What I Learned this Week(ish) #4

1.  I learned what "aegis" means (as I have been doing research for my Athena costume). And also "cuirass" and "chlamys."

2.  I found this amazing quote: “Sound had always been my portal to poetry, but in the beginning sound was imagined through the eye. Gradually the mouth-juice of vowels, or mouth-chunk of consonants, gave body to poems in performance. Dylan Thomas showed the way. Charles Olson said that “form is never more than an extension of content.” Really, content is only an excuse for oral sex. The most erotic poem in English is ‘Paradise Lost.’”  --Donald Hall

3. I learned that guilt can still work on a short-term scale to motivate students to be quiet and listen.

4. I found out the deal with the apps you can add to Google Drive, and they are amazing. There is an online video editing app (WeVideo) in which students can collaborate on video projects. I'm still figuring it out, but I think it will work on some of our newer school computers.

5. I learned how to make and use QR codes.  And I incorporated them into what I think is going to be a fun assignment for class on Monday:  Our Mount Olympus Mixer.  The kids attend a business mixer playing the role of an ancient Greek god, goddess, hero or ruler.  They exchange business cards with a link and QR code to an online profile of their character.  Students can create simple profiles with our class wiki, or profiles on tumblr, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, Instagram... whatever!!  So excited.

6. I learned I must add John Green to a higher position on my "to read" list.

Halloweening In Progress

Serious grading-time crisis.  No time to read papers.  I started five online communities in the past three weeks, though, and students have posted writing about neighborhoods, podcasts about themselves, book reviews. A group of students has voluntarily come together to write and talk about writing once a week for an advisory period.  Today we took a cue from Maurice Sendak and the illustrations where Max's room transforms into the forest.  We wrote about a familiar setting, and then transformed it. That was fun.  And I'm encouraged, because they want to sit all in one circle and have in-depth critical workshopping of their work. Yea! I'm excited.

Meanwhile... very little gets graded.

Because the other priority is making Halloween costumes. G's Steamboat Willie costume is coming along. He's going to be Steamboat Willie in black and white. How cool is that? We made him a plaster mask, and just have to paint it. The rest of the costume is ready to go. Except the shoes-- Goodwill Crocs covered in white felt, somehow. I will blog about that costume in detail when complete. I am so excited.

This is actually my daughter showing off the unfinished mask
 (with her bridal Minnie ears from the summer trip to Disneyland)

O is going as a vampire princess. Really, all princesses are vampires, because they suck the life's blood out of any other form of imaginative play a little girl might have. For example, look at the mouse ears she picked out. Princesses are all-consuming. So a princess vampire is fitting. I talked her into a sort of Victorian bustle, and she has a short train on the dress we got from Goodwill.  It'll almost be a sort of a steampunk vampire princess, if I can make the short little cape work over the bustle. I'm not much of a seamstress, so we'll see. I do better in plaster-maskage as a medium. But her veil with a red and black rose and a homemade papier mache/glitter tiara should be cool.

Me?  Athena.  In honor of kicking off Homer's Odyssey with my froshies.  Sneak peek... (I still need to fashion a helmet out of something somehow.  Cereal box and duct tape? Bubble wrap and papier mache?  We'll see.).  I also need to make a spear and shield.  I ordered an owl. 

I have to figure out how to attach the "cape/drape" to my shoulders, and shorten the fabric. 
Then on to making a helmet, and figuring out my hair.  Not bad, though!  Yea!