My feet were so cold, they kept me awake. The wakefulness made me think of my promise to write people cards for old fashioned mail delivery.

The memory of the self-promise directed me to the lovely set of blank note cards my colleague Christy D. gifted me with a few years ago for presenting to her class. I'm pretty sure the presentation was poetry related.

I decided the first card I should write would be a thank you to Christy. After all, I made a point of asking Ms. Brown, our department educational support staff (ESP) member, email me Christy's address on January 22, 2014. It was time I wrote the note!

Here I am post note and warmer feet. I will try sleep again.

From: Mursalata Muhammad <mmmmm@xxxxxxx.edu>
Date: Sat, Feb 1, 2014 at 9:08 AM
Subject: Re: [c11 Students Open ProSem Discuss] Virtual Writing Goals February
Cc: My classmates whose names I do not have permission to post

I wrote from 7:24am - 9am EST now I'm going to the gym! I dreaded opening the comments I received on an LA to find I had let my imagination run all over the wilderness! I counted and categorized the comments -- because I'm weird and found I had…
8 good/excellent comments
3 syntax
1 relocate info
1 explain more
1 confusing wording
1 APA format comment

Besides the being "weird," as a composition teacher, I found it is good to SOMETIMES categorize the feedback you get because it helps you find the habits in your writing. For example, I am not a natural APA person and to find I only had one APA comment tells me I have put enough time into learning and fretting about the style. I am free to move on to other frets:)

So I made it to the walk through for the Committed to Paper exhibit: Master Drawings and Prints by Sculptors January 31 -April 27

Here is what I learned from Joe "docent extraordinaire!"

1. Prints have a 3-6 month exhibit life before they're "put to death" for a few year for preservation

2. Prints require special lighting for preservation

3. Photography policy may be changing but will always restrict flashes - again to preserve the work

4. The collection grew from artists honoring the life of Fred Meijer.

5. Exhibit has works in 3 categories: preparatory preceding works, meditative after the fact works not necessarily related to a specific piece, related works that don't come before or after a particular piece.

6 The labels next to pieces help show artist's relationship with their other works, Fred Meijer, and the sculpture park.

7. Manuel Neri used corrugated cardboard under these preparatory prints to get texture you see in Odalisque I - V

8. Lieberman's work give some indication of Aria. The prints were discovered around time of dress death. They were eventually donated to the exhibit. This collection of prints is rare, as he Lieberman often draw, preferring to work in the spot with his crew.

9. Dietrich Klinge uses small wax 3D versions. Does a lot of projects after the fact of a piece (meditation). He also makes books and has degrees in art and printmaking

10. Hanneke Beaumont does not do preparatory works but spend time creating meditative pieces

11. None of George Segal's prints were done as part of other work, but show relationships within their body of work.

12. Enjoy looking condem, consider, praise

13. This collection is special in sense of having so much of the collection on display: the volume of artist process, as well as, the variety of artist

I'm thinking elephants will be useful for this year's Frederik Meijer Gardens poetry workshops. Just how elephants will help remains to be experienced.

http://www.meijergardens.org/calendar/committed-to-paper-master-drawings-and-prints-by-sculptors/

I've no idea how my "what do you know about war" class writing assignment will turn out. After seeing most of the class standing in somewhat of a befuddled circle, I'm really curios about what they write once we get back to class.



Pt1: What do you think/feel/know about war?



My 5min. response -

I try not to think about war, but I listen to NPR too often not to think about it.I like people like the guy portrayed in the movie "Machine Gun Preacher". When I think about war, I think about saving children.

Pt2: After you visit to Veterans Park, what do you think/feel/know about war?



My 15min. response -

The first image shows a memorial with a quote telling us how to end wars. However, I think it's too simple and clear for us to pull it off.


The second image shows a memorial with two blank sides. It is depressing because it stands as a blank slate waiting to be filled with names of those who will lose their lives in future wars. These blank slates accompany to sides with names of soldiers, one each dedicated to our U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.


War sucks. Now I imagine that if we save all the children from war, we will also save all the people and will not have to use the two blank sides of this memorial.

Opinion...

Parents holding onto leashes attached to children in full upper body harness restraints SCREAM "I have no freaking clue how to raise a human! Please get me help before this child-thing turns 5 and I unleash it into the general population and start sleeping with my door locked!!! I'm an idiot and should've never birthed/adopted/opened that basket left on my doorstep! I'm sorry society; slap me silly and enroll me in a parenting class the next time you see me and my kid-on-a-leash at the mall or anywhere in public!"

Greetings:

Everything about this post is a no-no; however, I accidentally took a nap from about 8:23pm to 11ish and hence I'm awake! After irritating my teenaged daughters with rusty versions of the lullabies they enjoyed in their toddler-hood, I turned to poking around my social media outlets.

Am I glad I did? Yes! I found this wonderful article on linked in about the rising trend of hiring English majors. I posted it on twitter and Facebook then I read the article and was happy me reflexive posting was okay given what I read in the article.

As I read the article, I thought I should post a blog entry about it using my phone even though it only had 13% batter life left (10% now). I liked this challenged even though all aspects if such a writing assignment aggevates my dyslexia... Because the task could potentially tire me enough to go to sleep...and later, after I read what I wrote, I might learn my lesson about taking late evening naps that leave me looking for intellectual stimulation at 2AM.

Click Here for the article.

--summum bonum (my phone now has 4% battery life...goodnight/morning)

It's 6 in the morning; I arrived at the airport 43 minutes ago - officially ending my AP Lang & Comp scoring week. I rode a big luxurious charter bus for the 15-minute ride. It was a weird, surreal, postmodern twilight zone-like experience. However, what has my attention most is the 40-minutes I spent staring at the magazines. I never buy them. I looked at a lot of them, settled on two: O and ESPN the Taboo issue, and walked away with only O. I'll right about that purchase later because I've got to check my bag now.

“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

  A Poem for Concourse: a painting by Mark Sheinkman

Instead God said Be
by Mursalata Muhammad

Creation stories abound
overflowing mind
from every religious angle
making children scream because their choices are
hell, heaven, or nostalgic indifference lost in pining
for a supposed time when neither choice existed
where one man and one woman romped around naked
but didn’t know it
Apparently before heaven, hell, and unashamed naked people
there was nothing
In the beginning
Or
there was everything
which makes more Godly sense
where there is God there has to be everything

So
In the beginning, there was everything
when God woke up or
regained consciousness or
created it
decisions had to be made about the
business of Being
After
too much thought,
planning, and eons of
angel kiss-up suggestions, as they vied for positions with the now conscious God
time, had it existed
slipped away until it invented boredom, which the now conscious God of everything
found annoying such a state developed on Godly watch

In the beginning of a
smoldering thickness of everything
God stood at its midnight middle
looked at the boredom of plans
scrapped them and
Instead said, “Be”
sending everything, not nothing
to the ends of space as “Be’s” sound  
floated in whispering smoky grey-white
tendrils across creation’s blackened richly layered
canvas of everything
endlessly becoming and unbecoming

I'm excited to work with Frederik Meijer Gardens docents. I hope some of them will post their poetry in response to this posting. I look forward to seeing if my poetry workshop for "Connected and Disconnected: The Sculpture of Hanneke Beaumont" helps anyone make poetic connections.

August 7, 2012

Greetings Judge Xxxxx:

We apologize for the lateness of this letter; we were only made aware of X 's August  10, 2012 sentencing date this past Monday. We write to share some pertinent information as you decide his sentencing.  The following point-of-view and information is not an ask for leniency but an ask for consideration of alternative avenues for a young man who has had more limited choices than limitless ones. A prison only choice, at this time in his life, would write X’s life story another version of Etheridge Knight’s poem For Freckled-Faced Gerald.

We are quite sure you have already considered that this (as we understand and are a bit surprised) is his first offense and was committed in the company of an older more criminally seasoned adult. However, have you considered that X has not had many positive alternatives introduced to him during his17-years of his life. His oldest brother had a few more positive alternatives provided by their grandmother. Circumstance allowed my husband and I to assist his second oldest brother a bit more than we could have helped him. Both these brothers are currently employed (one has his GED, one has his high school diploma).

However, circumstance, time, and his parents’ decisions made X's alternatives bleaker than his siblings. The most resent negative alternative visited upon him was his mother’s use of his learning and psychological evaluation to qualify him for SSI benefits instead of follow-up treatment and educational programming that would allow him an opportunity to graduate high school. Over the past year, she has consistently usurped his SSI benefits, providing some fodder for his recent life choices.

One of X’s last encounters with his father, found his father dressed as a woman in an attempt to elude police. Unlike his four other siblings (each of whom have a different biological father), X’s father has never been a positive or consistent part of his life.

If or when you talk to X one-to-one, you may find it surprising that his ability to take ownership for his actions and acceptance that some portion of his life must be given for repayment clear. The biggest point of disagreement you may find won’t be about how much of his life should be given but about where that portion of his life should be lived while he fulfills his sentencing.

You are sentencing X on Friday, August 10, 2012. As you decide on his sentencing, please consider the applicability of prison alternatives that can both serve the purposes of fulfilling his debt for his offense and provide him with alternatives that may empower him to positively change circumstances of his life.

Thank you for your time.

--summum bonum

Mursalata Muhammad & Wil Smith

X's aunt & uncle

Email: XXXXX Cell: XX.XXX.XXXX

After reading Draft Review Memos for the first assignment, I am left ruminating the following thoughts...

1. How do I get my students to see the difference between critical feedback and proofreading (spelling, grammar, style)?

2. How do I get them to understand why the questions used for draft review NEVER ask them to give editing level feedback (spelling, grammar, style)?

3. What the heck do they mean when they refer to "flow"? I have no idea. More than one student wrote something about "flow" in their Draft Review Memo.

4. We need to complete review of the simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence structures ASAP.

5. I am in need of more ways to communicate issues of voice, tone, and creating a thesis statement.

6. They must read more like writers and use models more confidently.

The following open letter resulted from a few coincidental, yet timely events:

First, I was teaching freshman composition students about the letter-writing genre during the winter 2012 semester.

Second, there was interesting Facebook chatter about changing the name of our old high school.

Third, I had recently decided that I needed to provide students with my own personal examples of the writing genres I expected them to write.

These three events came together and I wrote many versions (about four) of the following open letter...

My Revised Literacy Moment: You Can't Swallow Everything You Read!

My first literacy moment came when I was five years-old. This was the about the time I started to read. One day, I found myself searching through my sister’s purse. I was looking for gum. I knew I’d find some because she always had gum! I was so focused and in need of gum that I pretty much forgot a few things… There were two things I was not supposed to do: sneak into my brothers and sisters things and have gum.

Everyone single person in my family knew I was addicted to gum. My mom, who never let me have any, knew I was a lost cause. Worse yet, my 11 older brothers and sisters knew it and they used it against me. They could make me do all sorts of things for gum. I’ve been a human TV remote controller for gum. I’ve done chores no five year-old could really do well. I’ve unlocked doors and windows after curfew; I’ve lied to my parents and other siblings, and taken the blame for broken objects. As I think back, I have images of rolling over, fetching and barking like a dog for gum. It was all worth it because they always came through with a piece of gum. Okay, sometimes it was only a half a piece, but I wasn’t picky.

As I searched through my sister’s purse, the only thoughts in my mind were warm fuzzy images of what kind of gum I might find. I loved all the flavors; I’d accept any brand: Doublemint, Hubba-Bubba, Big Red, Bubbalicious, Trident, Bazooka was extra special because it had a comic I could read. When I got a piece of Bazooka gum, I’d carefully unwrap it, stare at the pictures then sound out all the words. I never really understood the comic, but when I’d read each panel and reached the end, I’d laugh really loud because that’s what you do when you read comics.

Anyway, there I was — a five year-old gum addict rummaging through my sister’s purse like a nervous hyperactive ferret. There was a bunch of junk in there, but all I remember pulling out is a plastic card with her picture on it. I treated it like my Bazooka bubble gum comics; I looked at the picture and then read the words.

I read “Alana” then “Farris.” I read the numbers “231″ and then “East Grand Boulevard.” I recognized the numbers and words were the same as my house and name of my street. I read and recognized my city’s name “Detroit.” I read and did not recognize “Michigan.” I read a bunch of numbers that came after the word “Michigan.” I was really confused because the picture was of my sister. Her name was “WADUDA.” Sure, I couldn’t spell it, but knew I could read it if saw it.

That name was nowhere on the little plastic card. My heart began racing and my hands started to sweat. Why was “Alana” next to my sister’s face and “WADUDA” nowhere to be found? In the instant it took for this thought to form in my mind, everything my brothers and sisters had told me became true.

I was not part of this family.

I was found in the trash, on the doorstep, and at the park.

My real mom didn’t want me and gave me away.

Just as quickly as these thoughts came, they were replaced by some new thoughts that gave me pause to wonder. This could be a good thing since I don’t like my family anyway. They are always picking on me. My “dad” doesn’t even talk about gum and my “mom” NEVER lets me have any. I bet my new real mom would let me have gum. I bet she doesn’t have a thousand kids. The idea that I could have a better family somewhere made me feel hopeful and empowered. I took the new knowledge of what I had read about “Alana-Waduda” to my mom. When I found her, I spoke to her with sincerity, hope and an attitude of no hard feelings.

“Where is my real mom?”

“What?”

“You know, my reeeeaaaalll mommy?”

“Girl, do you see all these damn kids I have? Do you really think I would just go get another one?”

Because my mother NEVER cursed, I knew what she said was true. My literacy moment, in a few words: reading destroyed my identity and my mom gave it right back to me!

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.

"Did you notice the floor?" - Is the other question I think most about when using FMG as our descriptive/observational writing skills classroom.

"How many students notice the shape of the columns?" That is one of the questions I always have when using Frederik Meijer Gardens as our classroom for introducing descriptive writing and observational writing skills.

Greetings:

The Scholarship Letter is due this week. It is the first major writing assignment for my summer freshman composition students and I am most concerned about the students who are not making connections between the steps that are required before they turn in a the final copy to be evaluated.

For exmple, the student who does not see how the study-guide assignments (readings, notes, discussion, proposal, vocabulary) CONNECTS with the quiz (a draft, a draft review session, and a reflective memo on the process) to PRODUCE a final draft ready for evaluating.

How do I get that student pass the basic level of connecting the parts so she/he can move on to focusing on content, development, and awareness of how the WHOLE - Writer, Audience, Purpose, Form (the rhetorical Triangle)?