Week 12: Speaking, Silence, and Relationships

Dear Class,

This week we have two different foci: Being Silenced Essays, and the beginning of Angels in America. As I've been considering how to have you blog this week, I've started to think about how these two elements connect, and I think I have it: relationships. Each one of you has chosen some story to tell for your Being Silenced Project, and these stories are steeped in human relationships to one another, whether they are children and warriors, different races, or different genders. Angels in America, if you are unfamiliar with the premise, is about homosexual issues, especially AIDs and "passing," in the 1980s. This is a play centralized in relationships: sexual, emotional, business, political, and so on.

So, for this blog, I'd like you to reflect on how silence and speaking factor into your own relationships, or those you see out in the world. You can relate your reflection back to Angels in America, Persepolis, or Pygmalion, if you like. Try to tell a story of something you've seen, heard or, or has happened to you. I know that several of you have shared stories before, but this time, I want you to focus on how speaking and silence effect or relate to relationships, in whatever form they come in

Ms. Lambke

Open Blogging Week

Students,

This week is another open blogging week, where you can offer any element related to the class. This could be a preview of what you are working on for your project, a reflection on "Blue Velvet" or "Public Secrets," or some comment on Show and Tell.

Looking forward to your insight.

Ms. Lambke

Week 10: Persepolis and Modern Iran

Dear Students,

For this week's blog post, I want you to do a little research. Find a current news story about Iran. Read it, and summarize it in your blog. Then, speculate about its connection to the events we saw in Persepolis. What might the characters think about this news story? How might they react?

Ms. Lambke

Week 8: Sculpting Speech

Dear Class,

One of the take-aways from both Pygmalion and My Fair Lady is that speech is something that can be molded and, in doing so, reflects on social standing and character. There is no doubt that Eliza becomes more refined as she learns "proper" English.

Your blog assignment for this week is to reflect on the molding of English in our society. Is there still such a thing as "proper" English, and does it deserve to be valued over all other Englishes? In valuing one type of English, do we silence all the others?

Ms. Lambke

Week 7: Extra Credit Blog

Dear Students,

It is mid-term week, and I know you are all exceptionally busy and tired. Thus, I am giving you the week off from blogging. To be clear: you are not required to blog this week (midterms), or next week (Spring Break).

However, if you have missed a blog, this week is a chance to make it up. If you have completed all of your blogs, but want a few extra credit points, this is an opportunity. Choose one of the following prompts, and write a blog. Or, if there is something else you wish to say to the class, go ahead.

1. Multimodal Project: How did the multimodal project go for you? Where do you think you succeeded? Where do you think you could have done better?

2. Semester Review: Half way through the semester, what do you remember best about class? Which class periods worked best for you?

3. Second-half Preview: As we come back after midterm, what would you like to do more of in class? If there anything you suggest to make the class better?

Good luck to all of you during midterm week!

Ms. Lambke

Open Blogging Week

Once more, it is up to you to choose a topic to blog about this week.

If you are struggling to find inspiration, you might choose a passage from Glenn's book to write on, or follow up on a conversation we've had in class. You might also do some brainstorming on your next project on the blog.

Again, great blogs so far. Keep it up!

Ms. Lambke

Week 5: Pictures of Silence

In the next section of the class, we move more from speaking into silence. This is a silence of force, during most of Gheryl Glenn's analysis, but she does not deny that there are passive and enforced silences as well.

For this week's blog, I want you to find an image that you think represents one view of silence. Put it in your blog post and reflect on it - perhaps connecting it to something we're read or discussed in class.

For example, I'm choosing the SOPA and PIPA Wikipedia blackout, which I mentioned on the first day of class. This was a day where Wikipedia - and other sites - silenced itself to protest legislation. A powerful silence indeed, and a successful one, though the issue is still being debated. Importantly, the issue is about information copywrite, the idea that we own what we write, record, and speak. Most rational people agree that there should be some protection for intellectual property, but th

ere are vast disagreements on how far this protection should extend, and who should be able to do what in order to enforce it. The protest, which included many internet giants, showed how the enforcement decided in SOPA and PIPA could lead to effective silencing, if passed. This caused an upstir, and helped stop the bill.

Open Blogging Week

Once again, you are free to blog about anything connected to this class or what we are discussing in class.

If you are having trouble finding a topic, you might choose one of the poems we talked about this week and focus on it. Or, you can return to an issue that Audre Lorde brought up and write about that.

Great blogging so far. One of the common themes I say in the Sounds of Myself Blog was how you were hesitant to bring in personal thoughts and issues into the project, and I just wanted to thank you all for doing so. Sharing these things can be hard, but it does improve our classroom community, and teach us to respect one another as individual personalities. So, again, thank you.

Week 3: Blogging on Sounds of Myself

Dear Students,

Today in class we listened to 8 student projects in answer to the "Sounds of Myself" project. In the next class period, we will finish listening to the projects.

For this week's blog, I'd like you to reflect on the project. You might answer any of the following questions, or write something else, as long as it is related to the "Sounds of Myself" project.

• What was the act of composition like? Was it different than writing a text piece?
• What challenges did you face as you composed? Do you think you overcame them?
• What was the act of listening in class like? Were you uncomfortable listening to your own? To others?
• Thinking back, which one do you remember the most and why? What is it about those compositions that made them memorable?

Open Week

Students,

Good blogging so far. Thank you for sharing elements of your life with the class and myself.

You will need to blog this week, but the topic is open. Please do choose something connected to the class or what we are doing in class. If you struggle to find a topic, you might extend something we talked about in class (like which Progress Report from "Flowers for Algernon" you connected to the most) or continue to meditate about the meanings of the terms "speaking," "silence," "rhetoric," and "literature."

Ms. Lambke

Blog Assignment 1: Introductions and Silence

For our first blog of the semester, I want you to expand your introduction from the first day of class. Tell us a few things about yourself, your feelings about English class, and your goals for the class.

Then, answer these questions: How do you feel about silence? How do you feel about speaking? Explain your answers.