Naomi Shihab Nye, "Rain"

A teacher asked Paul
what he would remember
from third grade, and he sat
a long time before writing
"this year somebody tutched me
on the sholder"
and turned his paper in.
Later she showed it to me
as an example of her wasted life.
The words he wrote were large
as houses in a landscape.
He wanted to go inside them
and live, he could fill in
the windows of "o" and "d"
and be safe while outside
birds building nests in drainpipes
knew nothing of the coming rain.


Today!

1. Currently! Quotes of the week and page totals! Week 6 book mark!

2. Write a response post? Up to you!

3. Write (at least?) one paragraph for your "Art of" project. Just save it to your network folder; you don't need to post it to your blog.

4. Ask me for help!

Dawn Potter, "Astrolabe"

William Stafford, "On a Church Lawn"

Dandelion cavalry, light little saviors,
baffle the wind, they ride so light.
They surround a church and outside the window
utter their deaf little cry: "If you listen
well, music won't have to happen."

After service they depart singly
to mention in the world their dandelion faith:
"God is not big; He is right."

"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Why," Edna St. Vincent Millay

"What Lips My Lips Have Kissed and Why," Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Dean Young, "Scarecrow on Fire."

Hill's Sentences of the Month

Anna Karina reading a Paul Eluard poem
in Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville

1. "Anyone with a house full of books has been asked the inevitable question: "Have you read all of these?" The real answer, of course, is no, because half the appeal of books is promise. But the question is annoying anyway."

This is my good and long time friend Mike Johnston on the blog that he makes his living from, The Online Photographer. He is one of the most curious people I know--about things, that is--I don't mean that he's strange. I love the truth he gets to in this sentence. I've read most of the books in my own library, but there are a lot that I haven't read, but that are still some of my favorites because of the "promise" they hold for when I finally do get around to them.

2. "Every generation gets the self-help guru it deserves." From Rebecca Mead's profile in The New Yorker on kind-of creepy "mind hack" guru Timothy Ferris.

This sentence is a version of another famous sentence that I can't remember, but it's a great twist on it. I love the way the word "deserves" suggests that all generations are at fault somehow, and part of their punishment is that they have to endure ego-maniacal self-promoters like Timothy Ferris. You can tell, just from this image below, what kind of person he must be. The generations sins he has been sent for must be very bad indeed.

Timothy Ferris

3. "These guys weren't sitting around bull-****ing. They were beating drums, tearing it up, hurling horses over cliffs." Bob Dylan in his autobiography Chronicles, describing his reaction to first hearing Public Enemy, N.W.A., and Ice-T.

Dylan's book is a real mess. If it were a final draft in my class, I would give it a C, but he comes up with lines like "throwing horses over cliffs" all the time and they knock me out. They sound like wise old sayings that have been around forever but that have never been said until Dylan uttered them.

BlogLab Friday: 9.23.11

1. Sentences of the Month. No new sentences this month; instead, let's simply choose our favorites of the first four weeks of the blog-year.

You should have four posts for sentences of the week now, from 8/26, 9/2, 9/9, and 9/16. Revisit them and pick the 3-5 that still stand out the most. Maybe they are especially original in the way they are put together, or maybe have a personal significance for you. Select them, copy them in, and write a sentence or two about why your winner is the best.

If you have not been keeping up with your "Sentences of the Week," you will have to visit your peers' blogs and select your best of the month from those.

Your "Sentences of the Month" post should also contain your "currently" information: books and pages read this week.

2. Total your bookmarks and hand them in. Be sure that you total them and write "Week 5" next to that total.

3. Overtime: read, or make a response post, or prepare "Close Reading #1," which is due Tuesday (typed, with an alias, remember), or play the class in Multi-Eight, room 1b.

James Wright, "A Blessing."

Homework for Tuesday

On Tuesday, please bring with you one complete analytical paragraph, a close reading that contains a claim plus at least five more sentences that support and discuss your artifact just like we have been practicing in class.

You can complete the claim you wrote for Tuesday of this week, a claim you wrote with your groups last week, or a new one.

Your paragraph should include at least two "branches" in the support section.

Your paragraph should not contain the verbs "use," "utilize," or "show."

Typed, double-spaced, with an alias.

Mary TallMountain, "The Last Wolf"


Today, make one post:
1. Copy and paste at least five claims on other blogs into your post. In a sentence or two, identify which one or two claims strike you as the best, the most commanding, the most authoritative and specific.

2. Identify, and link to, the blog you think found the most creative, original, or otherwise interesting artifact for its close reading.

3. Leave comments on the blogs of your two favorites (for claim and for artifact) letting them know you like their work.

Matt Cook, "Nonsense."

Has anyone seen a copy of the novel "Hit and Run," by Lurlene McDaniel? Looking for it.

from the blogs, period 3 . . .

Lots of fun stuff out there recently:

Becca interviews herself about the memoir she's reading (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), when its author includes a fake interview of himself as a young kid.

My Everyday Sticky Waffle, on first encountering a sentence of the week:

Not only is the sentence funny, and absolutely relatable to my life, but, once I came across it during my silent AP lit english class, I laughed out loud, like one of those weird kids totally embarrassing myself.

From The Written Word: "I really think it is adorable that my parents still go out on dates." Plus, inspiration from reading On the Road.

Eddie blogs from their phone:

I wonder how many words I have typed? I'm typing this from my phone so the screen is really small and I can't figure out how to do word count or scroll up.

Kim Possible, on her new job at Coventry 13:

The only thing I had a problem with was the 10 year old, 3 hour long orientation video. I sat in a room that was like a janitors closet watching a tiny television set. It was basically the most odd thing I've ever had to do.

Rivers uncovers Chuck Palahniuk's odd challenge to himself when writing Fight Club:

to make it more disturbing than the book he published before Fight Club.

Hermione Granger, on taking a personality test:

Today, I took the Jung Typology Test, created by a Muggle psychologist to determine the personality of the individual. Personally, I find his rational, systematic approach rather more reliable than the brand of hocus-pocus labeled "Divination." Prof. Trelawney can attest that I saw right through her crackpot tricks.

Friday Blogging Lab

A. First, fulfill these routine Friday duties:

1. Total your bookmark for week 4, hand it in, and begin your bookmark for week 5.

2. Complete this week's Currently post with page totals, best sentences, and a brief comment on your favorite.

B. Poet of the Month post. Select one of the following options for our Poet of the Month menu:

1. Name the three poems we have read so far this year that have been the most interesting to you and write 75 words about what made them stand out for you personally.

2. Pick your poet of the year so far and try to find more work by them at the Poetry Foundation's amazing web site. You may either (a) find one poem by them there to copy into your moleskine, or (b) write 50 words about one of the poems you found there that interests you for whatever reason.

C. Overtime

If have time, for the last 15 minutes of class, start looking for a subject for your solo close-reading assignment, which is due Tuesday. Alternatively, write a response post for your independent reading, silent read, or play me in "Multi-eight," a fun word game. Click on room 1d.

Richard Siken, "Scheherezade"

nice lines from the blogs . . .

J-Momma, reading Tweak:

I tried to get out of my life and into Nic's life cause he's got it a lot harder than me but he put himself there and I didn't do anything to deserve any of this.

Estella Havisham, while reading The Social Network, uses her research skills to compare the people behind the Facebook story to the actors who play them in the movie. Also from her blog, Keep it Classy, she notices this after seeing peoples' reactions when they see her carrying her copy of The Help and tell her how much they like it:

The bottom line is that The Help is like a forest fire in the literary jungle. Praise for The Help spreads by word of mouth.

Mdogo, on spending time with her grandmother as she was dying of ovarian cancer:

Her last month with my family and I was incredible. She was able to see my cousin Meredith graduate from South Side High School in June, we watched “The King’s Speech” together, strolled around the block at night, and picked blueberries.

Mockingjay, responding to a description of a California freeway in A Single Man:

I liked imaging a river, like a white water rapids kind of river, looking at it and knowing if I would step one foot in it I would tumbled over by the rush of water. Also thinking of the little water molecules as the cars, they know that this is an every minute occurrence nothing out of the ordinary, nothing dangerous or scary about it.

When Autumn Came, discussing the drug memoir Night of the Gun:

It is interesting in the way the book was written because it was comprised of 60 interviews of people who were once close to David, which in turn allows the reader to have various perspectives of the author. At times, I see David as an intelligent American living the dream and at other times a savage drunk. He almost reminds me of Lindsey Lohan or something... =)

Zengerine, discussing a sentence of the week about anxiety that she read in Tina Fey's book Bossypants:

The last quote is possibly my favorite because I know that exact feeling. I get it whenever I check my grades on Powerschool, whenever I take a big test, and whenever I have to make a really difficult jump on a really excellent videogame.

Today, Charles Douthat's "Crying Man."

Close reading: Painting Options

Walton Ford's "Fallen Bough"

For large images, click on the titles:

Edward Hopper, "Nighthawks" (1942)

Walton Ford, "Fallen Bough" (2002)

Jackson Pollock, "#1" (1950)

"Dust," Dorianne Laux

"Dust," Dorianne Laux

Someone spoke to me last night,

told me the truth. Just a few words,

but I recognized it.

I knew I should make myself get up,

write it down, but it was late,

and I was exhausted from working

all day in the garden, moving rocks.

Now, I remember only the flavor —

not like food, sweet or sharp.

More like a fine powder, like dust.

And I wasn’t elated or frightened,

but simply rapt, aware.

That’s how it is sometimes —

God comes to your window,

all bright light and black wings,

and you’re just too tired to open it.

Close reading: Interior Design

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click at home with their dog.

If your group has decided to do a close reading of a home, choose from one of the following. This subject matter may feel like an odd choice, but it is just another application of the close reading process we began using with the Gene Kelly's scene from Singin' in the Rain.

Pick one of the following homes photographed by up-and-coming photographer Todd Selby:

Alternatively, you could observe and analyze Homestead H.S. itself and come up with a claim about it.

Here are the possible homes shot by Todd Selby:

Pharrell Williams Modern Miami home of the well-known rapper known as Pharrell.

Dan Martensen and Shannan Click Upstate New York farmhouse of a photographer and his artist wife.

Jamie Isaia and Anthony Malat Interesting Brooklyn apartment of another couple.

Dave Etter, "Marcus Millsap: School Day Afternoon"

Today's poem can be found at Poetry 180.

Paul Eluard, " I said it to you."

I said it to you for the clouds
I said it to you for the tree of the sea
For each wave for the birds in the leaves
For the pebbles of sound
For familiar hands

For the eye that becomes landscape or face
And sleep returns it the heaven of its colour
For all that night drank
For the network of roads
For the open window for a bare forehead
I said it to you for your thoughts for your words

Every caress every trust survives.

Robert Bly: "Driving Toward the Lac Que Parle River"

at the Poetry Foundation.

"First Kiss," April Lardner

"First Kiss," April Lardner

This collision of teeth, of tongues and lips,
is like feeling for the door
in a strange room, blindfolded.
He imagines he knows her
after four dates, both of them taking pains
to laugh correctly, to make eye contact.
She thinks at least this long first kiss
postpones the moment she'll have to face
four white walls, the kitchen table,
its bowl of dried petals and nutmeg husks,
the jaunty yellow vase with one jaunty bloom,
the answering machine's one bloodshot eye.

It is not a race

but if it were a race:

One:
1. Rhys [1] (1069)
2. Alicia[3]
3. Aly [4]
4. Landen
5. Sarah
6. Taylor
7. Kira
8. Kristin
9. Frances
10. Matt (168)

Three:
1. Nolan [5] (588)
2. Sarah M.
3. Lauren
4. Morgan
5. Sarah P.
6. Abbie
7. Allison
8. Olivia
9. Derek
10. Kyle (167)

Checklist for Friday, 9/9
By 5:00 on Friday, your class blog should contain the following:

-at least six total responses that total at least 1800 words (2 posts / week x 3)
-"Currently" posts for each of the first three weeks that show at least 100/150 pages of reading for each week.
-the "Friday" response post from week 1 (relating to the personality profile).

"Wild Geese," Mary Oliver

"Wild Geese," Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Today

Let's spend our day like this:

1. Update your reading with one post that lists the books you've read in the last week, shows the pages you read last week + the total pages for the semester, and shares / discusses your sentences of the week.

2. Visit at least nine classmates' blogs, leave a friendly, thoughtful comment on at least three, and then vote for two blogs of the week in the comments below. Please say which period you are voting in.

"To You," Kenneth Koch

Today's poem can be found at the Poetry Foundation.