Hi guys! In class today I mentioned that NW reminded me of Spoken Word Poetry. If yu don't know what that is, here's a link with 2 examples by Sarah Kay. They're each a little over 3 minutes, and they're pretty fabulous.

http://www.ted.com/talks/sarah_kay_if_i_should_have_a_daughter.html

Mark and I are thinking that our next two trips will be, respectively, to a prison and to a museum.
We would like some guidance from you all in planning these two jaunts, as well as the one thereafter:
* do you want to go as one large group to the same space?
* would you prefer to self-organize (to visit some sites we will select, and others which you'll select)?
* what are the advantages/disadvantages of each of these arrangements?

Please post your response as a "comment" --not just a vote, but an explanation of why you think so--before classtime on Thursday--and thanks!

A&M

The Innovating Pedagogy report is an annual overview of edutech from the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University. The 2013 report, the second in the series, selects 10 emerging innovations from the long list of existing technologies which the institute believes have the potential to make a significant impact on education. These are not technologies which are in development or even new, but rather technologies and ideas which are already being effected but have room to expand. The report ranks each innovation in terms of potential impact and timescale for implementation, describes its current application, and then explains the pedagogy behind the innovation and how it could be re-envisioned for maximum impact. One of the final innovations described is the renewed interest in, and revision of, maker culture.

Potential impact: medium
Timescale: medium

In my previous paper I discussed my adventures in Philadelphia (walking around Logan circle and wandering into the Academy of Natural Sciences) and how I acted in a way that exhibited “critical play” according to Mary Flanagan.  Through reflection I eventually realized that what I was actually doing was part of Brian Sutton Smith’s concept of the four different types of play: play as learning, play as power, play as fantasy, and play as self (Flanagan 4).  This past week I realized that, in many ways, teaching is a form of play as power.

For my venture into the city this past weekend I knew I wanted to go to Elfreth’s Alley, because I recognized the name from one of my classes and thought it would be fun to see the oldest continually inhabited street in America, and the Historic District of the city.  I went with Kate and we spent awhile walking around the alley, deciding which houses we would live in if we could and embracing the historical feel of the alley.  Despite how beautiful the walk in the alley was, we quickly found ourselves wanting to find something else to do.  I remembered Kate expressing interest in the Constitution Center and I always find history interesting, so we made our way over to the main part of Old City.  

It was a gorgeous and sunny day this Saturday, and I had had quite a pleasant and relaxing morning sitting in a café, reading, and doodling around with thoughts in my head and on paper. Later I walked to the street corner of the subway station to meet two of the girls with whom I’d come into the city. We were going to wait a while to see if the other girls would catch up with us before we went down into the subway.

We were at the intersection of Market and Fifth Streets, and there were cars and people and tour buses passing on by. At one point, a woman walked towards us, greeting some of the other people on the block walking by us. She came over to us, smiling and exuding cheerfulness, and asked us where we were going. “We’re on our way home,” I said, smiling back at her. She was thin, about my height, wearing faded, well-worn clothes, an army-style hat over her very little hair, and with a satchel strapped across her shoulder. She held a beer can in a brown paper bag in her left hand and had a glassy look in her eye like she was ready to tell us a story.

        Feminism has progressed for centuries with the aim to empower women. As the years went on it has changed with the time period and the mindsets of the women from each era. Women began with the idea of fighting for equality with men and erasing the power disparity. There was a transition to second wave feminism where women forgot about being equal to men and embraced their femininity. They were proud of their ability to have children and breast-feed. There was then a move to our current wave of feminism that focuses very heavily on liberation, finding one’s self and generating that idea of choice. Feminism has changed so much that I think we forgot about why feminism even began. It’s interesting how equality evolved and excluded the many complexities of each individual woman. How can we possibly have feminism if there isn’t a common theme understood across the board? Am I even feminist because I’m questioning your thinking process about feminism? Am I even feminist for trying to justify anyone’s stance on feminism? Feminism is quite complex and delves deeper into the idea of choice and what that means for every single woman including women of all races, socioeconomic backgrounds, sexualities and more.  It must cater to every woman’s complexities with the goal to help her liberate herself.

Reading NW reminds me of this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KstA2ZVYipA

Here are your 8 writing groups for this week. By classtime on Thursday, please read and post a comment in response to your partners’ essays,  reflecting on the ways in which they intersect with and diverge from your own. This is not about “liking,” and certainly not about “correcting”: it’s about using your own work as a lens on theirs, and theirs on yours; it’s thinking about structure and argumentation.

Maya: relational definitions
MargaretRachelRose: how I see myself [in reflection]
shainarobin: sister/sister

Taylor11: fluid identity
vhiggins: rewriting script of female entertainer
Ann Lemieux: ??

EP: fear and self-representation
ccassidy: silence and performance
Amoylan: breaking silence

iskierka: self representation on Tumblr,
pialamode314: self-expression on Facebook
ari-hall: representation of race on BMC website

nia.pike: rebellion from society’s chains
Cat: queer space
sam: identity politics and "speaking for"

Celeste: mimesis in abstract poetry
EmmaBE: gender in Doll’s House
Polly: gender in children’s books

sschurtz: feminist theology
juliah: ecofeminism
Fdaniel: multicultural feminism

Erin McDermott: accessibility
pipermartz: duality of the gaze
kwilkinson: am I too accessible?

This week in Chinatown, I was in a shop looking for a birthday gift. Some girls walked in: they looked like fourteen or fifteen. As they were talking fluently in Chinese about how things were expensive and how much money their parents make, one of them said, “I will start working soon. I will make my own money and I can buy anything I want!” Actually, she used the word “Dagong” in Chinese which specifically indicated to a full-time job which they are too young for. I recalled documentation about Chinese stowaways. They came to US when they were teenagers, they don’t have ID, and they feel lonely. Most of them served in Chinese restaurants for their whole life. Some of them have never left Chinatown. They are never happy about their life but just get used to it. Then why do they come to the States? In the meantime, it raises a question to me: “Why do I come to the States?”

            Although there are many aspects of “playing,” one of the most common representations of being in a “state of play” resides around games and how one “plays a game.” When thinking of playing games, one may think of a board game or a sport, but through the discussions in class and my trips into the city I began to wonder if things such as experiencing a city, or creating art, could also be characterized as playing a game. In Critical Play, Flanagan describes games through the interpretation of Greg Costikyan as an act that is ever changing and is not dependent on a universal set of rules, “Games are inherently non-linear. They depend on decision-making. Decisions have to pose real, plausible alternatives, or they aren't real decisions. It must be entirely reasonable for a player to make a decision one way in one game, and a different way in the next. To the degree that you make a game more like a story--more linear, fewer real options--you make it less like a game.” (7) Based on this definition of play, it appears that anything that involves choice can be distinguished as a game, and that a game that follows the same pattern every time loses its ability to be played. Out of all of the different definitions of play that are presented in Critical Play, I agree most with this view that was shown by Costikyan because it is the one that is most open to each person’s own interpretation of what a game is.