TODAY IN CLASS
First, I collected the print-out that proved you found the blog.  (6th period, you will get yours back. . . I just forgot at the end of class.  I actually wanted you to have a copy of the next 8-10 school days.)

Most of today was devoted to the world's first internet special-characters "poem."   I will usually not usually try to capture our whole discussion in the blog (especially as it rambles across three class periods), but I was pleased by the range of ideas people offered--and surprised by how quickly certain connections were made.  Overall, my purpose was to hope that you at least saw patterns and structure in the visual appearance,  that the "sound" once the words/terms were added provided another dimension of structure (rhyme, rhythm, metrical patterns) and that many of you found "meaning"  both within the immediate context of the poem as well as in ways that connected the meaning of the work as a whole to aspects beyond the poem itself.  Along the way we utilized a variety of familiar terms (onomotopoeia, connotation, figurative language, metaphor, allusion, and more) that will continue to be the mainstay of our literary study.

So what does the poem really mean?  I don't know.  Someone suggested that the symbols were literally symbolic of the meaninglessness of life, leading ultimately to death--the ultimate systems crash. (I think Macbeth said something similar in his "Out, out, brief candle. . . " speech.) Others talked in various ways of the implications of technological overload on modern society; later we'll look at Wordsworth's sonnet beginning "The world is too much with us . . ."  Others thought maybe we were reading too much into it and offered simpler, more direct explanations. And one person asked a question that honed in on the discrepancies between studying the text "as is" and raising questions about authorial intention:  what did the author or poet "intend" to do?  That issue will haunt us throughout the course, but we will try to think about it a bit more tomorrow.

FOR TOMORROW
1. Bring your resume to class. As mentioned yesterday, it does not have to be "finalized" and professional-looking, but you SHOULD try to get as much information down as you can that describes your varied school, work, and community activities and interests over your high school years. Check the link in yesterday's post for ideas if you don't even know how to begin.


2. Remember all the school info material that was announced (twice) today--you need to turn in all those forms before having your picture made in order to actually get your ID. (They will still take your picture tomorrow; you just won't be able to have the ID until the forms are in.)