Woot! Woot! Digital Media Club

A lesson on de-centering the classroom. In other words, a lesson on letting my students take over!

The brain has been stormed. The picture says it all. Thank you to the 5 wonderful seniors who LED the digital media club today. I was called away to a meeting and my fabulous 12th graders took the charge and led the group--the first meeting of the group. And you did a better job than I could have imagined. You all absolutely rocked the house and brought an awesome experience to the 9th graders. Can someone say MENTORING? I can't wait to see the awesome films we make together this year. This is such an awesome storm of the brain! ;)

The hand-written notes I was handed after club offer the following ideas for our year: silent movies, skateboarding, video yearbook, underwater movies (really?! hmmm, sad I missed that conversation), open, stand up comedy, skits/acting, modeling, horror, fashion, dancing, true life, imitation, music videos, remakes, documentaries, trips, movies based on books, musicals, series, broadcasting, video time capsule, circle circle dot dot (again, huh?). Anyway, this sounds 'mad' fun.

Next up, planning a Halloween Ball! Films and parties brought to you by the 9th/12th grade digital media club made up of folks with the following aspirations: actress/dancer, music-video producer/lawyer, singer/dancer, model/dancehall queen, photographic journalist, pediatrician, pharmacist, singer/dancer/songwriter/producer/entrepreneur, dunno/actress.

XOXO,

Ms. DJ (the ecstatic 'teacher')

Go 9th Grade/12th Grade Film Club!

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come again, just not on a filmy day! So sad that it's raining because my club is starting today!. Nonetheless, I'm happy that everyone is so mellow in the school today and I think the rain has helped chill us all out. Senior breakfast was sooo nice, even if there weren't that many people there. I enjoyed hanging out with my "darlings" this morning and eating bagels, cream cheese and banana bread. Thanks Chelsea and Cadet (chef extraordinaire) for fattening me up!

So anyway I thought I should blog about this rockin' Digital Media Club I'm starting today. I invited every senior I saw today at the breakfast to join my club. Ahem, 1:30pm on Fridays, 2:30pm on Tuesdays. (Talk to me if you can't meet this time, but still want to learn tech stuff, especially editing with iMovie or FinalCut Pro.) Today I learned that a couple of our quieter seniors are AWESOME with the technology, especially the photography element. I found two, who shall remain nameless, who are awesome awesome photographers...one of them (the quietest!) climbed up on the table at breakfast and started snapping awesome yearbook shots. Hmmm. Talented, talented UAMA students. I adore you.

When I Was Puerto Rican

I started reading Esmeralda Santiago's memoir When I Was Puerto Rican on my way to salsa class last night. By the time I gotten home, I'd read about 40 pages! I loved it and couldn't put it down. For once, I was grateful for a long train ride. The first couple of chapters are so beautiful and lovely, telling stories about her experiences in Puerto Rico as a little girl living in a farming community. The prologue--How to Eat a Guava--was incredibly innocent and pastoral. Esmeralda seemed like such a happy little girl who ate green guavas even before they were ripe and regularly ended up with stomach aches. But as I read on, the tone began to change, Negi (short for Negrita, Esmeralda's nickname signifying her dark skin as a baby) became less innocent. She experienced more of the world and she began to deal with the pain of her parents' constant fighting as well as a lot of moving around--back and forth from city to country. I'm not sure what's up next about Negi's life but I'm looking forward to reading the passionate, beautiful prose, even if it is getting a little bit darker and less light and free. I suppose that means it's more real.

Welcome to 12th Grade Creative Writing

This is my first post in a long time. I was thinking of starting a new blog--to start fresh, clean, get it together. But then, I thought, naaahhh, doesn't really seem important. The stop and start of this blog parallels the stop and start of my writing life. Like many people, my daily life (i.e. painting my apartment literally ALL weekend, though not for the past several months...) tends to get in the way of my writing. I do a crummy job of really getting it together and recording my thoughts on a regular basis. Generally though, I'm much happier when I'm writing. So 12th grade Creative Writing (perhaps my only readers!), let's try this together. I will blog at least 4 times per week and I ask the same of you. You can write about whatever you want. Experience (from those times when I actually wrote regularly) tells me that regularly flexing my writing muscles is an exercise that's at least as effective for building my writing as the gym is for sculpting and toning those non-metaphorical muscles.