Thursday, January 22, 2009

Cirque du so lame

What is the point of Thursday? Nobody does any blogging or emailing. My students are already worn out. I say, make Thursday the new Friday since it's already as unproductive. Then, Friday can be reserved like Saturday and Sunday for productive fun--like skiing and laundry.

Top Chef Poetry went pretty well. The students had to choose the best poem from their groups and then toss those poor poem-writers into the center of the room where they had to have their poems judged and rated based on the sound, image, turn and line on a scale of 1-5, 5 being best. The only problem came when I tried to tabulate. Too many numbers to add up without a 10-key. So, next time, I'll probably have the groups judge as groups and then defend their judging, more like Top Chef. And then the loser can pack his or her knives and go home! Or, rather, go on to write another day.

Top Chef Nonfiction will be trickier because the criteria can be a little more wobbly but we're going with image recurrence/evolution, narrative propulsion, voice, and place/space rootedness. That's tonight. We'll see how that goes.

Then, Friday can commence after class at 6:00 p.m. Until then, it's a workday. I expect to see you on Facebook or blogging or emailing me.

4 comments:

Dr Write said...

All yesterday I said "tomorrow" meaning Friday but tomorrow was really Thursday, so I am with you. I wanted to cancel today.
You'll need to explain Top Chef Poetry to me so I can try it.

Lisa B. said...

I know what you mean! It is horrible when there is a dearth of blogging/fun e-mailing--it's like zombies have taken over the earth. And I hate when that happens.

I like your Top Chef Poetry exercise--it sounds fun and exciting. Is it also a little mean? Sometimes Top Chef feels a little mean. But only a little. A productive kind of mean. (Of course, I'm the person who doesn't like to hate a movie because it might hurt the movie's feelings, right.)

Mary Anne Mohanraj said...

I despair because my memoir/travelogue in progress seriously lacks narrative propulsion. I think I'm okay on the other three. Sigh. I can't just go with this happened, then this happened, then this happened?

Molly said...

What is the poetic equivalent to packing up their knives? What is metaphoric cutlery? What must they bring to the kitchen or being laughed out for not understanding the rules of the weeds?

Hmmm ... I don't want to settle for something like a cutting mind or rapier wit. I am failing the metaphor. It is not failing me.

Oh, also, I thought you might actually be watching television because of this subject line. Are you? Do you love/hate Stefan?