Wednesday, November 3, 2010

En 12 Check-in: 03 Nov 2010

It has been a while since we posted to the blog.  Please comment on the process of creating your slam poem.  You can discuss anything associated with the process.  What interested you; what scared you; what frustrated you; what spoke to you; et cetra?  I'm looking for a thoughtful and reflective comment - think "meta cognition."

23 comments:

  1. I had three made now i have one all the other ones were not good enough but the one now is alright still not done yet and i think it has been a really hard to make these poems not that there hard to make for some people i just cant write poetry.

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  2. I had slam poem made then i was told not have it anymore, so i had to make another one. And i didnt finish it and i also left it at home today. Now im not handing it in and getting no mark for it because today is the deadline for all homework to be done. Mr. Marshall is putting in the report cards on friday. so yea. I really hate poetry, its frusterating and nothing spoke to me.

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  3. I found this process really difficult as i usually only write poems when i want and how i want. In this case, we had to write a poem in a time constraint and it had to be a certain type of poem, one that i really like,, but had never tried before. So after many attempts of writing about something less personal and something more about things i didnt care about, i just gave in and wrote a personal poem that i normally wouldnt say in front of the class willingly.

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  4. I liked writing slam poetry more than other types of poetry because it doesn't have as many guide lines. There is no limit of lines or how many times you have to rhyme. It's also pretty personal because I wrote about something that i'm passionate about. What frustrated me was trying to get double meanings out of words which I could only do once or twice. Overall slam poetry is a more interesting and exciting type of poetry.

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  5. I enjoyed writing slam poetry, however I found it to promote a certain style of writing and/or thinking. I honestly found a lot of slam poems began to sound the same after a while, some of them just being a sort of idle boasting on a topic without a great deal of meaningful depth. This could be because it tends to promote a more obvious style of wordplay, which is not necessarily weaker, but simply more difficult to create in a non simplistic manner. I get the feeling, perhaps correctly, or perhaps incorrectly, that slam poems are more suited to humor or emotional embellishment and satisfaction than to intellectual discourse, but I certainly wouldn't discount their capacity for it either.

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  6. I thought that it was really hard to begin writing slam poetry, i didn't know how to begin writing or what i could write about that included most meaning to me. However, I thought it was a lot easier that other types of poetry. I enjoy writing about my feelings on a certain topic and getting your point across without having to follow some sort of specific outline.

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  7. I found writing slam poem to be interesting, some parts were hard like elaborating on certain words that might provide distractions from what i am trying to say. However i like how it made me really think and express feelings with each word, I found myself trying to find a different word because the one i had didn't seem appropriate for its positioning. Since i had lost my first poem i had to start a new one which helped re-new fresh ideas that might have slipped by when i wrote the first poem.

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  8. Any poetry to me is frustrating. Writing my slam poem was just the same. I found it really hard to find something that I wanted to write about. Then when I found that thing, the writing went very slowly. Although Im not saying I have negative views on poetry. I really like reading poetry. The poems that Shane read to us were all funny and I really enjoyed hearing them, but I think I can safely say, Im not going to be a poet.

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  9. Joseph McKay the 5thNovember 3, 2010 at 9:20 AM

    During the process of creating my slam poem I found myself swimming in a pool of frustration. Before I came up with my final piece of work, which I think is terrible, I had completed 2 even worse pieces. Poetry has always been pretty difficult for me but this task was especially trying. When Mr.Marshall told me to use the topic of something I loved I thought it would be easy. I was very wrong. I have learned that, in my opinion, writing about something you are actually passionate about is terribly hard because no matter what you write down, the words never do it justice.

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  10. There is a sort of exhilarating feeling I get when trying something new, something that challenges me and writing slam poetry was no different. Some people cripple themselves with fear when faced with a new challenge but that is not a good strategy for facing things in life. The hardest part about writing my slam poem was thinking of the subject, because really what am I (a seventeen year old male) passionate about? I realized that the answer was nothing. So I decided to write about what I knew best, being "under the radar" of society. The ideas after that came easily because if you do find a topic that you truly care enough about to spend three hours writing a poem on, then you will be flowing with decent ideas. The most frustrating part of this entire process is the fact that I am going to have to share some of my raw emotions to my peers. However, I realize that in life one has to remove oneself from their comfort zones. Furthermore, I enjoyed the fact that I ended up learning something about myself. I learned that when presented with a challenge I do not turtle I end up putting as much effort, into overcoming that challenge, as I would put into something I care about. This was an enjoyable experiment and I am happy with the results.

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  11. The process of creating a slam poem, was not enjoyable. Because in the past years we haven't really had to write to a certain criteria, it makes the task of doing so more difficult. I would never on my own write a slam poem. For me the process of creating this piece was drawn out to the point where it became frustrating and seemed like one of the greatest wastes of time. But of course this is my opinion and I'm sure someone would think the opposite. Having to come up with something that your more or less passionate about is difficult when you have to write a slam poem about it. Mainly because there really aren't many things today that I feel strongly passionate about. I found it very frustrating to take something and turn it into slam poetry, by doing so turns the piece into something completely different with a meaning that is not at all what was intended.

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  12. Writing a slam poem for me was a refreshing experiance for me because it branched off from the more technical side of learning, and helped me learn in a more relaxed, creative enviroment. The only thing that frightened me was having to muster the courage to read in front of my peers. Although with practice I read my poem in front of close friends as my confidence grew. When discussing in class Mr. Marshall told us to speak about something that were passionate about, which helped ease the frustration, and made me become more open to expressing my feelings. Now, looking at my final piece of work I am very proud of what I came up with. I really hope we will get a chance soon to dive into some more creative pieces.

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  13. When Mr. Marshall first introduced this project, I was quite intimidated. Poetry is already one of those gray area subjects that the student finds hard to share or even write and the teacher has a hard time marking. So having the addition of a relatively new form of poetry I have no experience with added in made it all the more ominous. It took me a class and a half of staring at a blank page to even start. I had to find a subject that I didn't only felt strongly about, but that I also felt comfortable sharing in front of the class, which isn't the easiest combination to find. Unlike Timo and Taylor I only wrote one poem and am more or less pleased with it. Also, unlike Taylor I find that writing about something you are passionate about is always better. I believe this because when I try to write about things I don't care about they fall flat and seem fake. In the end this assignment was trying, I had to pry out the allusions and double entendres but the end result is something resembling a slam poem. I really enjoy slam poetry and know that I can only improve in my own writing. I look forward to hearing what all my classmates have prepared.

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  14. Creating A slam poem was no easy task for me. I have no problem when writing free verse or other types of poetry we have studied well. However to me it seems we hadn't gone into "What is slam poetry" as we had done with the other types of poetry in pervious years, So when I came to write it I really had trouble with giving my poem that slam feeling. Although my poem is complete, to me it still seems unfinished and that there is still parts missing.

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  15. I can't figure out if my lack of fear about reading out my work to the class is due to arrogance or self confidence. I guess they're basically the same thing.

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  16. I definitely agree with Rowan about how slam poetry often seems to be "idle boasting on a topic without a great deal of meaningful depth". After learning so much about using words to get my point across from the 1984 unit, this seemed to be a few paces in the other direction for me. I had, what I found, to be a good poem with the meaning, and the feeling I wanted it to have. I soon realized that slam poems have to fit a criteria in word play, and after integrating the multiple meanings for words, the desired tone of my slam poem was lost and I no longer enjoy the poem I wrote. I think I'll stick to pros or plain poetry from now on, but experimenting with slam poems was an interesting experience.

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  17. It was easy :) i made and finished my first one during the discussion about it, then lost it.. so i made a similar one and it turned out better :D i just enjoy writing poetry and i also heard a couple pieces from other people and i think they're just fantastic. I also love the way that a piece that you start out with gets twisted and complicated and it gives you a new idea :D but then i find myself adding more complicated rhymes to my piece just to make sense of it all. I <3 POETRY

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  18. Well, Rowan I believe you don't fear reading in front of the class because you know either internally or externally that you will intimidate everyone else to the point where they feel they have to like yours. However, I am on to your ploy and now everyone else who reads this is too.

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  19. my first slam poem was a bit frail after i looked for a bit i found that i could improv my poem more by reading over and finding what works if only if that was that easy but it is not and that makes that frusterating
    for me to make a poem. I would have to agree with what Timo and charles
    that this asinment is hard

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  20. Well it seems to be working out for me anyway.

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  21. I found it kind of hard to write my poem because I just found it hard to think of the literary devices to put into my poem and what I was going to write down.

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  22. To be honest I was to Scared/frustrated to be interested in my poem. And the only thing that spoke to me was a voice in my head that said Runaway. On the other hand it was interesting to see others slam poems, but for me it was a bit frightening to see some poems like Rowan's for example. For me the most frustrating thing was that I couldn't think of a good topic, at first thought i would write about Anime but when I put pencil to paper I didn't know where to start. :(

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  23. I also, like becky, had troubles finding something I could write about. There were many topics I wanted to write about, but all seemed too close to me to share with the class. This being said, I eventually found a topic that I'm passionate about that isn't hard for me to say in front of my peers.

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