week of 5/14/13

Thursday:

Goal: Portfolio time!

HW: I need portfolio links and hard copies. Just send a link to aspare@lps.k12.co.us...

...check your link first!

First Step: non-seniors, I need your hard copies.

If you have a Wix site, bring it up on a lap top. If you went low-tech, take out your portfolio.

1. Open you web site
2. Open up a word document or google doc
3. Five different rotations. Find someone else's site. Look it over. Read some poetry. 
4. Write the person a note on the word document about your overall impressions of the site. Try to make at least one comment about something specific. 

5. Seniors get ready to read something out loud!

week of 5/6/13

Thursday:

Goal: Favorite Song Presentations

HW: Complete Online or video portfolios.

First Step: Highlights from last time.

Let's try to finish up today.

weel of 4/30/13

Thursday:

Goal: Work Day:

HW: Song Project due Tuesday, May 7th.

Checklist. I am handing you a paper copy. Song projects are due next class!

• Memorize your song excerpt
• Research your songwriter and write a letter
• Do your "explosion/annotation"
• Song Reflection
• Work on visual elements of your speech (e.g. Prezi)
• Develop a creative title for your song project

• Build a website for your online portfolio or start playing with wevideo to make your movie.
• Write a reflective statement introducing the work in your portfolio
• Revise eight poems and put them on your site. 

week of 4/23

Thursday

Goal: Begin to wrap up the hip-hop unit.

First Step: Saul Williams again. 

Next: Bringing Hip-Hop and Music full-circle:

The Favorite Song Project. (Due May 7th)

week of 4/16/13

Thursday:

Goal: Think about how compression is used in poetry.

Thought. What's the link from freestyle/improvisation to poetry class? (from last time)

HW: Finish Compression activity if you need to (see below).

First Step: Free write. Write for five minutes on one of these topics. Keep the pen moving.

Options:

1. You're digging in your yard and find a fist-sized gold nugget. Describe what you do next.
2. Describe the last time your heart was broken.
3. Continue this story: A kid walks out of the bathroom with toilet paper dangling from his (or her) waistband...
4. Write about the most beautiful smile you ever saw.
5. DYT

Compression: Reducing the number of words involved in saying something. Being economical with language.

Look at the piece you just wrote. Go through it and cross out about half the words. See if you can end up with something that still makes sense. 



The Tallest Man on Earth plays "Lost My Shape"  (at 4:30)

You used to feel like a smoker
Shivering in the cold
Waiting outside the bar
Til the opener's over

But now you feel like a drinker
Twenty days off the sauce
Down at the liquor store
Trying to call your sponsor

You used to feel like the forest fire burning
But now you feel like a child
Throwing tantrums for your turn

You used to sound like a prophet
And everyone wanted to know
How you could tell the truth
Without losing that soft glow

But now you feel like a salesman
Closing another deal
Or some drunk ship captain
Raging after the white whale

You used to feel like the forest fire burning
But now you feel like a child
Throwing tantrums and then some

You used to feel like the prodigal returning
But now you hate what you've made
And you want to watch it burn

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/david-bazan/lost-my-shape-lyrics/#89FIajcO6u8x2QBt.99 




Compression Activity (Directions):

• Get a computer and go to 

http://www.authorama.com/

• Find a paragraph in one of the books that seems interesting rich with language. You could also find one on the internet, but it should be fictional. Dense is better.

• Copy/paste your paragraph onto your blog.

• Count the number of words it contains, including a, an, and the.  Write that number down next to your paragraph.
• Copy/paste your paragraph onto your blog again.

• Take two minutes.  Read through the language, reducing the total number of words by half by cutting out empty words, repetitions, weak phrases, connectors, etc.  Get to the “good stuff,” the language which interests, intrigues, and carries meaning for you. You might also mess with line breaks and make a poem out of it.

• Count the number of words in your new version.       Write that number down. 

• Copy/paste your new paragraph onto your blog again.
• Take two minutes more.  See if you can halve again the number of words, and still keep meaning somewhat intact.

Tuesday:

Goal: Continue linking hip-hop and other forms of poetry.


First Step: Finishing the Villanelles. Let's do it quickly and read a couple examples. 



Two more connections from hip-hop to other poetry: 


Improvisation and Compression.



Improvisation: Making something up on the spur of the moment.


Supernatural (Improvisation, but with rhythm and rhyme)

Mos Def (Same thing)



If time: These improv games. Let's appreciate how hard freestyle is.

http://www.ehow.com/video_4417666_one-three-word-_improvisation-_game.html (1 word three words)

http://www.ehow.com/video_4417669_word-association-_improvisation-_game.html?wa_vlsrc=continuous&pid=1&cp=1&wa_vrid=9dd2217e-cba0-4761-9f6a-2a08b0b4dbea (Word association)

week of 4/8/13

Thursday:

Goals: Continue to explore the roots of hip-hop and its connection to tradition poetry. 

The Repeating Line: Freestyle, Refrains, and the Villanelle

Due: Your tone poem (on the blog) and your found poem drawings.

HW: For Tuesday. Write a Villanelle that starts with one of the following titles.

“Timbuktu”
“What Hip Is”
“Things You Thought I’d Say When I Left”
“Let the Dog Drive”
“Older, Wiser, Closer to Death”
“Sister”
“Phone Tennis”
“The Prince of Fire”
“Unsettling America”
“The Angle of Refraction”

or

Write a rap lyric starting with one of the above titles that uses rhyme, meter, and a verse/refrain structure. (two verses with a repeating chorus.)

Chris Rene (The repeating line)

Some other examples: 

"Ain't nuthin' but a G Thang Baby..." (Snoop and Dre)

"I knew what I was feelin', but what was I thinkin'?" (Dierks Bentley)

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!" (Iron Maiden)

"Jump around!" (House of Pain)

Supernatural (Improvisation, but with rhythm and rhyme)

Dylan Thomas

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night (The Villanelle)

Poetic Form: Villanelle (from poets.org)
"The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem's two concluding lines. Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2."

Team Villanelles using a hip-hop theme. 

_______________________________________
Tuesday: The snow day you got away with...


Tone found poems/drawings due

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufHZWt3xSZk&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

week of 4/2/13

Thursday:

Hip-Hop Continued:

Goal: Explore how hip-hop artists manipulate tone and mood. 

First Step: "Keep Ya Head Up" by Tupac

HW for Tuesday: 

1. Finish Found Poems/Drawings if you need to.

2. Attempt to write a piece while being conscious of tone. Name your poem after an adjective.

Hint: You might want to choose a song, poem, piece of fiction, speech, play etc. that has strong tone and attempt to mimic its tone in your own work. Or, DYT, but be conscious of how words, phrases, sounds, and rhythm influence tone. Post to your blog.

Themes:

• "dissing"
• poverty
• sex, especially male, heterosexual sex
• money, raising yourself from poverty
• sexism
• African-American, Latino issues
• dancing/partying
• gang/prison life
• machismo, bravado
• authority (cops)
• aggression
• racial tension
• rebellion
• pride in where you come from
• being the best (better than other rappers, for example)
• shock value
• drugs
• dialect
• originality
• borrowing from each other (oral tradition)

Tone discussion (5 volunteers):

Tone is the speaker's attitude--how the speaker in a poem comes across to us. A speaker's tone influences an audiences mood. That is the difference. 

• "What are you doing?" (Activity)

• How do hip-hop artists manipulate tone? Diction, phrasing, persona, sound devices, rhythm.

Hip-Hop "Found Poems": Work by yourself or with a partner.

1. Choose on of the songs I've printed, or print a one-page version of a song of your own. 

2. Read through the lyrics, attempting to pinpoint the words and phrases that influence tone the most. When you decide on which lyrics these are, highlight them by drawing a box around them.

3. When you've highlighted all the words you think you need to highlight, "cross out" the rest of the lyrics by making a drawing over the top of them. This drawing should reflect the tone of the song. 

4. Turn in by the end of class!

Examples:

Tone/Mood Found Poems (link to examples)

_________________________________________________

Lupe Fiasco's "The Instrumental." (lyrics)

"Instrumental" on Youtube

"Hip-Hop" by Mos Def lyrics

"Hip-hop" on Youtube

____________________________________________________________________________

4/2/13

Goal: Discussion about Culture

A word about the Haiku tournament. Hiding behind a computer makes bullying even more cowardly. 

What makes me the most frustrated is that, even though I spend inordinate amounts of time in here trying to make people feel comfortable, as soon as you got behind a computer or started talking through your phone you reverted to making fun of people who have chosen to take risks in this class. It makes me think you've heard nothing I've said in here.

Bullies called him porkchop...


1. Go to m.socrative.com on a laptop or smart phone.

or 

2. If you Googled it, now click on "Socrative Student"

3. Go to Room # 833685


Hip-Hop Intro:

Hip-Hop Poetry:

"Most people ignore poetry because most poetry ignores most people." --Adrian Mitchell

"Rap is an oral poetry."

"The beat is rap's beginning." (There would really be no rap music without beat or rhyme)

What are common themes in rap music?

Sugarhill Gang: "Rapper's Delight" (1979)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diiL9bqvalo&feature=related

Grandmaster Flash: "The Message" (1982)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4o8TeqKhgY&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

____________________________________

Extra stuff--don't read below unless you want to

1. Hip-hop tends to use heavy structure, rhythm, and rhyme. In other words, it does everything that scares most people about poetry.

2. Hip-hop tends to speak in code. In other words, it does the same thing that most people fear about poetry.

3.As happened with lots of "traditional" poetic forms, Hip-hop forms developed organically based on performances and sincere, honest writing.

---

Reading Poetry: Guidelines

1. Select a book. Don't worry too much about the choice. You can always put it back and get another one

2. Check out the cover, the back pages, the copyright date, and anything about the poet.

3. Begin reading. You might want to select individual poem titles, and you might want to begin at the beginning. Up to you.

4. Find three powerful poems or passages.

5. On a sheet of paper, write down the powerful passages. Reflect on each. Why are they powerful, confusing, reminiscent of an experience, though-provoking, etc? Writing and drawing are both fine--just be thoughtful.

6. Turn the reflection page in at the end of the reading period.

---

October 5, 2011

Chris Rene

Writing Activity. "Lil' Homie What You Trippin' on."

Verses and refrain--the repeated line. 

"Ain't nuthin' but a G Thang Baby..." (Snoop and Dre)

"I knew what I was feelin', but what was I thinkin'?" (Dierks Bentley)

"Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!" (Iron Maiden)

"Jump around!" (House of Pain)

Come up with at least 2 verses and a refrain that repeats, either before or after the verses or both.

Example (Yes, I know there are grammatical mistakes. "I spoke the King's English but got a rash on my lips....")

"Spare can rhyme like a rocket he's in the cockpit 

pullin' lyrics out his pocket his favorite topic

is rhymin' but he's too old to shop at Hot Topic

So please allow me to rock this, don't dis, resist, or reminisce.

Hey mama...

My teacher punked me; he sunk me.

I said the teacher punked me; he sunk me.

Spare can wreck a mic like Chicken of the Sea

his kids say please--and eat they peas, jeez

Dad by day MC by heart so if you start

to front he'll get the cart and haul you off for spare parts.

Hey mama...

My teacher punked me; he sunk me.

I said the teacher punked me; he sunk me."

Now try your own. Type it for homework. Remember: this is rap poetry. Rhyme and rhythm are paramount.

---

October 6, 2011

Workshop with our rap poetry. Remember--it's about the performance.

Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme

--watch the movie and complete the study guide, either today or bring it to class Monday.