Workday for P5. ||| Sedaris reading activity due (10 T/F statements of “Rooster at the Hitchin’ Post”). ||| Two more Sedaris readings and activities will be assigned for Wednesday (Jeopardy). ||| All reading activities are due in class. ||| On Wednesday: we’ll create Storyboards and look at P5.5.
Note:
P5 = PowerPoint MusicVideo. Tell a story visually with text, sound, and images.
P5.5 = Literature Made Visual. Take one of David’s essays and make it visual.

Introduce David Sedaris. ||| Listen (and read along) to his essay #14, “Six to Eight Black Men,” Pages: 157-164. It covers Christmas in the Netherlands. ||| Then introduce P5 and P5.5 with the handout. ||| Show examples. ||| Assign a Sedaris reading for the next class time.

P5 = PowerPoint MusicVideo. Tell a story visually with text, sound, and images.
P5.5 = Literature Made Visual. Take one of David’s essays and make it visual.

Two Days Late and Half Off.
[our trivia name last night]
The bf gave me The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy last night as my Valentine’s gift (among chocolates, etc.)…
that got us/me thinking of other “classics” I’d like to read:
The Grapes of Wrath
A Wrinkle in Time
Lord of the Flies
War of the Worlds
Slaughterhouse 5
Him = The 3rd Policeman

I told him that I’ll start on Hitchhiker’s once I wrap up David’s book.
Then I may have to read Klosterman’s other fictional piece – Eating the Dinosaur.
p.s. We talked about the TV show Lost and how they used a lot of stuff from Alice In Wonderland; that got me thinking = what if I assigned that book in English 110. Students could dig into the pop culture pieces that use that book?

The Syllabus Quiz (especially on-campus) should not be multiple choice, but short answer-based. I’m thinking specifically of the question: “How long will it take the instructor to grade major projects and papers?” Instead of multiple choice answers ranging from 2 weeks (correct answer) to 5 seconds (yeah, right), I would ask them WHY they think that is placed in the syllabus and WHY it would take 2 weeks. I think that takes them beyond just memorizing a piece of the syllabus; it makes them think of why that’s there and maybe they’ll be more likely to remember and less likely to ask me when a paper will be graded. I’m not superwoman, and they aren’t my only class. It’s not a bitchy move on my part; it’s critical thinking, isn’t it?

Oh, and another radical thought… I’d like to use the “Dear Me At ___” Letter idea. In fact, maybe I should use it on the second day or third day of classes. Like, write a letter to yourself at the completion of this course. What will you want to have accomplished in the class and outside of the class. It doesn’t have to focus on our course, but the time span of a semester – how much will you change? How much will happen?

p.s. Eating the Dinosaur is at Leach Public Library (Wahpeton’s library; our campus library is called Mildred Johnson Library); I need to finish I’m Down first… then maybe I could put aside Jenny McCarthy’s until I tackle Eating the Dinosaur and David Sedaris’ new one?

If I sent in my “old” iMac, Apple will give me $310 trade-in value towards a new one.
The 27″ iMac I’d like to have, is about $1500 with the Apple Education discount, so I could get it for about $1200.
Hmm…
And a basic iPad is $500 using the Apple Education discount.
Do I need either? No.
But they are certainly PRETTY and COOL and FANCY.

—

Possible agenda for tomorrow and Wednesday:
+ Walk to video store in Sorels.
+ Mini-Movie Marathon: 4 Christmases and Easy A for sure…
+ Buy some Pepsi Max?
+ Read/finish I’m Down and start Jenny McCarthy’s book. Oh, and continue to read the Happiness book; I typically can read a funny book with a research book at the same time. True story.
+ Maybe consider looking ahead to next semester… maybe.

Thursday/Friday:
+ Purchase David Sedaris’ new book (okay, it came out in September, but I don’t have it yet).
+ Appointment 9am-ish Thursday.
+ Endless.com shipment in on Thursday.

  Clarification on P5.5. Firstly, P5.5 = literature + analysis + visual.
Basically, I did my sample on text-based analysis (choice B on the handout), but students don’t have to do that kind. There are two other choices!
What I would do is choose the essay you liked the most of David’s. Then, see what is in the essay that you want to analyze.
If you want to just figure out WHY you liked it so much, do A which is Reader-Response.
If you want to dive into his words, choose B like I did.
If you’d like to look at what was happening culture/society-wise at that time (and how it affected him), then I’d do C – Cultural Analysis.

Whatever type of analysis you do, your quotes from the essay should connect to that analysis.
My quotes showed my analysis of the TEXT. Other quotes could connect to how you felt or reacted to him or your READER RESPONSE, etc.

Today, in class, we handed in the Jeopardy game activity associated with the two essays of Sedaris’ (“Hejira” and “Repeat After Me”) + took a Bonus Punctuation Test (used the students’ P4 worksheets to create the quiz) + assigned two more essays for Monday (“Let It Snow” and “Put A Lid On It”) along with another reading activity (ask a classmate if you missed class). After that, it was a P5 Workday. On Monday, it’ll be a similar layout with Storyboards due at midnight (?) and more Sedaris for Wednesday. There’s a Bonus Opportunity Monday afternoon at the Cultural Center; check your email inboxes for details on that. Those wanting bonus points for that event will need to attend and then write up a paragraph on what they learned (due by class time Wednesday).

Okay, so as it turns out, I’m not all about torturing my students. I kind of knew that, but then it became true when the assignment fairy sprinkled me with fairy dust this morning when I thought, “Yeah, I don’t want to create a quiz.” Instead, the assignment fairy’s (man, I have to find a Flickr image for him/her, don’t I?) powder – not to be confused with the powder Dave Chappelle jokes about, mind you – magically revised that thought into, “You know, I won’t quiz them; I’ll give them some way to show their genius. They all read what I asked them to *cough cough cough* so this will allow for their creativity and knowledge to shine.” A quiz would almost be too easy for them and for me. I mean, sure, I could “allow” them to fail and “allow” me to pass of the quizzes to my work study to assess. This way, they have to re-read the material *cough cough cough* and learn something. Quizzes don’t always cause learning; I think that option has a 15% rating of knowledge-induced activity. Anyhow, if you weren’t in class, you missed the lil’ half page sheet detailing what to do with P4 Doc Sharing readings for Wednesday. Too bad, Chad. If you’re nice, I may give you one pre-Wednesday classes. Stop by my office or just ask a classmate what the options were.

Speaking of Wednesday, in all its middle-of-the-week glory, we’ll hand in those P4 options (students were asked to complete 2 of the 4 on the halfsie handout) and start the P4 Presentations. Friday concludes the P4 Presentations. On both days, I hope I’m able to announce what we’ll be doing with David Sedaris’ book next week (starting Monday). P5, the happy PPT MusicVideo of FUN, begins next week. Oh, and for those waiting patiently – because patience is a key virtue – I should have P3 wrapped up/assessed/yadda yadda by tomorrow evening. Yep.

Delightfully enough, around 4am this morning, my stomach woke me up. It was upset and/or hungry. At 32, I still can’t decode my stomach’s needs and wants, so I got up and decided to go for a walk. I was shocked not to see more people up walking and driving at 5:30am; it’s not like I live in a slacker-ish city.

Anyhow, on my return, I contacted my Amazon Credit Card people about an error; I’m fairly certain I called India. With “damn this out-sourcing” ringing in my head, I made coffee and actually just watched The Today Show for a couple of hours. After a much needed nap, I discovered two text messages from my lovely friend Cheryl about David Sedaris coming to NDSU (OMG!). June 9th… 7pm book reading & signing. Granted, the book they are promoting is one I’ve already read (When You Are Engulfed in Flames), but I may end up bulldozing him down with hugs and gushes of affection. I think that’s the best bet for getting him to consider becoming my new best friend.

And now… as I ponder him and all his books I’ve read, as if they were required for the ultimate literature class (now THAT is literature I would throw into the CANNON people!), I’m thinking… HEY, HE COULD BE THE AUTHOR MY ENGLISH 110 STUDENT READ. DUH! I mean, he’s witty and hilarious. He uses language (a theme in that class) in odd ways, and his books are typically in broken up into small stories/essays. Perfect!

Ah. What a lovely mid-day feeling I’m having. Now, to seek out food before I accomplish some STUFF. That stuff would be wrapping up more changes in the summer school English 120 shell as well as possibly taping myself using iMovie to introduce me and the course. This way students can SEE and HEAR me, and I can lay out the, “Please don’t get on my bad side and send error-filled emails or hand in stuff late; I expect more from you than that crap. Thank you.”

Who also writes like David Sedaris? Anyone have names for me? I’ve pretty much read everything by that guy… I need humor and satire and wit at bedtime. Please help. Pretty please.

There. I asked nicely.