Idea Warehouse

Keeping Up with Intelligent Blog Posts

It's not so hard to just write ANYTHING every day or every once in a while. It IS, however, a little challenging to write more intelligent blog posts every day, like a newspaper column, almost. You want a single message to come through. So this post will be about creating significantly-thought-proking posts  frequently. It may take me all day to write this, but probably not.

Well, since today is FEB 2nd, we must defer to the venerable groundhog for our weather predictions: Punxatawney Phil predicted that we would have an EARLY SPRING, and his handlers predicted that the Steelers would win the SuperBowl! Of course, that last prediction is their own preference, but I'm sure everybody in attendance (for the most part), would have agreed with him. Steeler Fever is growing here every day, as game day gets closer. It'll be weird to see the SuperBowl in Boston rather than in the heart of Steeler Nation.

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Apparently, the origins of Groundhog Day lie in its connection to the celebration of Candlemas. Since German settlers came to that region of Pennsylvania, they brought with them their traditions and religious beliefs, one of which was Candlemas. On that day, churchgoers lit candles  for the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin, the end of Epiphany, frequently holding a procession with the candles. When Jewish women had children, they were considered unclean for 7 days, and then after 33 days is supposed to wait until the end of that time (40 days altogether) when they  underwent a purification ceremony involving a ritual bath and the lighting of candles. Mary was also expected to bring Jesus to the temple where the priests could dedicate him. After this time, the mothers, including Mary, were allowed to have relations with their husbands.

On a non-Christian level, this was also a time of weather predictions. One site states:

"Farmers believed that the remainder of winter would be the opposite of whatever the weather was like on Candlemas Day. An old English song goes:

If Candlemas be fair and bright,
Come winter, have another flight;
If Candlemas bring clouds and rain,
Go winter, and come not again."

(from http://www.churchyear.net/candlemas.html)

As many Christian and Pagan customs do, we often get a secular "holiday" (if this can be called a holiday), corresonding with the time of a Christian holiday, whether still practiced or not.

Songs

One of the things I like best about teaching college students is that they know all the current music! Lately, I've had this song in my head, partly because it's a great tune, and partly because the words remind me of how I feel about my husband (and how much I miss him when I'm not with him). Yesterday as class was over, I asked anybody if they knew who sang that song (remembered a few phrases from it) or knew its title. Several people knew it, but Jordan Baughman sang a few lines right away--right in tune, I might add--and told me its title and artist! Congratulations, Jordan! You also have a pretty good voice.  It's Matt Nathanson's "Come On Get Higher."

 

To Dan

First week of classes down--how did they go?

Finished my first week of Jan. 2011 classes at Edinboro University. In my opinion, they went well. I was on time to all of the classes, I had a clear plan for each of them, and except for a few computer issues, all went very well. For some odd reason on Thursday, about 3/4 of the thin clients in Wiley 114 wouldn't let students log in. No problem, though; I just went to Plan B. I'm eager to read the students' blogs in the T/Th classes next week.  One thing that was kind of funny, though, that happened in my 2nd ENGL 102 class of the day: I was showing students Wordle and how that works, when one student who seems quite well engaged in class, asked the ultimate question that should be asked of nearly everything I do in the class: Yeah, that's neat, but how does that help us? or it was something like "how is this useful?" I just have so much fun with Wordle that I was at a loss for an explanation and laughing sheepishly, said, "well, it's just really COOL! Isn't it? I can't just show you something because it's cool?" Then I knew how idiotic that sounded, so I said it can help you when you are brainstorming for ideas; the words that are repeated show up in bigger type, and so that might give you an idea of ideas that have more importance for you. Meanwhile, they agreed that it was cool, also, but I LIKE that they challenged me with that question. I should always be able to answer that question to the students' satisfaction (and myself). Click on the above picture to see it full sized. The content used is this blog entry minus these 2 sentences. (BTW, I did see a few online slideshows called 38 Ways to Use Wordle in the classroom," and another "25 Ways..." --so there ARE ways to incorporate it legitimately.

One reason I showed it to them yesterday was because each letter and picture in Google's logo of JFK and his presidential speech was done in Wordle or something like that, so I thought it was especially relevant to know how they did that. Nevertheless I plan on having multiple answers for that anticipated question for every thing I teach.

I also noticed a new sign on the street that goes onto campus (forget its name) in back of the Compton parking lot.

Wednesday Workday

  By the way, that's NOT ME up there! But it's my name, at least part of it. I like her jacket, though. I wonder which Wendy Warren it is: the one who writes romance novels, the Irish newscaster, the doctor?.....there are a few of them I've encountered on Internet searches. This is actually me.

Looks like I may have to post some pages to this blog for my ENGL 102 classes in Research Writing. I haven't been able to post material to my webstorage account at school, which stinks because that is how I organize my units and post material so as to reduce "my carbon footprint." Maybe it doesn't really do so, because students print out the material, but if just one student does not, then I guess I am. I like this unit the best in my classes because it's fun and follows all of my own advice from my articles and dissertation. I wish I didn't have to teach so many students (100 per semester; i.e., 4 classes/sections per semester, but considering they're all full very quickly, that must mean that I'm not a terrible professor.)