3/16/2017

(Options in slides-fiction)

1. Sketch two characters in conflict with one another

2. Talk about setting

3. Dialogue sketch

What does a color smell like? The color green must smell like this day in April, sitting under the oak trees, with azaleas blooming around us. The sun hits the leaves and perfumes the air. Our senses mingle and we don't know what we are feeling, but we like it. The grass pokes through our blanket but we don't mind; we mistake the inchworms for blades come to life, squirming across the pages of our books with slow determination, just as the springtime slowly but surely gives way to summer, who takes over with a fiery passion as early as late May. Look at the sky, it reflects us. The blue is clear and bright and surrounds us in a blanket of warmth. 

4/6/2017

Write about creative activities you would like to use in order to teach immigration to your students. This can be as simple as a list of activities generated from this lesson to a full blown lesson plan about an immigration project.

I would be interested in perhaps examining the ethnic origins of my students, using that as a jumping off point for a new understanding of immigrations. I think it is important to first understand that we are all "immigrants" and should not isolate only certain ethnic groups in our understanding of the definition of immigration.
I also might like to use the news surrounding immigration as a starting point for a conversation about immigration by looking at how the world, especially politics, sees immigrants.

4/13/2017

Select one piece of writing from the MGP and complete 3 steps:
1. Tell how you got this piece.
2. Tell what this piece demonstrates about your ability to write and what it says about you as a writer.
3. If you can, write about your observations of yourself as a writer.

1. I created this piece based on Janie's grandmother in Their Eyes Were Watching God. She is intent on finding a husband for Janie, so much so that I thought creating a "want ad" for a husband would be a good way of demonstrating her grandmother's intense desire to marry her off. I didn't want to lose sight of the grandmother's good intentions, but I wanted to dramatize this "duty" of older women to find husbands for the younger ones. 

2. I'm not sure if this piece demonstrates "good writing" per-say, but it does indicate an ability ( I guess? ) to mimic the writing styles of things like want ads, obituaries and other unique pieces of literature.

3. If anything, I think I notice my writing can easily adopt a tone based on the needs of the piece. 

4/21/2017

Write about a new tradition you would like to have in your future classroom.

Be creative and create a practice that honors the students' time together.

Well, I LOVED the idea of writing poems about one another. I think another cool idea would maybe to interview each other at the beginning and end of the year. Perhaps pairing students throughout the year and allowing them to grow with each other academically and otherwise, beginning and ending the year with each other and seeing how they have changed throughout the class.


How would you describe your writing voice? Describe what your range of reading voice and why you think it matters in a piece of writing. Finally, how would you go about teaching your students to find their boxes?

My writing voice is probably a little more formal that my real voice, kind of like a phone voice. But, I do have a bad habit of just letting a stream of consciousness flow out of my head, usually not making much sense at all.

3/2/2017

Create a writing prompt that encourages students to share their thoughts about the current political climate. Have them apply literature to their opinions and ideas.

Think of a novel that describes some of the political problems of the society in which it is set (example: The Hunger Games, The Scarlet Letter, Animal Farm, The Canterbury Tales, etc)
How might you depict our current political climate as an allegory (a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one) ? What types of things would you choose to represent metaphorically, and why would you like to emphasize these elements? How would you represent your personal opinions through a fictional story? Draft a summarized version of your story, and include any important images or tropes you would use in writing your story.

I really love the political elements of some Shakespeare plays, such as Othello or Titus Andronicus, that deal with racism within the nobility in Rome. I think our current political climate could be applied by examining the racist rhetoric often used in support of (not always by) our president. So, because of that, I feel like a allegory set in a place such as ancient Rome would be distant enough while always being able to provide a scathing political critique. I would choose to represent out government as the dysfunctional noble families like that in Titus Andronicus, perhaps staging a dinner scene where all hell breaks loose and the problems of the nation are all revealed. I definitely would pursue the image of a government as a family, with the trope of the "crazy uncle" or divorced parents to stand in for members of our political climate. 

2/16/2017

Found poem from a slide in the lesson:

Pre-Yourself
Where would you like to be (?)
A serious individual

I really love found poetry because I like being limited in my choices of words, since there are unlimited options and I get overwhelmed with choices easily. So, found poetry is perfect because it is a way that we as readers and writers can shape and mold other pieces of writing (even mundane things like syllabi or menus) to fit our purposes or tell a completely different story.

2/23/2017

So this is a biographical video I made for my Senior Seminar. For the project, I focused on the origins of my name. It is passed down from family, making my name that much more personal to me.

2/9/2017

Take an image surrounding social justice; think about how this particular image compares to any number of the situations found in the classroom that can either foster injustice or create allies. Bring real world connection to the classroom

What does the image convey? How can it connect to the classroom? What can we learn about this image in the classroom?

Think of a text that you would be passionate about teaching around the issue of injustice? How would you go about teaching it?

examples: pictures from protests, marches, etc

This image stuck out to me it implies a universality of the women's march, and American politics in general. What really strikes me is that the entire world cares about America's politics. That alone is somewhat of an injustice considering American children don't go to school and learn anything about French policy, or Chinese human rights, etc. And yet, people all around the world literally gathered and marched to protest and stand for the rights of a completely different country. One element of a larger movement is recognizing the privilege and importance of living in a country that is supported and scrutinized by the entire rest of the world. 

In terms of texts I would be passionate about teaching, I have been thinking about The Help recently and would love to teach that. It offers a commentary on the injustices within the lives of black domestic workers during the Civil Rights Movement, while also depicting the character of the white ally in the form of Skeeter, the woman devoted to writing the stories of these women. While I find it unfortunate that this type of character is necessary and that the women do not have voices of their own in that way, I think it demonstrates an important calling of those fortunate enough to have this voice. The essence of being an ally is using your voice to advocate for those who cannot. That is what I would teach, using The Help as a jumping off point. 

2/2/2017

Writing:

On your blog, tell us about your favorite short story.  Why do you like this story so much?  Are there links to the story online?  If so, link to the story so that we can read it.

Imagine you are teaching this story.  End your blog post by writing an essay prompt for this story.

My favorite short story has been The Veldt by Ray Bradbury since I first read it in the seventh grade. We did a unit on short stories and science fiction, with Bradbury's fantastical and slightly (extremely) creepy story as a good example. As a young reader, I was always drawn to scary stories or horror films, even though they tend to stick with me forever and haunt my dreams. I still like to immerse myself into something completely out of this world, like Bradbury's fictional nursery that turns into a veldt full of lions. The imaginative and bizarre always captured my attention. Similarly, I was and am fascinated by stories of ghost history in SC (believe it or not there is a ton to read on this subject) because it combines state history with elements of fear and other-worldliness that I am so fascinated by. 

link to the story: http://mrjost.weebly.com/uploads/1/2/8/8/12884680/the_veldt.pdf

Potential Essay Prompts: 

If you were Wendy and Peter Hadley, what do you think your nursery would turn into? Think about what you are most interested in or things you like to read about, like the Hadley children liked reading and thinking about Africa. 

Of the various new-age machines described in the Hadley house, which one would you be most excited to have in your own home? What helpful machine of the future would you want to create? 

Do you think the machines and futuristic house were to blame for the Hadley children's behavior? Or do you think their parents were at fault? Explain your opinion.

1/26/2017

Childhood Narrative:

Pluff Mud and Peanuts
We spent childhood summers at our beach house on Edisto Island. One especially long summer, we sat around a pile of Mama's home-boiled peanuts with a view of the marsh that could keep us occupied for days with its own story. The cooking peanuts stank up the whole house, but they were worth it. Davis and I fought to collect the most "jackpot peanuts", our term for a pod of four or even five nuts. I was convinced they tasted the best.
We are too close in age, my brother and I, and it has always gotten us into trouble. Some careless span of summer-time later, we found ourselves in the shed rummaging through beach relics, old but still holding on to their manufactured tropic charm. Old kites and broken beach chairs littered the room, but led the way to another kind of jackpot for my brother and I: a box of matches. We were mesmerized by the quick scratch against the box, the whoosh when ignited, the sizzle and smell of the burned out flame. We lit match after match, blowing them out like birthday candles, or holding them between two fingers until we got scared and extinguished the tiny fire, burning just millimeters from our skin.
The same nose that thought it wise to boil 10 pounds of peanuts in a small, hot house also had the keenest sense for danger, or misbehaving children. My mother burst into the shed, furiously yelling, "You're gonna burn this house down! How stupid are you? Where did I go wrong?!" Whenever we get into trouble, Mama likes to go on about her failures as a mother. She began her long-winded lament as my brother, a true middle child used to being scolded, stood remorseless. I, on the other hand, felt as red hot in the face as those matches. I could have burned the house down. I could have killed my whole entire family. They would have burned to death in this house that smells like boiled peanuts and pluff mud. 

1/19/2017

Sarah Nickles
ENGL 4850
1/19/2017

As a young writer, I viewed writing as deeply personal and never to be shared or discussed openly. Assignments were for the teacher's eyes only, and if given the opportunity to write in a more public forum, my language, style and tone had to be kept in constant check so as to elicit the ideal response. As I got older, my English major parents practically begged to edit my high school papers. I rejected this favor every time because of how embarrassing I imagined sharing my writing with "critics" would be. Not everything I wrote was a diary entry, but I saw writing as an extension of my thoughts, intellect and potential, exposed to the world. (And why wouldn't I think that if writing in high school is either a punishment or a graded assignment??). College finally helped me accept help from my parents, professors and peers as it became not only a requirement at times but a beneficial learning process. I have been pushed out of my comfort zone when asked to share writing but have seen the huge improvements in my own writing and collaborative skills as a result. Because of this, I hope to incorporate peer review and more casual writing assignments in my future classroom. For me, writing should not just be something done for a grade. I relate to Joan Didion's "Why I Write" in that I find it hard to accept being a "writer" without an explicit purpose other than to write, or to discover things I have yet to write. She ends her piece by saying she would have no reason to write if she had all the answers. I feel this is a healthy approach to writing in the classroom; writing should be exploratory and open-ended, not to be hindered by the remedial cycle of unmet standards described by Shaughnessy as part of "Guarding the Tower".
We already know the prevalence of writing in current students' lives on sites like Twitter or Facebook; I think honing in on the writing people often overlook could increase the value of the skill by making it more accessible. Personally, I write to remember or to reflect, or to entertain. I have a friend who keeps a notebook in which she scribbles down funny things she hears throughout the day. I write my goals and fears down, I write out my prayers, I write long angry emails that I immediately delete, I even write what I tell myself could be some amazing, profound short story or poem but ends up being one sentence. I spend too long composing Instagram captions or Facebook statuses. The content of this constant writing shifts based on the audience and the medium, and I honestly don't really know why I write most of it. Maybe for the likes? Maybe so I can remember the day 10 years down the line? Maybe to organize my thoughts? All I know is that writing for me ranges from random scribbled lists to extensively composed papers, with a million things between.