Catching Up: Weeks 4 & 5

This semester is going by so quickly!  And just so you know, I have switched topics for my critical paper.  Instead of writing on the use of poetry in the composition classroom, I am writing on the poetry itself - doing more of a critical analysis.  This will focus on hybridity and/or pluralism in American identity as represented in poetry.  Specifically, I'm looking at Agha Shahid Ali's A Nostalgist's Map of America (remember him?), Robert Penn Warren's Audubon:  A Vision, and Louise Gluck's Averno.  All three are wonderful books - check them out!

Now, am I giving up on the critical thinking through poetry experiment?  No!  I continue to use this technique in my classes.  Last week we read and researched Warren's "Tell me a Story," and this week we are using Kim Addonizio's "Scary Movies."  Overall, this warm-up strategy is still working well, and my students are being exposed to poetry and poets they might have never read otherwise. Our in-class discussions are productive and continue to be relatable to writing in general.  Take Tuesday's class:  one student blogged his "story" based on Warren's poem.  It was VERY brief and had no detail.  We ended up having a good talk about showing, not telling, and emphasizing that showing is necessary in academic writing as much as it is in creative writing. 

I am putting off this topic until the end of the semester so I can gather data from the entire experience, rather than trying to force a paper out of half a class.  I plan on writing this paper and trying to publish it at a later date.

So...identity - hot topic.  Controversial topic.  And something I have been fascinated with for just about ever.  Wrote my master's thesis on it using Salman Rushdie novels.  (Which you should read, of course!  My favorite is The Moor's Last Sigh.)  Right now, I am examining the poetry mentioned above with regards to the speakers.  Each of them are living on the edges of several different "worlds."  How they reconcile, or do not reconcile, those worlds to form a cohesive identity is my area of interest. 

Liar, Liar, Pants on...

Week two:  poetry experiment.  So this week my students returned with their research on Moore's "Baseball and Writing."  Elston Howard was the first African-American to be on the Yankees.  He held all kinds of records, and he played in ten World Series, winning six.  A-mazing.  This is just one thing they learned.  We discussed how writing was similar to baseball in that writer's block is an "injury" one must treat, that writing is difficult, but worth it, and that, again, reading effectively is a process and a practice.

Then came Thursday.  I have all kinds of fantastic poets on my reading list for this semester.  These are writers whose poems examine American identity with artful thought.  But I could not find a poem that I felt was appropriate for the second week of teaching my freshmen.  One of the reasons last week's poems were what they were was for their "ease of use."  Establishing trust in my classroom is the most important thing I can do in the first few weeks.  No trust equals no results.  I didn't want to drop an emotional bomb week two.  So...I spent three hours Thursday morning searching for a poem about identity that was not too heavy, man.

Then, I found Glyn Maxwell's "Rumpelstiltskin."  What a fantastic little huge poem.  We read it.  Then they blogged.  We talked about lying, living two lives, privacy issues including OnStar and GPS, color theory, what nurses need to know about patients who lie and the reasons they lie, what teachers need to know about students who lie and their reasons, the nature of signifiers (!), and the relativity of truth.  Yes, yes we did.

And...at least 50% of my second semester freshmen have never heard of Rumpelstiltskin.  Seriously.

Tuesday, I expect to hear about how knowing the folk tale makes (or doesn't make) a difference in understanding the poem.  I expect to hear about spinning straw into gold.  And I expect to discuss the importance/significance of naming.  Most of all, I expect (hope?) to hear interest in their voices and to see passion for learning in their eyes.  How fantastic.