Focus

July 19, 2009 by

Hello to the three search engines that seem to be my primary visitors. Yes, I know it’s been months since I posted here. I’ve been too busy posting elsewhere, like on Bedford Bits and @newsfromtengrrl. I seem to have an overwhelming problem with focus these days.

I just want to keep up with too many topics and write too many things. In the end, I get nothing done. I may be able to blame NCTE partially. In my jobs there, I had to have the breadth to speak to everything from kindergarten to grad school. When I stop myself and try to step back to pre-NCTE days, I realize I never was all that focused in the first place. I want to do too much. I have ideas and ideas and ideas, but never the time or energy to pursue them all with the attention they need.

Take my posts to @newsfromtengrrl. I am finding stories in the news that touch on technology and education, language arts, teaching literature, and college English. Working on NCTE’s Inbox for all those years has its benefits. In the last couple of weeks though, I’ve posted only a few stories to the news account. I’m having trouble putting in the energy when the posts just don’t seem to go anywhere.

I use bit.ly to track click-through on the article URLs. If I’m really lucky, I may see a dozen people click on a link. The overall average for the 4 months I’ve been tracking is closer to half that. I’ve posted the RSS feed of the posts here on tengrrl.com, on the English Companion Ning, and on the NCTE Ning, but that’s not really influenced traffic from what I see.

What’s missing? Why aren’t the posts used? 

  • They get lost in the great stream of "everything else" on Twitter and elsewhere. People follow the @newsfromtengrrl account, but there are so many tweets that come through that I suspect many people just never notice them. Maybe a weekly round-up of the most important stories would help?
  • They aren’t promoted enough. If I were to do more with marketing the links, I’m sure they’d get more attention. Or if their feed was included on more prominent sites, the click-through would increase.
  • The headlines don’t grab attention. Lots of us scan headlines and click through only a small percentage of the time. Even though I’ve added hashtags to increase the interest of the stories, they may not be compelling enough to entice people to read more.
  • They aren’t reliable enough. The stories are posted whenever I have time. Some days there are none. Others they don’t go up till late at night, after all the sane people have gone to bed. And because of this . . .
  • They miss the scoop. The links may go up after they’ve already been discovered by folks in the discussion lists and Facebook. People have already seen the pieces, so they don’t click through on my link.
  • They don’t add anything new. The hashtags on the posts try to provide some detail on what the stories are about, but there’s no real value added. There’s no commentary or response on the pieces. Just the stories as they are. Nothing on why readers should care about the issues or why they are significant to our field.

I could fix all that If I focused on what I’m doing on @newsfromtengrrl. If I dropped other projects and made these stories my priority, more people would click those links. But I can’t drop the few things that I’m actually paid for, and I’m not getting any money to post these stories on @newsfromtengrrl.

See? The problem is focus. I need to focus on @newsfromtengrrl to make it succeed, but I have too many other things that I need to do. And that’s just one of my projects. There’s work on computers in education, high school language arts projects, my work on designing writing assignments, and my interest in children’s and young adult literature.

I’m beginning to wonder if I just never chose a clear concentration for my work.  Maybe that’s something you learn when you finally settle on a topic for your dissertation. I assume that as you pursue the PhD you choose your area of study and give up all the other things. I feel simultaneously that I need (and want) to explore all these areas and that I really must focus and stop trying to know and do everything. Sigh . . . .

 

Filed under Personal Journal Tagged with ,

Poem 14: “[Blank Verse]”

April 14, 2009 by

Somehow I never saw Ernest Hemingway’s "[Blank Verse]" until tonight. When I first saw it on someone else’s blog, I was certain it was a hoax, but I actually confirmed its authenticity. It’s right there on page 6 of Hemingway’s Complete Poems, written in 1916.  I think it’s a little hard to read, so I added boldface to make things stand out.

[Blank Verse]

"                         "
       !             :                  ,                 .
              ,            ,            ,                 .
      ,              ;                              !
                     ,

I would say that I appreciate Hemingway’s fiction, but his work falls outside the areas I usually follow. Having found "[Blank Verse]" though, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t take some time to page through his poetry. Maybe there’s another hidden wonder inside. For now, I’m going to head to bed wondering how on earth you present that poem at a poetry reading :-)

Filed under American Lit, poetry

Poem 13: “The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse”

April 13, 2009 by

I have a running list of poems to include this month, but none of them were singing to me. There’s a bit too much stress in my world right now to feel very poetic. That is until I Googled around a bit and remembered "The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse."

What a perfect poem for a day when I’m feeling all my many bills and my very empty checking account.

The Complaint of Chaucer to his Purse
A Supplication to King Henry
 
To yow, my purs, and to non othir wyght
Complayne I, for ye ben my lady dere!
I am so sory, now that ye been lyght;
For certes, but yf ye make me hevy chere,
Me were as leef be leyd upon my bere;
For which unto your mercy thus I crye,
Beth hevy ayeyn, or elles mot I dye!
 
Now voucheth sauf this day, or hyt be nyght,
That I of yow the blisful soun may here,
Or se your colour lyk the sonne bryght,
That of yelownesse had never pere.
Ye be my lyf, ye be myne hertes stere,
Quene of comfort and of gode companye;
Beth hevy ayeyn, or elles mot I dye!
 
Now purs, that ben to me my lyves lyght
And saveour, as doun in this worlde here,
Out of this towne helpe me thurgh your myght,
Syn that ye wylle nat ben my tresorere;
For I am shave as nye as any frere.
But yet I prey unto youre curtesye,
Beth heavy ayeyn, or elles mot I dye!
 
Lenvoy de Chaucer
 
O conqueror of Brutes Albyoun,
Which that by lyne and fre eleccion
Ben verray kyng, this song to you I sende;
And ye, that mowen alle oure harmes amende,
Have mynde upon my supplicacioun.

The Guardian Book Blog Poem of the Week has more details on the poem if you’d like background (or to see what medieval pennies looked like).

Filed under British Literature, poetry

Oh Internet, You Pandora’s Box!

April 13, 2009 by

It seems that some jurors are actively twittering about the court cases they are hearing and worse yet, doing their own research on the lawyers, the parties in the case, and the case itself —all as the legal cases are unfolding in front of them. There’s more about  "Illegal 21st Century Research Skills"  in my Bits blog entry today, but there was one piece that just didn’t fit into that post.

You see, I know the research these jurors are doing is illegal, but I couldn’t help but smile a bit as I read about the cases. The NY Times article stated that in one case, the judge found that jurors had been "conducting Google searches on the lawyers and the defendant, looking up news articles about the case, checking definitions on wikipedia and searching for evidence that had been specifically excluded by the judge."

(If only we could get students to do all this background work before they come to class to discuss a reading!)

The article continued, explaining that when asked why he did all this, one of the jurors explained, "I was curious." Oh Internet! You cruel box of treasures, luring us to peek inside!!

Filed under Teaching with Digital Tools

Poem 12: “Easter, 1916”

April 12, 2009 by

If the beginning of April must be marked with The Canterbury Tales and The Waste Land, Easter must be celebrated with a reading of William Butler Yeats’s "Easter 1916."  I think I learned 99% of what I know about Irish history from Yeats’s works. Maybe 75% would be more accurate. Need to make room for Synge, Shaw, and Joyce. Oh, and Swift.

I could spend this entry explaining all the historical allusions in "Easter 1916," but the Wikipedia entry has done a reasonable job of that already. I do wish their analysis addressed the duality of some of the imagery as religious motifs. Expanding that entry a bit would make a nice student assignment actually.

As I was exploring resources for this entry, I found an online exhibition from the National Library of Ireland (Flash required) that includes audio and images of Yeats’s artifacts and papers. Launch the exhibition, click on the "Interactives" button, and choose the "EASTER, 1916" resources. The manuscript images for the poem are represented by the four pages in the lower right corner of the exhibit case. Click on the pages in the case, and details appear below the case. From there, you can reach images of each of the 4 pages of the manuscript.

Those who know me know that I’m a sucker for a manuscript. While I can identify most of the words on the manscript, I do wish it were about twice the size so I could study the details more carefully. A bit more information on the manuscript pages would be nice as well. Page three shows the most revision. The other pages are relatively unchanged. Still, it’s the poem, in the poet’s hand—and that is always a glorious thing, especially to the part of me who would love to be a special collections librarian, free to frolic in manuscripts all day, every day!

Filed under British Literature, poetry

Poem 11: “Jabberwocky”

April 11, 2009 by

Lewis Carroll’s "Jabberwocky" is wonderfully fun as a nonsense poem. Many consider it the best example of a nonsense poem that we have in fact. How can you look on the opening lines and not smile?

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

If you’re totally lost, the Wikipedia entry on the poem adds some definitions and helpful explanations, as well as an excellent list of allusions and derivative works.

The poem is one of my favorites to use in grammar lessons, especially when I was teaching sentence diagramming in a senior-level grammar class for English majors and pre-service teachers. Students had to rely on word forms and syntactical placement to figure out the parts of speech for each word—and since the words were nonsense, everything was open to discussion and multiple meanings.

I’m not likely to teach sentence diagramming again, but "Jabberwocky" is still a great poem to use for mini-lessons on diction and syntax.

Filed under British Literature, poetry

Poem 10: “Theme for English B”

April 10, 2009 by

 Langston Hughes’s "Theme for English B" isn’t my favorite Hughes’ works, but it so perfectly describes the student’s dilemma when writing for a teacher who will never understand him that I think every teacher, especially every writing teacher, should read this poem.

Since I did write a book on the topic, I’m compelled to address the assignment that begins the poem:

    Go home and write
    a page tonight.
    And let that page come out of you--
    Then, it will be true.

Poetically, it’s a lovely thing. As a writing assignment, it lacks a great deal of detail and support. Every writing teacher should note the speaker’s difficulty at pinning down the details of the assignment—Whose idea of truth? Will the teacher understand truths that don’t match his or her views of the world?

Ultimately the speaker draws conclusions about truths, both personal and social. I just hope that teacher is up to the challenge of responding!

Filed under American Lit, poetry

Poem 9: “Richard Cory”

April 9, 2009 by

I know. Another narrative. I think I liked Edwin Arlington Robinson’s "Richard Cory" first because it tricked me. I recall reading it in my sophomore American Lit survey class. I think it was the simplicity of the lines and their abab rhyme scheme. I was taken in by the nursery-rhyme-like quality and then shocked by that last line. That was the point, of course. Robinson got exactly the reaction he wanted out of me.

For better or worse though, the version of the poem that I carry around in my head is courtesy of Simon and Garfunkel:

 

Filed under American Lit, poetry Tagged with

Poem 8: “We Real Cool”

April 8, 2009 by

Another poem I enjoy teaching, Gwendolyn Brooks’s "We Real Cool" has been a powerful tool for discussions of voice and style in the classroom. Like "The Writer," this poem inspired a ReadWriteThink lesson plan, Many Years Later: Responding to Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool.”

The activity that I describe in the lesson, and also in a related English Journal article, “Write Like You Talk (Snapshots),” demonstrated to me how important it is for students to writing from authentic subject position and in their own voice. (You can find out more by reading the EJ article.)

Okay, I admit though, choosing this poem is probably prideful. It’s a poem I like and that I teach well. Further, it led to my first publication in English Journal. Who wouldn’t be pleased about that? 

But there’s more. I found about a month ago that the Library of Congress’s Web Guide, "Gwendolyn Brooks: Online Resources," points to my lesson plan. Seriously, scroll down to the lesson plan section and there it is. Okay, it’s just a link, but hey, someone at the Library of Congress thought my lesson was good enough to point to. And it’s all because of that great poem by Gwendolyn Brooks.

Filed under American Lit, poetry

Poem 7: “The Writer”

April 7, 2009 by

I’ve liked Richard Wilbur’s "The Writer" since I came across it my first year as a teacher. I may have read the poem earlier, but I don’t have any memories of it.

Instead I remember teaching with it. I guess I’m realizing I have a pattern—I like teaching narrative poems. But this poem in particular always seemed perfect for the writing classroom, with it’s metaphor for what it’s like to be a writer and struggle through attempt after attempt at the right word and the most effective phrase.

If you want to see how I used the poem in the classroom, check out my ReadWriteThink lesson plan: Writing about Writing: An Extended Metaphor Assignment.

Filed under American Lit, poetry

← Older posts

Newer posts →