Class notes Monday, 8 November 2010, 10:09 AM

Dear Scholars,

The Nov. 4 2010 WiZiQ class session was free of technical problems at last and may be watched or downloaded. We discussed the power of the written word as addressed in the assignment to listen to the first part of Unacknowledged Legislation for its use of language as well as its message. Please listen to the rest for next week and take careful vocabulary notes.


TIMING TOAST
Grook on how to char for yourself

There’s an art of knowing when.
Never try to guess.
Toast until it smokes and then
twenty seconds less.

In the spirit of this lecture, we examined examples of influential dissident poetry, the grooks of Piet Hein which came into being when he was a member of the Danish resistance movement during NAZI occupation. Please read the rest of them; many are brilliant.

We discussed briefly an early version of the classic Strunk’s Elements of Style which is posted in our classroom, its value and limitations.

We went over submitted work and examined some specific problems including mischosen prepositions, dangling participles and unparallel constructs.

Homework
In addition to listening to the rest of Unacknowledged Legislation
and going over the modifiers playsheet handed out this week:

  • Please watch these short but brilliant videos of Garrison Keillor on the art of writing.
  • Please bring favorite poems. Those who so wish may be asked to recite. We will be covering poetry next week, including a discussion of scansion and form in poetry, music and art, but emphasis will be upon great poetic works.
  • Let’s start with text and audio: The Raven by Poe, read by Garrison Keillor. Please listen and read this one; it is remarkable.
  • Try writing your own poetry. The easiest way to start is to take the scansion, structure, rhyme scheme of an existing poem and substitute your own words. Our Poetry Forum contains both great classic poems and student works. Please submit yours. A poetry section has also been added to our main classroom page.
  • Please watch for posted text and video of poems.

November 26, 2010 · Filed under Class agenda, Class notes

Comments are closed.