How Do I Love Thee?

     What poem does this image remind you of?  Can you hear the words of Robert Frost telling you of the choice before him and what factors will influence his decision?  The poem I tried to capture with this image is The Road not Taken by Robert Frost.

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

      It is too early in the season to have captured a yellow wood, but this image parallels the one described the poem.  You probably pictured it differently.  In fact no two people have the same mental imagery of the poem.  Had I chosen to take a video instead of a photograph, you would have also been able to hear the sounds that I heard while walking the path.  Those too would most likely be different from your own aural imagery.  I find that my imagination paints a different picture of these paths in a yellow wood each time I read it.  Sometimes I see fog because it is so early that the sun has not had a chance to lift it.  Sometimes there is an orange glow because the sunrise can be seen through the trees.  Certainly then, no photograph can serve to define what Frost saw during his illustrious walk.

     Readers experience this poem in many different ways. 

     This poem is most well known as a celebration of those who have made the less popular choice and benefited from having done so.  In the last lines the author looks back and reflects on his decision.  There is controversy in the literary world, however, about whether Frost meant the poem literally or whether it was farcical.  There is documentation pointing to the fact that he was instead poking fun at Edward Thomas who was a friend and fellow poet.  It is said that following many of their walks Thomas was known to complain that they should have taken a different path.  Frost may have been making fun of his friend when writing this poem.  I’ll admit that I was disappointed the first time I read this.  I am a glass-half-full kind of person and I like to look at things through rose-colored glasses.  I choose not to think of the poem as Frost’s way of poking fun at a friend.  I’m holding on to my interpretation in which he is truly grateful for making the less obvious choice.  

A bit if humor…

     I decided to go to Kensington Metro Park to look for my Road Not Taken photo since it is only a ten minute drive.  I grew up in Milford so I have been on the trails near the nature center at least a hundred times.  I remembered several forks in the trails and was sure I would have no problem getting my shot.  What I hadn’t remembered when I set out for my early morning walk, is that every fork is conveniently labeled with a sign indicating which trail goes in which direction.  I had it in my head that I wanted a very Frostian photo- without modern signage.  This meant that I was forced to shoot from odd angles and in strange positions in order to avoid getting them in my pictures.  After a couple hours I still did not have the photo that I was hoping for.  Several times during my walk I thought to myself, “Maybe I should have taken the other path.”  I could hear Frost laughing at me.

Or maybe that was me laughing… we may never know! 

What's the Big Idea? Observing and Imaging

     At the beginning of the chapter on observation, we were given the task of watching television.  Now that is a homework assignment I can get on board with!  Had the task been given from another source I might have just watched The Mentalist and gotten back to the book.  However, being in a course called Creativity in Teaching and Learning and reading a book titled Sparks of Genius leads me to believe that simply watching a show is not what I was meant to do.  Being on my guard, I was mindful of some of the physical aspects of the set itself and of the sounds it made.  Even so I had not observed many of the things mentioned at the end of the chapter.

     In school we read poetry to students and ask them to write poems of their own.  I do not recall, however, being asked to observe poetry.  We discuss what the author might have meant by his or her words and what their intention may have been for writing it.  Observing poetry might show us more than that.  Perhaps the way the words are broken up or the unconventional use of punctuation can tell us something.  Perhaps words are in bold or italics to send a message.

     Much like observing, imaging is often associated with the visual.  When I think of images I usually think of photographs, paintings, and other things that I can take in with my eyes.  I don’t think that I am alone in the fact that I had not considered aural imagery, despite the fact that I was raised in what I would consider a musical household.  It makes sense to me now that I have given it some thought.  My kids are always impressed when we listen to a cd in the car because when a song ends I hum or sing the first notes of the next song in the correct key and pitch.  They usually ask “how did you do that?”  I suppose that is part of aural imagery.  When you have listened to a cd a number of times, you know not only how each song will sound, but how the whole cd will sound… or maybe that’s just me!

     In regards to poetry, how a poem is read and even who is reading it will have an effect on what the listener will take away from it.  Changing the punctuation or how a poem is broken up can have a profound effect on its meaning.  The poetry of Emily Dickenson is a great example of this.  Emily Dickenson wrote her poetry using pen and paper of course.  That allowed her to do things that you could not do on a keyboard.  In place of periods or commas she often used dashes.  The dashes even tended to tilt up or down, presumably to indicate something to the reader or at least to the author.  She also used capitalization in a seemingly random fashion, but certainly this was not by accident.  It affects the way the words are read.  Sometimes her poems are printed with changes to her original markings, perhaps because a printer is unable to replicate them.  When you view the poem as written next to the poem as it was modified, you will notice that it changes the way the poem will sound when read aloud.

     Observing and imaging are tools that students may be using without our knowledge.  Being aware of that can help us to ask better questions of them.  Students are known for offering responses like “I just knew the answer.”  They may have “seen” it or “heard” it in a way that they cannot put into words.

Dinglehopper

My everyday object is my wedding ring.

I decided to try it out in place of a few other things around the house...

like a napkin ring:

to support the stem of my orchid:

and as a zipper pull:

On second thought, I think I'll just leave it on my finger.

What's the Big Idea? Introduction

 “The heart has its reasons that reason cannot know.”

                         -Blaise Pascal

     Although chapter one referred to adults in both its examples and as its audience, taking in the material as a teacher meant that I was considering it in terms of how it applies to children.  The examples given were stories of famous artists, scientists, and mathematicians, but at some point they were students.  Perhaps children are creative thinkers and try to learn and explore concepts in a way they cannot express and we spend our days trying to make their thinking fit into our goals and making sure that they do things our way, according to the curriculum.  Our challenge is to teach them what is in the curriculum, while being careful not to ignore, or even stifle, the creativity that may offer them other ways of reaching the same goals and even connecting the different subject areas in ways that we cannot see.
     The Phantom Tollbooth is a favorite book of mine.  I have not read it in my classroom, but I have read it with my own children and it is really fun to witness the moments when they make sense of one of the metaphors in the story and connect it to what they already knew (or thought they knew) on a subject.  Another favorite of mine for older readers is A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle.  The children in the story have scientists for parents.  They, too, challenge the boundaries of what they have learned in books.  Chapter two discusses the problems that can arise when we treat each school subject as an independent entity.  In my own classroom I spend the morning working on reading and writing workshops (the creative subjects).  In the afternoon we tackle science, social studies, and math (the factual subjects).  While I do my best to make connections between all of these subjects and tie them together when I can, I now realize that I have not given enough thought to how I can encourage my students to use mathematical principals in reading and writing and to use creative thinking in math and science.  I suppose the first step is that I have begun to practice this for myself.
     I have always said that I am not an artistic person.  My sisters and brother are really talented in art, but somehow the art gene missed me.  I have always enjoyed art, though.  The product of my efforts rarely lives up to what I had hoped it would be, but the process never fails to feed my spirit.  Sometimes it relaxes me, sometimes it energizes me, but it always feeds me.  Furthermore, I believe that when I create something I get the opportunity to call upon my knowledge in language, math, and science to express myself.  There are many scientific principals at work when I am doing ballet, and I think about body alignment and balance with every step, but I can only feel when I am doing it correctly. 

Veja Du

This was a fun project!

Did you figure out what it is?

It is my...

toilet paper holder:

This Friday

Our final class is this Friday and things are finally coming together. When we left campus on July 2nd, a month seemed like plenty of time. The problem of course is that it was much easier to find the time to work while staying on campus. I am glad to be home with my family, but there are a lot of distractions. Making a schedule and setting goals for the different parts of our projects was imperative. I wish I could say that I am ready for Friday, but I'm not. I am however feeling good about my progress and getting excited about driving up to Michigan State University again.

Summer Cohort

I enrolled in the summer cohort offered by the MAET program. I spent two weeks living in Owen Hall on the campus of MSU and it was great to be back. We spent two weeks working harder than I have worked in a long time. We ate slept and breathed technology in education.
I am back at home but continue to work on the assignments that we set the groundwork for during the face-to-face portion of the courses. As happy as I am to be home with my family, it is much more difficult to find the time and motivation that I got used to having. In just a week and a half I will be back at MSU presenting the results of my hard work. My instructor warned me that the four weeks at home would go by quickly. He is great at understating things!