Friday, June 8, 2007

2 x Three Beautiful Things 06/06-07/07: Terence Blanchard, Jefferson Radio, Alexie, Imagination, Classroom Pub Scene, Comedy

1. Terence Blanchard's "Over There" coming on Channel 70, XM Satellite Radio.

2. Rededicating myself to listening to Jefferson Radio, AM 1280 in my car. This comes after my decision not to listen to Colin Cowherd any more after his "bombing" of The Big Lead blog.

3. Listening to the "On Point" interview with Sherman Alexie as he dicussed his new novel, Flight.

4. Talking with my Shakespeare class about Shakespeare's portrayal of the imagination in The Tempest and how Shakespeare makes the audience the deliverers of Prospero back to Naples by imagining his trip back home into being.

5. Thursday was the last meeting of Working Class Lit/Research Writing. When class ended, many students did not want to leave and stayed in the classroom for over a half an hour talking with each other, mostly, and with Margaret and I, too. Not only did a very good educational experience happen, but a social one, too, in this class.

6. My Literature of Comedy students did a great job Thursday night with writing and telling the class what their definitions of comedy are. We compiled a comprehensive understanding of this magical genre by pooling together all the insights of this wonderful class.

3 comments:

Pinehurst in my Dreams said...

#4) Oh, so the idea of commanding the universe through visualization is not a relatively new idea? I know it has recently become popular in some religious circles.

#5) Who is Margaret - a student teacher?

#6) Ah, the combined efforts to make a new definition. The joys of group work - something for which I will never fully appreciate, as I am too comfortable with doing my own work.

I realize that one can achieve a greater definition by combining the efforts of a number of scholars, but some group projects left me holding the bag - so to speak, because I wasn't "one" with the emergent leader. (Hummm. . .maybe I had better deal with some bitterness over a couple of "Bs."

raymond pert said...

Margaret is my fellow teacher in this team taught course. She's the teacher of record for American Working Class Lit. I'm the teacher of record for Research Writing.

The class was all one group. They all did work individually and then reported their work to the class. You would have done fine.

nonizamboni said...

Oh, I'm such a fan of Sherman Alexie. Tom Spanbauer, a great writer originally from Pocatello, also has a new book out called Now Is The Hour and I think he turns a phrase a lot like Alexie. Do you know of him?