“Some years ago Sir Ken Robinson, the author and creative advocate, once told a story of a six year-old girl in school.

In those circumstances we have to look to children as examples. What do children do if they don’t know something? They think about it and then make assumptions, but they make those ideas without fear of being wrong and without worrying of failing.”

Some thoughts from a blog I read called Write To Done:

Step 1: Get in bed with the reader

Step 2: See the offer as the reader sees it

Step 3: Classify, simplify, extreme-ify

“Gwen Stefani” Explains English 120.
by: scrible77

“Male Me” Explains English 110.
by: scrible77

Videos to add to the last few days of class…
Ellen DeGeneres’ commencement address at Tulane in 2009.
David Sedaris’ ” ” ” …
Steve Jobs’ ” ” ” …
Others’?

The Most Random of All Randonmess. Sprinkled with Coded Cherries.
Yep.

Okay. Firstly, it’s sweet that people read this out in the world. This here bloggie was mostly for me to record my life & thoughts, but if others find some tidbit helpful or insightful = YAY. Hugs to Mandy or Amanda, whichever she prefers! Talking to her made me think, “Yes, I’ll continue to be me & see all sides of issues & ask myself (and my students) WHY we think WHAT we think (very metacognitive!).”

Speaking of metacognitive, I don’t know what’s happening with my textbook idea… but I’m okay with that because after watching Chuck Klosterman, I realized I do need to write A book. I have a few ideas… yeah.

2. Question: Has anyone at NDSCS published a book?
2.a) I should copy/paste everything I’ve written into one big document. And then copy/paste bad student email, too, into another one…?

Thirdly, I hope I’m never the person in a group that everyone wishes wasn’t there. And if it does happen, I hope someone informs me or I become ultra-aware of it & leave or change my tune. (I do appreciate being self-aware!)

4. An event from this last week show me that others may start to see “the crazy” that I do. Sexist jokes (and sexist attitudes), dramatic introductions, selfish foci for sure, … yeah, it was something I didn’t need to see, but maybe did. They all may throw themselves under a different bus. Huh.

Fifth item: Why do we focus in on the spouses & kids of people? What if those things aren’t a part of one’s life? And, then, should they be expected to do more? I think I know the answers, but I like to ask the questions.

Yeah. These are just thoughts on a wonderfully gloomy day; I love this weather… I’m sure I’m the minority on that thought, as I’m the minority on many thoughts/ideas, but hey, …

My two latest obsessions, as shown to me last night, are dog breeds and shoes.
I spent about an hour looking at the former before spending an hour on the latter.
Yeah.
Possibly pathetic, but at least I’m just looking…
Okay, I did bid on some sexy Jeffrey Campbell heels via eBay last night; but I didn’t adopt a dog.
There’s a half Great Dane, half something else at the shelter in town right now. His name is Titan. He’s HUGE.

Size is a weird issue for me. I like broad-shouldered men and massive dogs that look like bears.
The Leonberger is a dog that comes from German; they look like lions. So cool!

Anyhow… I came on “here” to figure out what I need to accomplish this week. It’s quieter than last week, which is NICE.
I think next week will be tame, too. At least, I hope so. I can’t handle total-utter-chaos back-to-back; it gives me pimples.

I’ve assessed the online students’ stuff (Eng120) & I think I caught up on Monday with the on-campus grading.
All three classes have yet to get their votes tallied, however. So that’s something to consider wrapping up this week.

In my Eng110s… I have P4 Presentations going on in one, and P6 stuff in the other. Tomorrow, I’d like to do some sort of WC activity with the P6 crowd…
I could do the human simulation, I suppose. Or basically some kind of game. Is there a Jeopardy about Citation?
Hell, we haven’t watched a cool video for awhile; I could do that, too. I have a lot of cool ones.
(Or I just found a few Prezis about existentialism? http://prezi.com/ps-9mnvxb9a9/existentialism-and-the-meaning-of-life/
Or about “Who Am I?” = http://prezi.com/explore/search/?search=who+am+i …
Or this on TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/chris_abani_muses_on_humanity.html)

Huh.

So, beyond adding in activities here and there this week, I don’t have much to assess.
Woot woot.
With that said, here are other things I could tackle instead:
— Creative Writing Alternative Style handout for next Tuesday!
— Creative Writing 2013 Planning.
— New Pearson TOC.
— Other planning (booklets for G.C. for Fall, changes to online Eng120 for summer, etc.).

I think instead of jumping right into P6 on Monday, I could save the handout sharing until Tuesday (for the Ag Section)… instead, I’ll grab their Sedaris assignments ( 2 My Words activities, sort of) & P5 Letters tomorrow and then assign the ABCs of them to prep for P6.

And then on Tuesday, after talking about P6, I’ll assign a fake future resume for Thursday. Also, we may want to move the P6 due date to Monday night?

Then for Thursday to Friday, another My Words activity… and maybe a Works Cited activity of some sort? That new Fix This activity maybe?

For next Monday, our last Monday together, they could ask questions about P6. I’ll introduce P7, too. I think this is a potential group project, so they’ll have some of Monday & all of Tues/Thurs to work on it. The individual Final Test will be assigned Tues or Thurs? Then, we’ll choose a deadline during Finals Week like Wed at midnight?

http://prezi.com/qjyl4imoxpzm/end-plagiarism/

I’ve come out from the other side of it all.
Thus far.
There is still a lot on my plate, but I’m okay. I will lessen my load. I will narrow my focus.
I will conquer all.
I’ve already lowered my stress when it comes to watching students’ P5s. I used to get uppity when the projects weren’t perfect or didn’t work, etc., but I’ve calmed myself with all that.
It’s nice.

I have many ideas for the Fall.
Many.
I’d like to have a better focus for the small assignments. I’d like to have everything laid out with Carlin and Sedaris, as I do online with each week’s CB.
And I know it’s possible; already today, I made a more generic list of the Sedaris readings and activities for the P5 packet. What an improvement!

Idea: For Intro to Creative Writing 211 (maybe even the first assignment?):
-Create some text on a plain image (use pixlr.com & the “Open Photo Editor” > “Create New Image”).
-Save to Desktop.
-Go back to pixlr.com and click on the “Retro Vintage Effects.”
-Screw around with the 3 different effects (color, filter, and border = use the >> arrows).
-Save to Desktop as a different name.
-Upload to the eCompanion shell so everyone in class can see them.

-Themes: I could have them find a poem to play with OR a pic of themselves OR both. Yeah.