Kindred Blog's Outside Our Class

After today’s class I thought that it would be a good idea to check out the www.icerocket.com website and see if anyone else was addressing the same issues that I am on my blog.  I thought I would find something, but didn’t really believe that it would be directly related to my blog.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a post by Rebecca, a student at Kansas City Art Institute, which did a close reading of the Brutus-Marc Anthony speech from Julius Caesar.  It was a good post where she examined the appearance of the classical models (logos, ethos, pathos) in the speech.  It was interesting to read, and to see that the same subject is being discussed elsewhere via the blog interface.  I left a comment on her post that I will reiterate below.  It was cool to make this connection.

Rhetorical Exercise-Imitation

In this post I will be engaging in a few Rhetorical Exercises to demonstrate what I have learned thus far in my study of the Renaissance Teaching Method.  I will be following the four categories of change defined in Dr. Burtons summary.  While engaging in these practice segments has been a part of my plan for some time now, I was reading in Brooke K’s recent blog regarding the art of Imitation and felt a greater desire to engage the subject directly.  I will be demonstrating the art of Imitation in the two forms described in my post Critical Definitions 2.  I will be basing my derivatives From Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18:

Notes on the Technology Forum

While organizing my notes from the Technology Forum from last Friday, I wanted to include a video clip from the event.  When I went to the BYU homepage to find a clip, I saw that their article closely mirrors the things that I found intriguing.  So, rather than list all my notes here, i suggest reading their article for a summary.  In this post i will go over some of the things that seemed most applicable to this blog that i did not see in that article.  

BYU Technology Forum: Zuckerberg and Senator Hatch

Today I am writing this blog from a Forum on technology at Brigham Young University.  The forum speakers are Mark Zuckerberg and Senator Orin Hatch.  My Previous post about the changing Literary Canon addressed a few questions about the new reader audience that is developing as a product of the advancement of technology.  Zuckerberg has been able to successfully capitalize on this new readership through his invention of Facebook.  Because the nature of this blog deals directly with utilizing technology to communication information of an academic nature, while attending the forum I’m looking for the methods employed in the creation of Facebook that helped to maintain participant interest.  This is a great opportunity, and I am grateful to Dr. Burton for suggesting our attendance as a class.


The Forum was excellent and I will post my notes once I have them better organized.  There were a few key moments when subjects were addressed that have a clear application to my focus on teaching.  

The Literary Canon: Comics, and Blogs Included?

Are we stepping up the information ladder to reach the plateau of information exchange?  I have an observation that I would like to take the time to share.  This is a break from my regular focus on teaching methods and models.  In this post I will map out a transition that I have noticed and how that transition should be affecting the idea of the modern literary canon.

Critical Definitions 2

This post is the second part of my Critical Definitions and is a continuation of my overall emphasis on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  In this post I will offer definitions for the terms that I have learned associated with the skill of literary genesis in that era.

Critical Definitions

This post is a continuation of my focus on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  Through my studies I have discovered that in order to engage with literature on the level that I described in my post on Renaissance Teaching Motivations, I have to “graduate” my comprehension of the terms used in the study of language.  Knowing that this difficulty presents itself, this post offers the first half of a few definitions before diving into my discoveries:

Shakespeare Viral Games

This post is a continuation of my emphasis on Renaissance Teaching methods.  In this particular entry I will focus on a loose modern adaptation of the principle of analysis and genesis as applied to a Shakespeare viral game.  I will show where a particular relationship between a few aspects of the Renaissance teaching method and this digital mediation. 

Renaissance Teaching Motivations

This is a continuation of my focus on Renaissance Teaching Methods.  In this post I will specifically detail the type of understanding that I hope to gain from learning these methods.  I will then spend some time reviewing what I have learned about the motivations that fueled Renaissance learning.

Focusing on Renaissance Teaching Methods

In my blog I am continuing to refine my focus, and will be spending considerable time over the next few weeks learning about the methods of Renaissance learning.  I want to know what Shakespeare was doing when he learned to write so that I can incorporate these methods, which have proved highly successful, into my own writing.  In order to reach this goal I will:

• Identify the motivations for Renaissance education
• Examine Renaissance Teaching Skills
• Review and analyze some examples from the period
• revision: Analyze contemporary works for his time and find the similar process?
• revision: look to the source work and see the process from a section of it to the Shakespearian transformation of it (should show the method)
• Track the progression of these methods into their modern counterparts (if they exist)
• Apply these methods to an analysis of various Shakespeare works (specifically his plays)
• Teach in some setting according to these methods
• Apply these methods to a revision of the play that I am writing with Martin

This post will function as a hub for my learning and I will refer to and expand it as I continue to explore these specifics.   Here we go!

Letter to Martin

Here is a reply to an email that Martin sent me about our play:

I think this is dead on.  I’m finishing up the introductory scene to justify the incorporation of fictional characters with “real” people.  I am doing some interesting things with the fruit and Schrödinger’s Cat.  I think together the two paradoxes will help to justify what otherwise could be seen as simply meta-Theater: a term I am not sure I want directly applied to this.  We will have to see, I suppose that will be up to the critics to judge.  I love how loaded you made the scene, it was fantastic.  I wanted to be sure that it wasn’t just me thinking it was funny, so I had the dimmest one of my roommates read a section of it and he was laughing quite a bit, so I think we are dead on in that field.  I don’t think I want to do the Butterfly scene in the beginning.  I think it would play out better latter on.  Your characterization of hamlet works great.  I have some ideas about him being there and not there at the same time that we’ll need to discuss but that idea doesn’t come into the fore till much later, so for now we should be good.

As far as “scene two,” I think that keeping it funny is a good idea.  Perhaps a parallel to the plight of Hamlet occurring among the actual characters would be a good way of illustrating the need for better resolution without needing to have him directly discuss it.  Again the double entendre should work great here.  I’ll get my scene over to you and then this next one that we are working on can kind of tie the two together, so that we can then move on to act 2. 

These are my thoughts,

Bryan

Winter's Tale Analysis of Context

During the interview with Fred Adams he mentioned that to create realistic characters Shakespeare principally visited the pubs and played to his audience.  Since I am analyzing the strategies that Shakespeare employed in crafting his works these contextual details appealed to my interest.  In reading act 3 scene 2 from the “Winter’s Tale” for today, I couldn’t help but recall this conversation and clearly see the connection.  While thinking about this connection I read Max's blog and he had some great insights that helped lead me to this conclusion.