:

1.) Set up a class wiki on PB Wiki, creating specific pages for each student (e.g., John's page, Kate's Page, Rick's page, and so on). NOTE: This stage of the process is where INSTRUCTORS will be required to do the most amount of leg work.

2.) Blocking out computer time during class, STUDENTS will then access their INDIVIDUAL wiki pages, further creating "dummy" Facebook pages that can be used as digital "lockers" to publish and store relevant, multi-modal, Facebook profile-specific information... AFTER being taught specifically how to do so, of course.

3.) From a later time and place at home and / or when students have access to a reliable network where the Facebook application is not blocked, profile-specific, multi-modal information can simply be transferred from the wiki storage locker to appropriated characters' respective Facebook profiles!

Please view the bellow link to a model wiki digital storage locker and accompanying illustrations to further explore this trick.

http://ci5475digitalwriting.pbworks.com/FB-PAGE-ELEMENTS

And lastly, I argue that the "subversive" nature inherent to this project may create the interesting effect of driving further engagement, interest, and motivation for students and teachers to critically explore the text in question. In other words, students and teachers may approach this overall task deviously knowing that they aren't "supposed" to be dong such an activity as Facebook is "fun" and therefore shouldn't be present in school. Students and teachers then may be motivated to collaboratively empower themselves to "fool" the system, have fun / experience a sense of satisfaction doing said "fooling," and maybe learn something during the process!

I hope you found this project concept interesting and useful to your future teaching practice. Please feel free to provide additional questions, comments, and concerns to this blog entry! Thank you for reading, and best of luck 5475!

CI 5475 Week 14 - Reflection Time & ePortfolios

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:12:00 +0000

As this blog is home to not one, but FOUR courses since coming online during the Spring term of 2008, there were MANY grains of sand to go back and sift through for this week's assignment! However, while sifting through my postings across CI 5475, CI 5150, CI 5472, and CI 5461, I feel as though I have isolated TWO distinct areas of development that I would like to briefly focus on:

1.) Considering effective integration / utilization of visual rhetoric principles.

2.) Considering appropriate attribution regarding appropriated multi-modal content.

1.) Although insightful and well done, I feel that my EARLIER postings demonstrate a weaker understanding of the effective integration / utilization of visual rhetoric principles. Before I go any deeper, please quickly review post 4/8 from CI 5472 (Summer of 2009), paying special attention to my integration of text and images:

http://rickleefilipkowski.blogspot.com/2009/06/ci-5472-post-3-media-representations-of.html

As you might notice in the post linked immediately above, my earlier use of text and images was relatively formulaic and "disconnected." In other words, I would follow a fairly regular pattern of presenting a point via text, illustrating it via image on the following center-justified line, and repeating the process. Although at times effective, I now perceive frequent "disconnects" between my central ideas presented via the TEXT, and how subsequent IMAGES worked to further reinforce, challenge, and / or clarify my initial points.

However, as I reflect on MORE RECENT postings across CI 5475 and CI 5150, I perceive a more intentional, effective, and otherwise "connected" integration / utilization of text and images. To illustrate this develop, please view the following MORE RECENT post from CI 5150, again paying special attention to my integration / utilization of text and images:

http://rickleefilipkowski.blogspot.com/2009/12/ci-5150-week-12.html

In contrast to my EARLIER posts where you may perceive visual meanings to be rather "dissociated" from textual meanings, I feel as though my ability to effectively "streamline" and otherwise integrate / utilize images with / alongside text to further reinforce, challenge, and / or clarify my core ideas is continuing to improve. As you might notice in the post linked immediately above, I am beginning to not only vary my pattern of how I integrate / utilize images with text, but consciously consider HOW and WHY different images and design orientations work to reinforce, challenge, and / or clarify points I initially make via text.

2.) Across my EARLIER postings, I notice that I tend to appropriate MANY images and videos from other sources, yet do not pay much (if any!) attention to accurately / correctly citing this appropriated multi-modal content. To illustrate this attribution abuse / neglect, observe how an EARLIER post from CI 5472 does not provide a single citation for ANY of the multi-modal content appropriated throughout:

http://rickleefilipkowski.blogspot.com/2009/06/ci-5472-post-71-studying-culture-of.html

Since the start of CI 5475, I have began to increasingly consider the implications that providing accurate citations (or not!) has when appropriating others' multi-modal content. Although I still really have no idea how to accurately / truly cite and give credit to the "new," multi-modal texts that I appropriate, I feel as though I am at least beginning to take a step in the right direction by utilizing "IMAGES USED" and "WORKS CITED" sections in each post where I a.) post original URLs for each image used, b.) provide hyper links to each image, and C.) provide complete MLA or APA citations when "compatible." For example, please view the "IMAGES USED" and "WORKS CITED" sections in the following blog entry:

http://rickleefilipkowski.blogspot.com/2009/12/ci-5150-week-12.html

Although this sort of attribution is most likely grossly insufficient (as well as probably illegal!), I still consider it a point of personal development in this course as I plan to continue to consider and explore issues of digital rights management, digital intellectual property rights, digital copy rights, and how said concepts are either "compatible" OR "incompatible" with print-based precedent.

-------------------- -------------------- -------------------- --------------------

If I were to incorporate ePortfolios into my future classes (which I certainly plan on doing), I can imagine said integration to occur during a larger unit and / or lesson on effective uses of visual rhetoric principles per diverse and unique intended purposes and audiences. For example, while teaching a hypothetical section of upperclassmen nearing entry to post-secondary academia and / or the job market, a specific sort of formative or summative assessment that I have in mind could look something like

1.) assigning students / having students self-select unique, diverse purposes for creating an ePortfolio (e.g., college admission, job interview, high school graduation requirements, and so on)

2.) identifying potential audiences that students' ePortfolios will be exposed to

3.) selecting and utilizing elements of visual rhetoric to effectively convey identified purposes and appeal to identified audiences.

During this sort of overall unit and / or lesson, students would then be required to self-select and integrate artifacts in creative, diverse ways that engage multiple intended purposes and engage multiple intended audiences. Furthermore, I can imagine such a unit and / or lesson being debriefed by having students

1.) present their work to the remainder of the class to further teach other students how unique intended purposes and audiences require unique, creative uses of visual rhetoric

2.) Further reflect on their ePortfolio drafts by engaging

A.) WHAT specific personal artifact(s) they self-selected

B.) WHY they self-selected said artifact(s)

C.) HOW they integrated said artifact(s) into the larger portfolio to effectively convey intended purposes and appeal to intended audiences.

-------------------- -------------------- -------------------- --------------------

Across all of the technologies that we have explored throughout this course, RSS FEEDS and SOCIAL BOOKMARKING TOOLS have significantly changed the fundamental ways by which I consume and manage information.

RSS FEEDS / READERS

I perceive RSS feeds / readers to be a teacher's Godsend, beautifully working to take a significant amount of "leg work" out of micromanaging various sources of information. Where previous information consumption and management paradigms dictate that I must go to the information, RSS feeds / readers completely turn the tables as desired information of personal / professional interest is sent directly to ME! Frankly, it really brings a tear to my eye (and the sad part is that I'm not really kidding!).

Where it could potentially take me a lot of time and energy to search out and discover when my personal / professional colleagues publish desired information (e.g., INDIVIDUALLY going to each blog, website, wiki page, twitter feed, and so on and so forth only to have my time and energy wasted if no new information has been published!), my Google RSS reader notifies me the moment information becomes available! For example, as you can see via my CI 5475 folder, my classmate's work COMES TO ME the moment new information is published. Notice how there are 0 unread post updates in my RSS reader. I'll let you in on a little secret; there is nothing new to read because I've quickly identified and managed updates relevant to my needs / interests the moment that they came in!

In short, I perceive this technology as a literal "must have" during my future teaching career. Where I could waste valuable time and energy searching through literally HUNDREDS of students' / colleagues' blogs, websites, wiki pages, twitter feeds, and so on, continued use of RSS feeds / readers will allow me to sit back, relax (yeah, right!), and watch as the information I need pours in!

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING TOOLS

I perceive social bookmarking tools such as Delicious and Diigo to be similar teacher "must haves" as such tools effectively fulfill one of Beach, Anson, Breach, and Swiss's (2009) five ways to grow as a digital writing teacher - joining online communities devoted to teaching digital writing (219). In addition to utilizing RSS feeds / readers to subscribe to blogs, wikis, and podcasts, teachers can create and participate in existing online social bookmarking communities in which members actively identify, annotate, and SHARE information useful to digital writing instruction.

As the internet can be virtual "no man's land" of information, social bookmarking tools allow communities of teachers to assist each other across time and space with finding information relevant to their unique classroom contexts. If the cliche that "two heads are better than one" holds true, social bookmarking communities exponentially increase the number of "heads" involved in identifying relevant information! Again, it's really a beautiful thing. In short, I plan on continuing to reap the benefits of, as well as contribute to, various social bookmarking communities that will help me continue to consider the personal and professional issues that I am most passionate about.

Mom Filipkowski earns her 1st degree black belt in karate

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 17:49:00 +0000

Because I just had to...

CI 5150 Week 12 - This Post Sucks! Pun Completely Intended.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:55:00 +0000

Throughout his article titled Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the contemporary vampire, Andrew Schopp (1997) argues that age-old cultural representations of the vampire figure have undergone / are continuing to undergo a sort of "transformation" - while the age-old vampire was frequently represented as a predatorial object of intense fear, the contemporary vampire is frequently represented as an object of intense, often sexual, desire:

"Although it has long held a formidable place in the heart of western culture, until the nineteenth century, the vampire existed primarily as a creature to be feared, the revenant come back to torment the living... In the nineteenth century, however, the vampire transformed from a feared cultural phenomenon to a desired cultural product, from mythic explanation of the unknown to receptacle of cultural desires" (231).

Although produced WELL AFTER the turn of the 19th century in 1922, the silent film Nosferatu represents vampires consistent with dominant predatorial, fear-based portrayals prior to the "transformation" Schopp (1997) describes; in other words, the "lead" vampire is represented as a predatorial figure meant to be intensely feared. To illustrate the logic of this claim, at approximately 26 minutes into the film, the text "Is this your wife? What a lovely throat" is displayed to the viewer, immediately followed by a scene where the hideous, stone-faced, and otherwise expressionless vampire pictured at the opening of this blog entry appears to stalk a woman in her dreams. In response, the woman does NOT want to to be an object of the vampire's desire and / or desire the vampire herself. Instead, she appears to be absolutely terrified!

Although Schopp's (1997) article and respective argument may be thought of as rather outdated, the vampire figure's "transformation" from object of intense fear to object of intense desire has continued to accelerate and likewise intensify. Although there are MANY texts to explore this "transformation," the Twilight saga by Stephanie Meyers and True Blood franchise by Charlaine Harris are arguably the most "visible" popular culture manifestations of the "transformation" Schopp (1997) describes.

And perhaps "visible" is the understatement of the century. As box office and retail vender numbers might suggest (e.g., Twilight 2 New Moon SMASHING records by earning over 230 million dollars globally during its opening week!), audiences ranging across ages, classes, genders, sexual orientations, and so on appear to be absolutely ADDICTED to / CAPTIVATED by contemporary representations of the vampire figure as an object of an intense, often sexual, desire (Rotten Tomatoes). However, it's important to note that fear hasn't COMPLETELY been eliminated from the equation; in both the Twilight and True Blood universes, fear is an inherent tool utilized by the vampire to seduce / desire other, often human, subjects. Likewise, fear is an inherent cost incurred by humans once seduced / desired by a vampire, even if the human subject wishes it.

The remainder of this blog entry will be an inquiry-based exploration behind HOW and WHY this interplay between fear and desire as utilized in representing the contemporary vampire figure may be so powerful in captivating contemporary audiences regardless of gender and sexual orientation.

Twilight's Edward Cullen

"Star / Lead" vampire in the Twilight universe is Edward Cullen who was "made" vampire in 1918 when he was 17 years of age. As such, although Edward's "real" age is of 107 years, he maintains the physical appearance and build of a 17 year-old male as conventional aging is not part of vampire physiology.

The most striking contrast between the Nosferatu vampire (pictured at the immediate opening of this blog entry) and Edward (pictured immediately left) is clearly their visual representations. EVERYTHING visually about the Nosferatu vampire connotes senses of fear and alienation; his long, black cloak, sub / un human cranial and facial structures, intense eyebrows, absent stare, protruded fangs, and even the "choppy" sub / un human way he / it moves (see the above video to view for yourself what I'm talking about!). In response to this visual representation, the object of the Nosferatu vampire's desire, as well as potentially the general viewer of this 1922 film, experiences nothing but fear and an intense lack of identification with their alien-like predator (NOTE: which of course isn't necessarily a "bad" thing; "controlled" instances of fear void of actual negative recourse are of course extremely attractive to many viewers!).

In contrast, Edward Cullen's cumulative visual representation renders him as a sort of more easy to identify with, "hyper" male who is inherently more opaque and thus desirable than the "average / typical" male; let me explain more clearly what I mean by this terminology and argument.

In contrast to the long, black cloak covering the Nosferatu vampire, Edward is visually represented wearing a fashionable, contemporary pea coat. In contrast to the Nosferatu vampire's sub / un human cranial and facial structures, Edward is visually represented as a strong, masculine looking, and otherwise attractive contemporary young male. Via these features alone, I would argue that the above visual representation of Edward neither carries especially intense meanings of fear or desire; instead, I argue that these features mainly work to "normalize" Edward and make him more visually identifiable with / to the typical contemporary audience.

However, I argue that the above visual representation of Edward begins to take on additional menacing, mysterious and otherwise seductive meanings when his similarities with the Nosferatu vampire are revealed; specifically, both have an intense and otherwise "a-typical" stare, further enhanced and intensified by their "a-typical" eyebrows and gaze. Via these features, the visual representation of Edward is greatly exoticized, rendering his facial structures hyper-masculine and his eyes-hyper piercing. As a cumulative result, Edward no longer appears as "average" or otherwise transparent as the typical contemporary male. Instead, he appears as a force "beyond" the average contemporary male, a force that I further argue audiences of either gender or sexual orientation are naturally inclined to try to "figure out" (NOTE: of the 230 million dollars earned globally, a large percentage of patrons are male). However, I argue even further that as audiences attempt to "figure out" exactly what is behind Edward's menacing, mysterious, seductive, opaque, and so on representation, viewers experience a similar amount of calculated, recourse-free risk / fear as they are unsure of what, specifically, they will find.

Turning toward textual represents of Edward in the Twilight parent text, Myers (2005) similarly represents Edward as an easy to identify with, yet "hyper" masculine object radiating desire. However, all throughout the parent text, the main object of Edward's desire (Bella Swan), as well as potentially the reader, experience textual undertones suggestive of a possibility for Edward to do Bella (or the reader themselves!) great, unpredictable harm:

I turned slowly, unwillingly. I didn't want to feel what I new I would feel when I looked at his too-perfect face. My expression was wary when I finally turned to him; his expression was unreadable. he didn't say anything.

"What? Are you speaking to me again?" I finally asked, an unintentional note of petulance in my voice.

His lips twitched, fighting a smile. "No, not really," he admitted.

I closed my eyes and inhaled slowly through my nose, aware that I was gritting my teeth. He waited.

"Then what do you want, Edward?" I asked, keeping my eyes closed; it was easier to talk to him coherently that way.

"I'm sorry." he sounded sincere. "I'm being very rude, I know. But it's better this way, really."

I opened my eyes. His face was very serious.

"I don't know what you mean," I said, my voice guarded.

"It's better if we're not friends," he explained. "Trust me." (74)

To begin to deconstruct this lengthy quotation, as well as explore how it squares with additional textual representations of Edward throughout the parent text, Edward absolutely radiates desire via a number of mechanisms inherent to vampire physiology. First, his physical appearance as described above is "hypnotic" as is evidenced by Bella when she acknowledges how she is "forced" to feel (seemingly unwillingly in this case) when processing his "perfect" physical form. Also, as is later explored throughout the remainder of the text (I will not quote the sections here at length as they tend to be extremely sappy!), Edward's body and breadth radiant a seductive smell that Bella and the reader find difficult to resist.

However, behind this intense desire that Edward appears to exude, strong undercurrents of fear, danger, risk, and so on are present. As Edward warns Bella and the reader that it is better if she / they don't get to know him, Bella and the reader likewise experience a certain amount of uneasiness. Each party is not sure how to process exactly WHAT Edward is saying, as well as the cold, detached, menacing and almost threatening WAY he is saying it.

Overall, this unique combination of desire and fear have a powerful influence over Bella and the reader; each party is absolutely intrigued, questioning if it is "worth" turning the page to be further seduced by Edward despite the risks / dangers that are sensed. Again, judging by the aforementioned record-breaking box office and vender numbers, audiences MUST be perceiving the reward to be greater than the risk! However, I argue that Edward's influence on Bella and the reader would not be nearly the same had his character been visually and / or textually represented as COMPLETELY desirable and safe. As similar to the Nosferatu vampire, it IS the recourse-free fear / risk that further exoticizes Edward's desirable / seductive characteristics, further driving interest in the text.

However, when considering the popularity of contemporary vampire literature, it is difficult to pinpoint WHY, specifically, so many MALE viewers / readers are likewise enthralled with a stereotypically feminine concept. In addition to the previously explored argument of contemporary audiences' overall identifiability with the characters of these texts potentially driving viewership / readership, Schopp (1997) suggests another potential explanation; these sorts of texts may afford and open up "spaces" where dominant ideologies surrounding sexuality may be challenged:

"Given its late nineteenth-century origins, we should not find it surprising that the vampire product both affirms and resists culturally and historically determined discourses of sexuality. While the vampire product can, and often does, reinscribe heteronormative ideologies of sexuality, specific products resist such ideologies and articulate alternatives to dominant configurations of sexuality" (232).

In other words, although certain texts can indeed reinforce pervasive, discriminatory ideologies surrounding constructions of sexuality (e.g., males are "gay, homos, queer," and so on if they find Edward / the idea of Edward desirable / seductive in ANY way), the Twilight and True Blood universes might open up popular spaces where ALL readers are free and / or even encouraged to step outside of / experiment with dominant ideologies governing sexuality with little to no negative recourse. As a cumulative result, ALL readers regardless of gender and / or sexuality may perceive their experience with the Twilight and True Blood texts to afford a safe, comforting, and meaningful gateway to engage facets of themselves deemed "inappropriate / unacceptable" to engage elsewhere.

True Blood's Bill Compton

"Star / Lead" vampire in the True Blood franchise is William "Bill" Compton who was "made" vampire in 1868 when he was 28 years of age. As such, although Bill's "real" age is of 169 years, he maintains the physical appearance and build of a 28 year-old male as conventional aging is again not part of vampire physiology.

Before I jump into a similar exploration of Bill Compton, some general context regarding the Twilight vs. True Blood universes needs to be explored. Where Meyers' (2005) text is clearly tailored to her target audience of young adolescence in terms of violence, sexuality, and general "adult" themes, Harris (2001) writes for a much older, much more "adult" target audience. As such, the True Blood HBO series and parent texts are MUCH more explicit in terms of violence, sex, and overall "adult" themes than the Twilight movie series and parent texts. However, these differences in overall explicitness offer EXTREMELY rich fodder for further exploring HOW and WHY the interplay between fear and desire as utilized in representing the contemporary vampire figure may be so powerful in captivating contemporary audiences.

As similar to the visual representation of Twilight's Edward Cullen, True Blood's Bill Compton possesses similarly striking visual contrasts to the 1922 Nosferatu vampire. Like Edward, Bill is represented via a more "human" / "average" appearance which audiences find easier to identify with than the alien-like Nosferatu vampire. However, like Edward, Bill's visual representation contains resonances with the Nosferatu vampire that work to further exoticize and establish Bill as an opaque, hyper-masculine figure. As a cumulative result, the viewer is inherently "attracted" to Bill regardless of gender or sexual orientation, allowing themselves to be be further seduced by him to fulfill the visually generated need of "figuring" him out. Please view the following extremely short clip to get a better idea of the similarities I'm referring to:

Throughout the above clip, Bill is further visually represented via a fine trail of blood running out of his mouth, suggestive of the fact that he has just "fed" on someone who was potentially unwilling OR willing to be "fed" on. Furthermore, as similar to the Nosferatu vampire, Bill is frequently represented via protruded fangs throughout the True Blood experience as pictured right. While fulfilling their need to "unravel / "figure out" Bill Compton, audiences again are confronted with visual images that connote senses of risk, fear, and danger. As such, audiences likewise experience a sense of uneasiness toward what they may potentially learn, as well as what might potentially happen to them, while allowing themselves to be further seduced by Bill.

Turning toward textual represents of Bill in the True Blood parent text, Harris (2001) similarly represents Bill as an easy to identify with, yet "hyper" masculine object radiating desire. However, all throughout the parent text, the main object of Bill's desire (Sookie Stackhouse), as well as potentially the reader, experience textual undertones suggestive of a potential for Bill to do Sookie (or again the reader themselves!) great, unpredictable harm:

"I stared at him. I'd never seen anything so beautiful or so scary in my life... He gasped, and jerked, and he began moving in earnest. At first I was dazed, but I began to catch on and keep up. He found my response very exciting, and I began to feel that something was just around the corner, so to speak -- something very big and good. I said, "Oh, please, Bill, please!" and dug my nails in his hips, almost there, almost there, and then a small shift in our alignment allowed him to press even more directly against me and almost before I could gather myself I was flying, flying, seeing white with gold streaks. I felt Bill's teeth against my neck, and I said, "Yes!" I felt his fangs penetrate, but it was a small pain, an exciting pain, and as he came inside me I felt him draw on the little wound" (144-145).

In addition to its general raunchiness / sexual explicitness appealing to many readers, the way in which Bill is represented throughout this passage absolutely radiates desire. In addition to his flawless physical appearance, Bill possesses a unique characteristic of vampire physiology that functions to further seduce and control potential mates AND victims; the ability to "glamor" people. Check out the following short clip of Bill teaching another vampire how to "glamor" someone, rendering the individual COMPLETELY under the vampire's power:

As Sookie and the reader themselves are seduced into the explicit and frankly pornographic sensuality of the above textual scene, further processing yields potentially unsettling questions including...

1.) If Bill has the ability to "glamor" anyone and place them COMPLETELY under his power, is he taking advantage of Sookie and the reader?

2.) Are Sookie and the reader "willingly" engaging in this sensual experience?

And...

3.) Could Bill potentially lose control of his "love bite" in the heat of the moment and kill / pose a serious threat to Sookie's life?

Again, this unique combination of desire, seduction, sensuality, and fear have a powerful influence over Sookie and the reader; each party is absolutely intrigued, questioning if it is "worth" turning the page to further be seduced by Bill despite the risk, danger, and potential perversion that are sensed. Again, judging by the fact that the True Blood HBO series is going into its 3rd season, as well as the fact that Harris is writing her NINTH book in the series, audiences MUST be perceiving the reward to be greater than the risk! However, I argue that Bill's influence on Sookie and the reader would not be nearly the same had his character been visually and / or textually represented as COMPLETELY desirable, safe, and good intentioned. As similar to the Nosferatu vampire, it IS the recourse-free fear / risk that further exoticizes Bill's desirable / seductive characteristics, further driving interest in the text.

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SO... WHERE ARE WE GOING FROM HERE?

As has been explored throughout this blog entry, visual and textual representations of vampires are EXTREMELY dominant forces in contemporary popular culture, exercising a large amount of influence over viewers / readers. Although I could not find any concrete "numbers" to support the following claim, I argue that audiences contributing so much money and interest to this popular culture phenomenon are skewed toward adolescents (in particular regarding the Twilight saga!). As such, it is important to consider the longer-term implications that these representations pose in either REINFORCING or CHALLENGING dominant ideological constructions, as well as what these representations stand to "teach" adolescent viewers.

While Schopp (1997) argues that contemporary visual and textual representations of vampires potentially stand to create "spaces" where consumers are free and / or even encouraged to step outside of and experiment with dominant ideologies governing sexuality with little to no negative recourse, Glenn Sparks (2009), a professor of communications at Purdue, suggests an outcome with less optimistic implications. In a 2009 USA Today article, Sparks (2009) comments on how the current trend in vampire literature may convince adolescents, whether explicitly or implicitly, of the existence of actual vampires:

"The hit movie 'Twilight' not only may entertain viewers, it has the potential to encourage viewers to believe in vampires... When a fictional story is presented in a realistic way, it can move people to believe -- or at least move them away from disbelief and toward more uncertainty about the supernatural... This reminds me of what happened with the 1973 film 'The Exorcist.' Many people said they had never considered demon possessions before, but some of those who say the movie began thinking it was a possible phenomenon" (9).

Although a potentially "silly" claim, I argue that the effect Sparks (2009) describes is potentially dangerous; in other words, if adolescents aren't encouraged to "see past" the ridiculous albeit entertaining premises of these texts and critically read WHAT / HOW the texts themselves are contributing to the construction of ideological paradigms, assumptions, values, world views, and so on, producers of visual and textual texts stand to exercise TREMENDOUS power over consumers. In other words, it might be one of our jobs as teachers to move students beyond getting "hung up" on who the "hottest" vampire is, if Edward is good in bed, and if there are real vampires out there, toward more meaningful critical analysis of WHAT / HOW representations of these figures contribute to the ideologies, assumptions, values, world views, and so on students internalize while consuming said representations.

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SO... HOW DO WE MOVE STUDENTS BEYOND ENTERTAINMENT TO CRITICAL ANALYSIS?

NOTE: Because I sort of went nuts with this week's blog posting, the following assignment section is going to be relatively short!

CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER STEREOTYPES IN TWILIGHT AND TRUE BLOOD

In their article titled Graphic Novels: American Chick Lit, Martha Cornog and Steve Raiteri (2009) explore the centrality of "pretty girls" in adolescent literature:

"Good ole American pretty girls in comics predate shojo manga heroines by decades. The charming Gibson Girls won hearts in the 1890s, and then Neil Brinkley's gorgeous flappers into serial stories..." (53).

Cornog and Raiteri (2009) continue to underscore the skewed representations of females portrayed as helpless / powerless victims in need of saving vs. powerful agents capable of effecting change in their textual contexts. Taking off from Cornog and Raiteri's (2009) discussion, teachers and students could partake in critical analysis of the main female characters and / or gender power dynamics in the Twilight and True Blood universes.

In brief, teachers and students could explore essential questions such as:

-How much POWER do Bella Swan and Sookie Stackhouse hold in their respective texts?

-How do they exercise said power?

-How do visual and textual representations of Bella and Sookie either REINFORCE and / or CHALLENGE pervasive ideologies, assumptions, values, world views, and so on surrounding ideas of power, gender, sexuality, and so on.

Teachers and students could then view the visual and textual texts in question to engage these questions, creating traditional and / or multi-modal inquiry projects.

In short, I believe that such an activity would encourage and teach students the value of not only viewing vampire texts for entertainment purposes, but using said texts to further read, evaluate, and question their realities!

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WORKS CITED

Ball. A. (Executive Producer). (2008). True Blood [Television series]. United States: HBO.

Cornog, M. & Raiteri, S. (2009). Graphic Novels. Library Journal, 134(9), 53.

Harris, C. (2001). Dead Until Dark. New York: Ace Books.

Meyers, S. (2005). Twilight. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Murnau, F. W. (Director). (1922). Nosferatu [Motion picture]. Germany: Prana Film.

Rotten Tomatoes. IGN. Web. 4 Dec. 2009. <http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/twilight_saga_new_moon/>

Schopp, A. (1997). Cruising the Alternatives: Homoeroticism and the contemporary vampire. Journal of Popular Culture, 30(4), 231-243.

Sparks, G. (2009, Jan). Does "Twilight" Prove Vampires Are Real? USA Today, 137(2764), 9.

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IMAGES USED

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