Navigating the White Noise

This was a good week. 



I wasn't being held hostage by my sick bed and I didn't have class on Monday. (Even though this is an awesome class) I had a day to breathe, rest hang out with my family and listen to the world around me. 

Class last week was surprising as always. I really enjoy the different activities of sorts that we experiment with. I missed the first part because we had parent/teacher conferences. Just now during this recap did it dawn on me that I never found out what I missed. I'm sure if it was something important Dr. Zamora would've filled me in-- or would she? 

Nevertheless, I did come in on a very good conversation about how characters change in books. Jude talked about Neville Longbottom. I began to thinking about Jude's analysis of this character. It was very astute and spot on. Then, that thought took me down another rabbit hole in my brain. I realized that it has been ages since I've been able to be a part of a book club. What is that? Reading a book not grad school or teaching related. I long for those conversations where I can discuss, question and analyze characters, plots, novels, dialogue-- literature, both good and bad. Ahh...There's always summer. Anyway, during this off topic daydream I totally missed the wrap-up of the original conversation.

On to what has become my daily obsession, the #dda's.  They really got away from me this week I tried to stay on top of them but I wasn't able to do as many as I usual. Just because I really do hate to lose I won't even check the leaderboard. I did participate in 3. I cannot believe I took a picture of that pool. 



And if I want to get an A I better come up with an idea fast. I am so mad that I didn't come up with the Valentine's Day one or the book that changed your life. They were really creative.  There are some that I still want to do like the blackout fan fiction one but I can't figure out how to black out the writing online. 

Speaking of fan fiction I really enjoyed the studio visit I spoke about that in my last blog. Since then I have been trying to read some fan fiction of the Divergent and the Hunger Games series but there is just too much and not all of it is good. I have been reading the blogs to see which stories are worth reading. I can no longer go in blind. 

It was very interesting to discover that I don't pay attention to the sounds around me as much as I should. I found out that even though I am a teacher and I hear everything that happens in my classroom. I tune out of a lot the sounds around me. Good Will Hunting is an excellent movie. One of my favorites. I could picture that scene but I had never listened to everything that was going on so intently. As I started to listen I started to see a different image and I almost questioned what I knew what was actually going on in that scene.  This is the scene when Robin Williams is talking to Matt Damon on park bench by the waterfront right? 

Then we had to do our own movie listen. I chose my favorite childhood movie Back II The Future. I had fun doing this. So much in fact that I watched the first two movies in the movie franchise just because. I mean what class, other than film study courses do you get to watch and think about your favorite movies. 

Blackout poetry was fun. I have never actually done it myself. I have only taught it to my students. Even the first time I did it I used the example of another teacher because I am not really a poet. But having to do it myself for this class was cool. I just let my mind go and the words jumped out at me. I  don't know how poetic the line was. But isn't poetry like art. You know that it's not art until someone says it is. But in this instance we didn't have to make poetry just find a sentence. 



"Incredible beasts still call in the morning, but only briefly abandoning scandalous actuality." 


All and all, this was a smooth week. No turbulence and no surprise things to learn that give me anxieties. That made it a great week. I was even excited that I knew about SoundCloud. Granted, my knowledge base is novice at best. My middle school students listen to the latest dance music on this site. 

Either way, I am excited to learn that you can take notes on what you hear. Who knows, maybe I can even trick those youngsters into doing work on SoundCloud--that would be something! 






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