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johnslat · Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 3:52 am Post subject:

Dear ktb,

"'I'm all curmudgeon but without H. L.'s talent."

Well, without his fame - but I'd say (based on your posts) that his talent isn't too far outside your grasp.

Regards,
John

killthebuddha · Posted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 3:14 pm Post subject:

johnslat,

Do you ever use poetry to teach? I agree with Joseph Campbell when he said that what we need these days are poets, modern day shamans for the "civilized."

Remember Stephen Fry, from Jeeves and Wooster (Hugh Laurie), V for Vendetta, etc., etc.? He has a new book out about modern poetry. Do you have an opinion?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/oct/16/poetryreviews.poetry

--ktb

johnslat · Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 10:05 pm Post subject:

Dear ktb,

Indeed, I do - but only with my upper-level classes. Poetry and humor may be the two hardest genres for a second language learner to comprehend - so many figures of speech, so much symbolism.

This last session, I used Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" with my "Transitions" class (the highest ESL level at SFCC.)

The students seemed to like it a lot, and it prompted considerable discussion.
But the high-point for me was when I asked - not really expecting anyone to be able to give the right answer - whether anyone could tell me what on month and day the poem takes place.

There was about a minute of silence, and then one student said, "December 21st, maybe?"

I was flabbergasted - "How did you know?" I asked.

"Because it says it was " . . . the darkest evening of the year . . . ," he replied.

WOW!!!!!

Regards,
John

killthebuddha · Posted: Wed Dec 15, 2010 8:21 pm Post subject:

I had a WOW moment like that many years ago in a Chicago public high school. The poem was Gunga Din and the question was whether there were any elements of racism in it, intended by Kipling or possibly even unconsciously expressed. The girl had caught on that it was Gunga Din's fate to end up in hell, regardless of what a fine person he'd been.

At the other end of the spectrum, the other day I heard a lecture from a cosmologist who admitted to marking a student off for the following mid-term mistake:

Q: What's the age of the universe?
A: 13.7 billion years, 2 weeks.

When asked why, the student answered, "Because you told us the universe was 13.7 billion years old two weeks ago."

Go figure. There's ego, and then there's academia. Crying or Very sad