speach tree

Just finished reading A Van Jordan's MACNOLIA (2004). I thought this was a useful critique by Tim Morris. I agree with him that the more interesting poems were the dictionary-definition format poems "to", "with", and "from." Though I am no formalist, I am warming up to using forms to teach poetry. I don't know if persona poetry is considered formal, but it usually gets people to write. But I digress. Below is a sestina that I want to use in a lesson, but I'll have to work out the lesson later - too tired at the moment. NB: 1. Fanny Brice, the longtime star of the Ziegfield Follies, was known for her talents as a comedienne as well as a singer. 2. Princess Tam Tam was a film starring Josephine Baker, produced in 1935. 3. "My Man" was a popular song written by Maurice Yvain as "Mon Homme." Later, the English version was written by Channing Pollock for the Ziegfield Follies. 4. Pepito was Josephine Baker's fiance from 1935...

This is a great writing activity that I learned from DW, but I’ve modified it a little bit so that it will be easier to use with my poetry students. (D, please feel free to post your own version or other versions you have heard of.) materials: lined paper tracing paper instructions: at the top of the sheet of lined paper, write Dear ___________ (fill in the blank with whatever. this will be your reader, your audience, and you will write a letter as if to _______________.) write a secret message to someone that you’ve been meaning to tell but never had the guts to do it. (1 – 2 sentences, but they don’t have to be full sentences). write it on the lined paper so that the message is scattered on the page but so that you can still read it top to bottom and left to right. now forget your secret message when the moderator begins to keep time, start writing and don’t stop. write anything you want but don’t stop, even if you get stuck. if you can’t think of anything, just write nonsense until ...

This is turning into a weekly installment brought to you from Wall Street... J-Class! ...I need to think of a more catchy name for it... Operation Asian Sabotage... hmmm, too Fu Manchu. After this Tuesday's class, I decided to try to write a post about performing/entertaining for my students in after-school. Basically, my supervisor keeps telling me that I can't expect to turn out fluent speakers by June. We meet for basically an hour once a week to learn whatever we can while eating pizza or mochi after being in school since 8am. What can we possibly do in such little time? (The answer, of course, is a lot, but first...) I am worried that in the absence of real material, I am basically performing a racialized culture of "Japaneseness" for the entertainment of my students and for the agency that employs me, instead of being a facilitator/educator. There are a few reasons why I feel this way: My students see me as Japanese. And I am. But that's not the only thing t...

This week, we got around to talking about the indigenous peoples of Japan. Concepts that we touched on: - “Assimilation” - “History is written by the winners,” and therefore - “Losers are depicted by the winners.” - “ethnic groups” - “minorities” In the first half of the class, we watched a movie – 『もののけ姫』(Princess Mononoke) – which was the most popular movie in Japan until Titanic came out afterwards. It was also the most expensive animated movie to make, up until its release date (2004), at a production cost of about $20 million. I introduced the movie by talking about the setting – Muromachi Period (1336-1573), roughly contemporary with the Ming Dynasty and the arrival of C. Columbus in what is now known as the Caribbean. The main character of the movie is an Emishi prince, from a clan of natives who have continued to resist the Japanese Shogunal government. (Historians say that the Emishi natives were all assimilated by 1300.) The main character of the movie is based on a historica...

(It's been a while since my last post! I have just begun my first job in NYC!!! Teaching after-school classes in Japanese Language and Anime Culture in a inner-city high school in dowtown manhattan! Welcome to the first installment...) "You better have a leg in it," said N__ when she heard how many students I had in my Japanese class: over 30. I had to ask what that meant, but I wasn't feeling any kind of ominous energy from the students who had signed up for after-school Japanese Language Club. What I mean is: Who signs up to stay at school for 3 extra hours unless they really want to be there??? After trying (and failing) to set up a DVD for the first hour, waiting for the students to trickle in, and being herded into a corner by a Student Government meeting, I began class. The first order of the day was to break up into groups and brainstorm what the students expected of each other, of themselves, and of me as a teacher. Many of them said the same things: for the t...

RACIAL PROFILING – Bike Safety & Repair Program, Free Minds Collective Summer Enrichment Camp @ William Wirt Middle School & Center for Educational Partnership Riverdale, MD (Prince George’s County) July 2007 1. ASK: what is racial profiling? (See definition below) Have you ever heard of the phrase “DWB”? Driving While Black/Brown definition: (From an education website: http://www.education-world.com/a_lesson/02/lp252-05.shtml ) racial profiling is the practice of targeting a person for criminal investigation based on his or her racial characteristics. Profiling can also be based on other characteristics, such as age (YOUTH) or gender (MALE). Discuss the following statement from ACLU: “A July 2001 Gallup poll reported that 55 percent of whites and 83 percent of blacks believe racial profiling is widespread.” 2. How is this related to bike-riding? (BWB – Biking While Brown???) 3. ASK questions below – how would you feel etc.? Ask students: Have you ever been stopped by police a...