I sent 4 kids to detention.

I sent 4 kids to detention yesterday, but none of them showed up. I'm still deciding what to do about that. (Probably just double their detention.) I wrote up a little prompt for them to do during detention. They have to write a 2-page apology to me, tell me how they need to change, explain how a mature 14 year old behaves in class, and why they want to develop their English skills.

One girl was given detention because she said, "She's [expletive] scary" referring to me. I told that to 2 colleagues and they both said to consider it a compliment. (That they fear me.) I'm trying to come down hard on them so I don't have to deal with behavior issues for the next 6 months.

My voice is sore.

As part of my graduate course, I need to write daily reflections about my teaching experience, strategies, and lesson plans. This should help me keep track of what worked, what doesn't work, and changes I need to make. I think debriefing will also be good for my own sanity. So here goes.

Classroom management has been difficult. Last week I sent Miguel to the office and today Jose got lunch detention. I assigned them new seats today, which they grumbled about, but it improved.
Today we started the novel Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick. It's a new book for me, too. Since this is a 7th/8th grade ELD class, I read to them and then called on students to read. Students, when they don't know how to pronounce a word, will just wait until I say it for them, and then they continue reading without repeating the word I've just pronounced. Next time I'll let them try to say it, and if they need help, I will still have them repeat the word after me. Maybe I ought to have the whole class say it with me.

I read through some samples of their writing. Man-- I don't know how I'm going to them them get to grade level skills. Here is a sample of one student's work:

But I have sum books that are wead that my sister wead in goors. My sister is cool but if you get on her dab saide you are in trud. I like to play with her like yestday we play resoling she sed that she bet my she did not she lost that is why she sed that. Sum times we well have a dance contest she will bet me in that dance she ben doing dacne all her live. Right now she have her frist boyfend his name is Eren. She is a fresh man in he is a senere. My dad was not happy when he hered it in she got hem in a bad mod in he was all ready in a bad mod.

Some of my students were born in America. The above student is American-born, and so are his parents. I suspect he has a learning disability, which is pretty different from the kind of language arts instruction that my ELD students need.

I was a little more optimistic after today's class; Since last week I basically pulled all my tricks to try to scare them into submission, they were down a notch today. Yet they're resilient and not resentful, a pleasant surprise since I had made enemies with some of them last week, and I wasn't looking forward to maintaining that kind of tone in the classroom. Today they were ok, with less attitude (except Gabby). My voice still hurts from trying to shout over them.... Along with improving their English, the other major goal I have for them is to teach them to behave in school!

Neuromancer Notes

neuromancer

Now he slept in the cheapest coffins, the ones nearest the port, beneath the quartz-halogen floods that lit the docks all night like vast stages; where you couldn’t see the lights of Tokyo for the glare of the television sky, not even the towering hologram logo of the Fuji Electric Company, and Tokyo Bay was a blank expanse where gulls wheeled above drifting shoals of white styrofoam. Behind the port lay the city, factory domes dominated by the fast cubes of corporate arcologies. Port and city were divided by a narrow borderland of older streets, an area with no official name. Night City, with Ninsei its heart. By day, the bars down Ninsei were shuttered and featureless, the neon dead, the holograms inert, waiting, under the poisoned silver sky. P.6-7

The setting description found early in Neuromancer invokes thoughts of death, as it describes that he "slept in... coffins." Later in the passage the word "heart" is used, which makes me think of the opposite of death, life. The setting set here also focuses on light with words like "halogen, lit, glare, hologram" but it contrasts it with the images of darkness and deadness. Interestingly, it is the night time that seems to be lively with light, while it is during the day that the whole city dies out "dead, inert, waiting." I think that this setting description probably has another meaning underlying the interesting light/dark day/night pairings. There is a lot of technical terminology in this passage as well, which makes it difficult for me to track with the description. I don’t know precisely what "quartz-halogen" is, nor "Shoals of white styrofoam" and "arcologies." Another mysterious choice of words is "poised silver sky." I wonder what makes the silver sky look poisoned? But it still has the affect of reminding me that this is another world unlike the world I know, so the confusion and lack of clarity is okay.

Another place where I found the paring of life/death and light/darkness was on page 47 where the setting is set with the interesting pairing of words: "Lifeless Neon."

Two DisSimilar Poems: "Tyger" & "Design" final draft

The dissimilarities of William Blake’s poem and Robert Frost’s “Design” are readily apparent. “Tyger” is written in trochaic tetrameter and “Design” is written as an Italian sonnet. Concerning length, “Design” is half the length of “Tyger,” but is compacted to say as much, if not more. More could be said of the superficial differences between these poems, but with a deeper examination, the juxtaposition of the two shows how one similar perspective on God is expressed with very different poetic devices.

Blake focuses on the grandeur and power of the tiger as the aspect that leads him to fear God. He imagines the tiger itself is inherently formidable, saying that the tiger’s heart was twisted in a furnace, invoking thoughts of hell. The speaker shudders at the majesty and dreadfulness of this terrible tiger, but all the more, imagines that the God who created such a creature must be unspeakably fearsome.

Contrasting quite distinctly from Blake’s vibrant, colorful imagery, Frost’s poem is eerily colorless. It is a white spider, a white heal-all flower, and a moth that is “like a white piece of rigid satin cloth.” Unlike “Tyger,” this description of an event in nature is observational in imagery, as a scientist might describe an event in nature. However, this technique still has the effect of conveying a sense of malignancy and fear about this snapshot of nature, and the poem reaches the some question as Blake’s poem: What kind of God designed the creatures of such dark deeds?



Another aspect that sets Blake’s poem apart is about a creature larger than the speaker himself, and he emphasizes the size of this tiger. In “Tyger,” the speaker is very alarmed at the great creature, and in order to convey the fearsomeness, he uses many vivid descriptions of the tiger’s physical features. The opening lines immediately hit readers by painting the picture of the tiger’s orange coat as “burning bright/ In the forests.” The imagery of fire occurs throughout the poem: “fire of thine eyes...seize the fire...furnace...” so that the image is impressed upon the minds of readers. He continues to paint dramatic images in the minds of readers with the tiger’s physical features, both internal and external. The speaker mentions the “twist[ed]” “sinews” of the tiger’s heart. Blake utilizes metaphoric language, directly linking the tiger’s features with having emerged from a fiery furnace. The use of metaphor to portray the tiger also shrouds the animal in paranormal mystery. The main point of his description of the tiger leads to questioning who could have “framed,” or, created, this fearful animal.


Robert Frost’s poem zooms in to examine a small representation of nature, two tiny insects caught in a deadly act. The objects of his inspection are a spider, a flower, and a moth. Frost’s poem says that the size of the evil also says something about the character of its creator—but in this poem, it is the smallness of the thing that causes the speaker awe and fear. If design governs “a thing so small” as the spider, the speaker imagines that God must be very deeply sadistic and cruel.

Blake’s poem also utilizes punctuation to convey a tone of terror. His tone is of great alarm, as seen by the repetitious exclaim, “Tyger! Tyger!” Similarly, the use of question after question, increasingly fragmented and compacted, gives reader the sense of urgency and weightiness of the speaker’s questions. There is a momentum that builds and crescendos to that unsettling question, “What immortal hand or eye/ Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” This verve is dramatic, and leads readers forcefully in a particular direction, and the tone does an active work of shaping the reader’s impressions.

Frost’s “Design” discusses this same notion of the Creator of creation, and speculates the same idea of a malevolent God. The tone is very different from Blake in approaching this topic. The speaker seems distanced and cool like the observations of a scientist. He starts with the personal pronoun “I,” which never enters Blake’s poem. This use of the personal pronoun distinctly inserts the speaker into the poem. Then he gives very simple and straight-forward descriptions of his object of interest: “dimpled spider, fat and white, on a white heal-all, holding up a moth.” His words lack the simile and complex descriptions that Blake had in describing the tiger as a fire in the forest. Also contrasting from Blake is the use of understatement. While Blake uses overstatement to make his point, Frost’s understatement of evil is more of a suggestion that leaves it up to readers to do the work of forming their own responses to the poem’s unsettling message. Interestingly, however, the speaker of “Design” is approaching the very same question from a totally different position and using opposite strategies from “Tyger.” He observes nearly objectively the behavior of nature and wonders the same question—what kind of God designed the darkness and malevolence found in the everyday mundane goings-on of nature?

Although these two poems are extremely different in tone and form, they explore the very same question of seeing God’s characteristics through the creations he has made. Both speakers focus on an aspect of nature that terrifies them, and although they are very different things, both see a darkness in these created things that leads them to the same conclusion about the Creator. They both look at fearful aspects of nature as windows to understanding the God who created nature, and both conclude with the disturbing perspective of a malign God.

Two DisSimilar Poems

William Blake’s poem “Tyger” is written in trochaic tetrameter and Robert Frost’s “Design” is written as a Italian sonnet. They are two poems that are very dissimilar in form and tone, but somehow the two very different poems overlap in its message and theme. Blake’s poem is about a creature larger than the speaker himself, the Tiger. Frost’s poem is about two tiny insects. They both look at fearful aspects of nature as windows to understanding the God who created nature.

In “Tyger,” the speaker is very alarmed at the great creature of the tiger. He expresses this in his portrayal of the tiger’s orange coat as “burning bright.” His tone is of great alarm, as seen by the repetitious exlaim, “Tyger! Tyger!” Similarly, the use of question after question, increasingly fragmented and concentrated, gives reader the sense of urgency and weightiness of the speaker’s questions. The main point of his description of the tiger leads to questioning who could have “framed,” or, created, this fearful animal. The speaker shudders at the majesty and awfulness of this terrible tiger, but all the more, images that the God who created such a creature must be unspeakably fearsome.

Frost’s “Design” discusses this very notion of Creator and creation, and speculates the same idea of a fearful God. The tone is very different from Blake in approaching this topic. The speaker seems distanced and cool like the observations of a scientist. He starts with the personal pronoun “I,” which never enters Blake’s poem. Then he gives very simple and straight-forward descriptions of his object of interest: “dimpled spider, fat and white, on a white heal-all, holding up a moth.” His words lack the simile and poetic descriptions that Blake had in describing the tiger as a fire in the forest. Interestingly, however, the speaker of “Design” is approaching the very same question from a totally different position. He observes nearly objectively the behavior of nature and wonders the same question—what kind of God designed the darkness and malevolence found in the everyday mundane goings-on of nature?

Another point of parallel is that the size of the fearful creature impacts the speaker’s view of God in these two poems. Blake focuses on the grandness and power of the tiger as the aspect that leads him to fear God. He imagines the tiger itself is inherently formidable, saying that the tiger’s heart was twisted in a furnace. Similarly, Frost’s poem says that the size of the evil also says something about the character of its creator—but in this poem, it is the smallness of the thing that causes the speaker awe and fear. If design governs “a thing so small” as the spider, the speaker imagines that God must be very deeply ic and cruel.

Although these two poems are extremely different in tone and form, they explore the very same question of seeing God’s characteristics through the creations he has made. Both speakers focus on an aspect of nature that terrifies them, and although they are very different things, both see a darkness in these created things that leads them to the same conclusion about the Creator.

Pop Culture & Poetry

The use of a pop-cultural icon such as Bruce Wayne made this poem intriguing and I was curious before I read the first line. The use of pop culture gave me the impression that this poem would be less literary but more easily entertaining. More "literary" poetry is less entertaining initially, because it yields its gold after mining through the difficult text. The use of a pop-culture icon in poetry seems to do the same thing pop culture itself does: provide easy access to entertainment. Maybe there are deeper ways to read and think about this poem, but what it does for me firstly is to amuse.

"Bruce Wayne" was entertaining as well as comical, because this kind of a twist on a familiar figure is so strange and surprising. The portrayal of Bruce Wayne as ordinary and even pathetic, was hilarious. Bruce Wayne of this universe is complex, deep, sophisticated, dignified, and heroic. Bruce Wayne of the Other Universe is a jilted alcoholic that stumbles into friends' cars "reeking of whiskey and cigarettes" to get more whiskey, and falls asleep on the sofa watching late-night talk shows. Most unbelievably, he weeps over having been "dumped again" -- a colloquialism that seems to trivialize the kinds of pain that this other Bruce Wayne suffers. The real Bruce Wayne of our universe sacrifices love for the greater good of man.

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