Greetings from Louisville KY

Hello Kids!
It's Day Three of the reading and I'm on the synthesis question about locavores. lovacores. lavacores. locavorianism. locavorization.

The top half papers have a TIGHT LINK OF SUPPORT between the sources and their analysis, and the writer has staked out a position that they are carefully outlining for the readers. I have seen everything from a 1 to a 9, and I am dutifully looking for you in every stack of essays I plow through. I've read 250, but my pace is starting to pick up...we spend quite a bit of time "norming" ourselves to the rubric, talking about the 4/6 split, the characteristics of a 5, the 2/3 split, and the 3/4 split. I am having a little trouble with the lower half of the rubric...I have to think a little while when I am asking myself, is this Inadequate, or Inadequate minus something? Is this Inadequate minus something, or is this Little Success?

I am polling my colleagues about whether a writer can merely IGNORE sources they don't want to deal with and still write an upper half paper. I have read a few diatribes about how locavores are aging hippies who are subverting the capitalistic, corporate American ideal -- nicely written, but completely ignoring the positive evidence put forward in the question. I am finding differing opinions on this. The rubric does say "identifies KEY ISSUES," which to me suggests that a writer must AT LEAST engage in the other side's point of view...I'll let you know how that whole conversation shakes out.

I am watching the room from time to time, and I want you to know that the hundreds of AP teachers and college professors in the room are attentively reading your papers, discussing the ones that are problematic, and decoding difficult handwriting. Everyone is on your side. We are working hard to do right by you kids. It's quiet, work focused and dedicated. Honest Injun. We are NOT ALLOWED to take photographs, or I would snap a shot or two and show you what it looks like.

The other morning I was waiting for the elevator to take me downstairs so I could get breakfast and get to work. When the elevator finally opened for me, it was CRAMMED FULL of AP readers. It looked like that cartoon of sardines in a can. There was no room for even one more human body in that box, so I just laughed and ran down the hall to the stairs. But I wished I would have had my camera. It was a funny looking sight!

Off to lunch!

Bon Jovi's Grapes if Wrath

This song reminded me of the Joad family and their struggles in California.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrJgg6APFO4http://

Mayfair Reads Bookmarks

Hi Ms. Fletcher,

Because the magenta on my printer isn't working I figured that you could at least view the bookmarks with the right colors here.

If I were a rich person with plenty of cash...

...I'd buy this for Ben Bravo.

Thinking about Neil Postman

I keep thinking about Postman as I listen to the news about the potential meltdown in the reactors in Fukushima after last Friday's 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, and think about them dropping water from military helicopters and shooting water cannons at cracks in the building, hoping the water will sort of pool near the super hot reactors.

NINE POINT OH-my-gawd earthquake.
Tsunami. 4000 dead, death toll expected to rise.
Nuclear reactor MELT DOWN.
and
What's for dinner tonight? What kind of tomatoes should I plant in the garden? Do I look fat in these pants? Have I used all my cell phone minutes? When is Charlie Sheen going to dry up and blow away? Who's on Twitter? Can I afford a nap this afternoon? I should probably take a walk instead. Oh yeah. There's a nuclear reactor melting down in Japan.

Technology Ruins Romance: The Letters

SAT Vocab 01/02

O Verdun! 8 words from the first multiple choice practice of Second Semester
calamitous; innocuous; cataclysmic; dicomfiting; preponderance; epitome; garish; lionize

Here's my Cindy Lauper example -- can you work out which word this photo represents?

Dear Child: 8 words from the second multiple choice practice of Second Semester, Sample Exam 2, passage 2: precocious, pompous, supercilious, ineptitude, conciliatory, stoic, intimation, duped

If you are looking for the lists of "most frequently used SAT words," A) I would be suspicious of any such list, but it wouldn't hurt to study it, and B), here are some handy links:
100 Most Common SAT words
A list from Scribl
from The Washington Post

The MOST effective way to acquire a strong vocabulary is to read voraciously, deeply (go over your own head), and often. Readers have better vocabularies than non-readers, period; hours spent studying lists may be better spent reading because reading helps build up your contextual skills. Here's an article with ten tips for a better vocabulary. Looking at these tips, do you see why we draw the graphic organizer to make as many associations (positive, negative, visual, exemplar) as possible??

Go play and save the world on Free Rice.

The brilliant Michael Wesch

33 minutes, and worth every moment.

2011 Brave New Dystopia

An article published today.

Syllogistic reasoning

I was searching for some information on syllogistic reasoning and came across a couple examples of syllogistic reasoning, which I found amusing. Just to let you know, these two examples are examples of incorrect syllogistic reasoning, or at least unreasonable ones.

Statement 1: All men are animals

Statement 2: Some animals are aggressive

Conclusion: Some men are aggressive

Statement 1: All men are animals

Statement 2: Some animals are female

Conclusion: Some men are female

http://changingminds.org/disciplines/argument/types_reasoning/syllogistic_reasoning.htm

Technology talk today

Warren Olney's daily show, To the Point (KCRW 89.9 FM noon, available as a podcast) featured a fascinating conversation today called The Internet and the Human Brain.  Differing opinions and points of view -- really good.  A couple of books mentioned that would be good for a nonfiction book review project.  Check it out!

Check It Out!

My Blog and my first post. Comment; tell me what you think. Argue, Agree, Follow. (Read the NOTE.)

iamspeaking.blogspot.com

song with allusion to Brave New World

hi...i'm not sure if this is that relevant, but i found an interesting song that references Brave New World, or rather says "its a brave new world"....

Oxymorons

A literary term, illustrated.  Some of these are not really oxymoronic, but they are still (mostly) amusing.

Writing Tips

This was posted on a blog I follow...thought you might be interested in check these writing tips out.
Here's another good site called Advice to Writers.
Hey, whaddaya know?  Ran across another one:  Top 10 Tips for Better Writing

The Weekend Prompt, November 6-7

Carefully read the following letter from Charles Lamb to the English romantic poet William Wordsworth.  Then, paying particular attention to the tone of Lamb's letter, write an essay in which you analyze the techniques Lamb uses to decline Wordsworth's invitation.
Letter to William Wordsworth Letter LXXXV Charles Lamb 30th January 1801 I ought before this to have replied to your very kind invitation into Cumberland. With you and your sister I could gang anywhere; but I am afraid whether I shall ever be able to afford so desperate a journey. Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life. I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments as any of you mountaineers can have done with dead Nature. The lighted shops of the Strand and Fleet Street; the innumerable trades, tradesmen, and customers, coaches, waggons, playhouses; all the bustle and wickedness round about Covent Garden; the very women of the Town; the watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles; life awake, if you awake, at all hours of the night; the impossibility of being dull in Fleet Street; the crowds, the very dirt and mud, the sun shining upon houses and pavements, the print shops, the old bookstalls, parsons cheapening books, coffee-houses, steams of soups from kitchens, the pantomimes - London itself a pantomime and a masquerade - all these things work themselves into my mind, and feed me, without a power of satiating me. The wonder of these sights impels me into night-walks about her crowded streets, and I often shed tears in the motley Strand from fulness of joy at so much life. All these emotions must be strange to you; so are your rural emotions to me.  But consider, what must I have been doing all my life, not to have lent great portions of my heart with usury to such scenes?   My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry and books) for groves and valleys. The rooms where I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a book-case which has followed me about like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge), wherever I have moved myself, old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school - these are my mistresses. Have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you. I should pity you, did I not know that the mind will make friends of anything. Your sun, and moon, and skies, and hills, and lakes, affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects.

Whispering, Crying and Screaming

So, this is my piece on Hendrix's song, "The Wind Cries Mary." If I get a little too passionate in this analysis, it is probably due to the fact that: a) I actually played this song on my guitar before I went to school that day; b) this has been my favorite Hendrix piece; c) I flipped out when I was told the news of what we were doing in class. Carina Taylor knows what I'm talking about. Anyway.

Jimi Hendrix's blues single "The Wind Cries Mary" is a poetic and nostalgic piece about a broken relationship. Hendrix, influenced by the cryptic musings of Bob Dylan, recreates the folk singer's songwriting style in the form of metaphors and imagery. In the first verse, the "jacks...in their boxes" and "the clowns...gone to bed" reflects the happiness that has disappeared. The second stanza reveals the purpose of the song. The crying queen and the spouseless king connotates Hendrix and his ex-lover, and the emotional breakup that has resulted. The rest of the lyrics use surreal imagery of blue traffic lights and the wisdom of the wind. The continual mention of Mary grows from a whisper to a scream, implying the increasing strain of the relationship. In addition to the lyrics, Hendrix fully implements his much-regarded guitar virtuosity. His fretwork is subtle, consisting of a three-chord motif that is the main hook of the song. The guitar, along with the soft cymbal rushes, creates the feeling of a lazy afternoon breeze. The calmness of the music provides a contrast to Hendrix's eccentric lyrics. The beautiful result is a smooth blues classic that remains a thoughtful pondering of a simple break-up.

The Wind Cries For Me

You said to post this sooooo I guess I will:

Losing a loved one creates feelings of loneliness and hopelessness for all people. Jimi Hendrix’s use of personification, diction, and emphasis in his song “The Wind Cries Mary” describe the longing feelings his protagonist experiences at the loss of a beloved woman named Mary. He describes his happiness as “staggering” (line 3) to give the impression, through personification, that his own feelings are hurt. The past is gone and his future will never be the same. “The traffic lights, they turn blue tomorrow,” (line 11). He fears a sad future, with no purpose, and so he uses the term “blue” traffic lights to express his pain and worry that the future will never be like the past but that, though things will be different, it will be the same life just like how a simple color change on a traffic light wouldn’t be the end of the world, it’d just take time to get used to. In each stanza of the song the Hendrix uses more personification, this time of the wind, to show his own feelings at the time: “screaming”, “crying”, and “whispering”. Hendrix is referring to his sobs and whispers to the empty room around him as he mourns the loss of Mary, and that the wind carries them—therefore “whispering” and “crying” with him. As the song is sung Hendrix emphasizes phrases like “queen is weeping” (line 8) and “has no wife” (line 9) to point out the separateness of the king and queen. He pauses before saying “is dead” to focus on the fact that his life can not ever go back to the way it was before. In the last stanza he proclaims “Will the wind ever remember the names it has blown in the past?” hopefully, but then slows down his pace and lowers his pitch for the reply, pausing at “no” and “last” to emphasize the finality of the wind.

Texting While Driving

This has absolutely nothing to do with anything we've talked about for a long time, if at all, but I figure I might as well show it. I came across a video about "texting while driving" today during my internet surfing. It's rather graphic, though it is a dramatization. It was released as a PSA by Wales and one of the points the newsanchor brings up is what should be allowed on national/public television and what shouldn't. Do you think it is too graphic? Or do you think it really makes a provocative statement that will grab peoples attention?
This is the "safe" version "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOTbAbKoL28" and this is the full version "http://espanol.video.yahoo.com/watch/5768870/15107011".
I personally think it brings up a good point about how something as simple and stupid as a little text could ruin many different lives and that that one little text can wait.

Stages of Grief

Jimi Hendrix's song "The Wind Cries Mary" is a depressing song about an object of affection named Mary. At first, I did not think the song was about a lover because the lyrics are not romantic or lustful. Rather, I assumed the song referred to Mary as a mother. The song possesses childish lyrics: "After all the After all the jacks are in their boxes, and the clowns have all gone to bed." I took this line literally, and imagined a young boy crying for his mother when she leaves to go to work or somewhere else. However, as the song progressed, I changed my mind about the meaning of the song and I jumped on the "Mary was a lover" bandwagon. Viewing Mary as a lover rather than a mother is especially evident in the line, "The traffic lights, they turn blue tomorrow and shine their emptiness down on my bed." The words "emptiness" and "bed" can only suggest sexual play.

After much thought, I've concluded that "The Wind Cries Mary" is a song about the stages of grief. The stages include: Denial, Depression, Anger and Acceptance. In the last line of the first stanza, the wind whispers Mary and whispering can be an action performed by those who don't want to hear the truth; in the second stanza the wind cries Mary, which links with depression; in the third stanza, the wind screams for Mary, which shows obvious anger; and in the last stanza, the wind cries for Mary again, accepting that she is gone. Maybe this seemingly depressing song is about acceptance and moving on, but still possessing feelings of eternal love for this "Mary" character.