week two begins

Week number two, here we come!

I have no big message today, except to say that I'm glad to see the sun for a change and I'm equally glad for the continued opportunity to get to know you all.

Assignments as we move on:

E2H is continuing to build on the online conversations you started over the weekend. E3H will bring in drafts (old or new) for conferencing. CW will also bring something for P2P conferencing (but you should bring something new. Remember to color-key and changes and always bring two copies for P2P conferences.

And now, because I promised, E2H-ers,



J: in silence

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Extra CW message!

Check out the brand new CW pages! They are available from the link at the left. I have just finished them, and the only thing I know doesn't work is the navigation bar at the bottom. (I'll have to deal with that in the future.) I think you'll be impressed!

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Finally a Friday!

It's Friday! At last!

And yes, my day today was (despite the computer media meltdown) a major improvement over yesterday's nightmare. I even found some money. :-)

So, here I sit reflecting on a very interesting first week of school. They are always so long and drawn out--I say they are the longest week of the year, and I think that is true--but this year's version, with its insanely un-August weather, must have been the worst ever. Still--and despite losing some quality kids to schedule changes (Carissa )--I think this was overall a very nice first week. I'm pretty impressed with the quality of students in all of my classes, and I'm looking forward to excellent things.

One area that (of course) remains to be seen is the use of the boards, which is an essential element of the class as a whole. Most of you have registered, though there are a few stragglers who need to get it taken care of right away. This weekend's assignments in all classes focus on the boards. Kind of a "let's get started" thing.

So with that in mind, here is what you should do:

Everyone: Explore the areas of the boards specific to your class to get a sense of how people were using the boards last year (for better or worse). All old posts will be deleted Sunday evening. (N.B: Don't post in any old threads; they will all be emptied or deleted.)

CW: In the "Prologues" board, post the current draft of your prologue. To do so, create a topic using your piece's title or working title as the subject. Copy and paste. Once you have posted, you will need to do a bit of editing. Click modify and edit where the punctuation has changed. (Apostrophes change into question marks.) Then save it.

After your post successfully, just go away for a bit. Return on Sunday or so, and see if you can provide some feedback to four or five of your classmates' pieces. Quote where you can for specificity.

E2H: In the E2H section, on the board called "Emerson/Thoreau," find the child board called "Transcendentalist Quotes and Precepts." Read the two locked posts that are there. One explains how to post and one explains the specific assignment. Then...

Select two of your prepared quotations and post what you have written. Then log off and come back later to see who else has posted and to provide responses in other threads. By weekend's end, you should have posted two threads of your own and at least four responses.

E3H: In the E3H section, on the board called "Poetry," find the child board called "E3H Metapoems." Read the locked post that you find there.It explains what you will need to do. Post early and often. :-) By weekend's end, you should have posted at least four or five times. When starting topics, be aware of whether someone else has begun something similar; don't start something that echoes another thread. Just post there.

Oh, and don't forget your "Frozen Moment" drafts for Monday!

Any questions about the boards? Can't get on? Haven't received your registration confirmation? Other issues? Email me!

Meanwhile...

Have a great weekend. You've earned it!

J: color me happy Music: Pixie--Ani Difranco

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oops

First of all, let me take a moment to apologize profusely to my Creative Writing class, who were denied whatever value they may find in my presence this morning due to the fact that, when I awoke, it was already 8:39.

I do not really know how that happened. I have two back-up alarms, and they were not bleating (as they ought to have been) at 8:39. How they were not is something I will need to explore. How to safeguard against a repeat of this morning is also something I will need to determine. But for now: I am truly sorry, CW-ers (and also E3H-ers), for my lack of being there.

As to today...

Well, in the one E3H class we did have, we spent the time really playing with the two poems we merely touched upon in second period. Nice job, Iain and company for that discussion. {Yep, Iain, you got a blog shout-out. ;-) } And in the E2H class...well let me just say that from my perspective that was one of the more remarkable conversations I've had with a sophomore class in about three years. Excellent questions, excellent thoughts. And it's only the fourth day of school! I hope it was that way for all; if anyone was at all uncomfortable, please let me know. I don't want you to be.

So, where are we? Well...not much new in the HW department today. The only new thing is that E3H-ers need to read the metapoems that they will find on the yellow page at the link on the E3H page. Print them out if you'd like to.

If you missed this video over the summer, you really missed something. By far the best thing I have seen in years:

J: oops Music: "Oops, I did it again"--Britney Spears

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just a quickie today

I don't have a whole lot to say on a rainy Wednesday. (I hate rainy Wednesdays.) But for whatever it's worth...

Another good day, folks. I enjoyed the conversations and the feedback in CW as well as the thoughts in the other classes about nuts'n'bolts stuff (and the lit, when we got to it). Hoping that we get to dive deep tomorrow!

Speaking of tomorrow...

CW, we will be continuing our journey through some of your "open door" pieces. (Not all of them, but some.)

3H: We'll be starting an opening poetry unit. (Bring Sound and Sense.)

2H: You know we're beginning with the Transcendentalists. Tonight, look up bio info on Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Then, with that info in mind, read through some of the quotations from these guys that you'll find linked from the E2H page. Select four quotations and, in your journal or notebook, write them down and briefly annotate them with your thoughts about how they connect to what you read about these men.

J: pajama party Music: "It's My Party"--Leslie Gore, "Pajama Party"--Annette Funicello

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flying

Two days down!

Wow! This year is flying!

I don't know about you, but I'm sort of getting used to being back and doing all the school-y sort of things again. I'm not used to my schedule--I may never get used to that--but I'm getting used to being here. :-)

So the E3H-ers and E2H-ers need to check out the stuff across the bottom of the E3H and E2H main pages. Read through the syllabus (such as it is), the "Rules and Regs" (which you should take with a grain of salt--they are sort of like the required warnings after one of those prescription drug commercials: side effects may include post-nasal ringworm, deep-fried gizzard, and cranial oragami), the sheet on "Conferences," and the one on "Posting." Leave the rest for now.

CW-ers will continue to work on my "Prologue" tomorrow, but your assignment tonight is to write your own "prologue-like" pieces. Imagine a door. You don't know what is behind it. It could be a friend. It could be a dream. It could be a rock concert. It could be anything at all. You don't know. We don't know. And, at the end of this piece, we still shouldn't know. But we should be interested in finding out! Here is the assignment: Open the door and write what you see. But don't tell us what is coming.

Anyway, I hope that you all have a wonderful day. Here's a little something to watch and, I hope, enjoy.



Journal: Say hello :-) (Or: dinosaur tears) Music: When We Begin--Ellis Paul

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and that was just the beginning!

OK, that's one day down. Only 287,520,682 to go. No, wait, that's not right; it only seems that long. :-)

I hope that today was a good start for everyone and that you all settled into the new year reasonably well. I also hope that perhaps I might have alleviated (look it up) some fears you might have had regarding whether I am in reality the Wicked Witch of the West. (I do a pretty mean impersonation of her, and might be enticed to do it for you if you're really good, but I'm not her.) We're in this together, and my only goal is to help you to improve. There will be work, and sometimes it will be hard, but I sincerely hope that it never becomes overwhelming.

And as to that portfolio...well, just keep your eyes on the ball and don't put everything off until the last six weeks and the thing really won't be that much of a bear at all. Honest.

OK, a few words about the video recording: I'm still at school as I write this, so I have yet to watch it, but my intention is to watch it again tonight and look at what you had to say, and maybe have a ghost of a chance of actually retaining some of it (like, for instance, how to pronounce "Bonamico"). {Sophs, your vid recording will be tomorrow.}

Reminder: Buy a journal. You should do this within the next few days. We will be writing journal entries in class beginning tomorrow. If you do not have a journal yet, bring something on which to write; you may transfer it to your actual journal later. When you enter class, I will play music to which you will write journal entries. There will be a suggested topic on the white board. (In Room 305 it will be on the small white board up front.) It is only a suggested topic, and it will often be very silly. Use it if you desire; if you have something else you'd rather write about, feel free unless I request that everyone use the topic of the day.

Do not compose continuous pieces in the journal. once you've come back to it a couple of times, take it out and make it a workshop piece. Journals are for playing, not for drafting.

E2H: Find out what transcendentalism is and where it comes from. We'll be starting the year discussing this American philosophy.

Everyone: Go to the link above that says "boards" and click it. Register for the class boards using your actual name and email. I need to approve new members, so you will not be able to access the boards immediately. Once you can, though, take a look around. Look through some conversations. (These will be deleted soon to make room for yours.) Get an idea of how the boards are used. We'll talk more in class.

Anyway, have a great night. See you all tomorrow!

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a pre-start "assignment"

This is an assignment that you would actually make your lives easier if you took care of it this weekend instead of waiting until school begins. :-)

For this class, you will need a journal. I’ll explain what we will be doing with these in more detail, but they will be needed every single day, and you’ll be writing in them both in and out of class. I ask students to choose journals that they connect to in some way, not the first random thing that they happen to see in a store, and certainly not any kind of spiral-bound notebook.

Go to Barnes and Noble, Borders, Helander’s, or probably any book or stationery store, and select one that you like. The journal needs to be permanently bound, which usually means hard covered. It should not be something that will come apart during the year, nor something from which pages can be easily removed. It can be lined or unlined, small or large, in any style at all. I advise that you avoid the “comp book” style unless you are both

• ready for me to tease you for being extremely lame and uncreative, and
• ready to decorate the crap out of it and make it your own.

See you next week. Have a great last weekend!

kt

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welcome back, 2h and 3h

Hi, everyone,

I hope that you are all refreshed after the (too-short) summer break and are ready to come back and take another crack at (wait for it) education. :-)

I'm looking forward to getting to know each of you in various ways during the upcoming year: through your writing, through your contributions to the class discussions, through your online comments on class bulletin boards, through individual conferences, and through whatever other means we can devise to show off your individual knowledge and creativity. I hope that this will be a valuable experience for each of you and, though I'm sure that it will involve a lot of work, an enjoyable one.

In order to get to know you better from the start, I'd like to ask you to do something for me. (Don't worry: it's not onerous.) (Look it up.)

When you come into the classroom on Monday, be ready to tell me (and the class) what makes you unique in this cookie-cutter community we live in. Describe something about yourself, your family, your interests, your life, etc., that you think sets you apart. And don't forget that the word "unique" means sole, individual, one of a kind. So "I play football" won't do very much here, though it might be an important fact about yourself to share as well.

You'll be talking on Monday. This is a class where I want to *listen* to you as much as I want you to listen to me. So be ready.

Oh, and I'd like you to do one other thing. Go to www.tophamsattic.blogspot.com and check it out. It's my classroom communication blog, my private version of "Edline," and I use it for just about everything (other than mass emails like this one). You should bookmark it or subscribe to it. You'll be going there daily all year. There's fun stuff as well as information. Look around. Click on some things.

See you Monday!!!

kt

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welcome back, cw!

This is a copy of the email I sent to my CW class today. The referenced letter is linked on the left:

Hi, all!

Welcome to senior year!

This is the first of what will undoubtedly be many emails you will receive from me during this fall semester as we get to know each other and I begin to work with you to help you to improve your writing. I'm cc-ing parents on this one simply because I'm not sure how many of you actually check whatever email accounts are linked to Edline. :-)

Well, we all knew this would be a short summer, and the weird weather didn't help it to seem any longer. I don't know how you spent yours, but mine was basically taken up by writing, reading, and college trips with my daughter Julianne. I did not get enough done in any of these categories.

However, I am excited for a new school year! I'm excited to meet each of you (or to see you again, for those I already know) and to dive in and begin our work together. I don't know what (if anything) you might have heard, but I hope we will have some fun and--somewhere along the line--do some good work together.

I have a few reasons for writing this to you. First and foremost is the already-stated desire simply to say "hello." I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of work each of you enjoys and what we can accomplish this semester.

Additionally, I wanted to take the time to send you a "letter." For those who may be unfamiliar with that archaic expression, a "letter" is something that geezers like me used to use for purposes of communication back when there were no computers and phone calls were very expensive. These were written in PEN on PAPER and sent by the Postal Service (that's the mailman). It took maybe a week or so for the recipient to get the one you wrote, so you usually took the time to make it kind of cool.

These days, email, IM, Twitter, Facebook, etc. make communication so easy and instantaneous that we don't much think about being eloquent. But people used to take the time to say things beautifully when they wrote.

Hemingway: 'A writer is like a Gypsy. He owes no allegiance to any government. If he is a good writer he will never like the government he lives under. His hand should be against it and its hand will always be against him.'

Austen: "I believe I drank too much wine last night at Hurstbourne; I know not how else to account for the shaking of my hand to-day. You will kindly make allowance therefore for any indistinctness of writing, by attributing it to this venial error."

I could go on.

Anyway, I will be writing you letters--LETTERS--this year and I'd like each of you to write back, taking the time to consider how you are saying things as well as what you are saying. And I am posting the first such letter at tophamsattic.blogspot.com as soon as I am finished sending this off. Go there, explore the blog, and read the letter.

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts. :-)

kt

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