Portrait of Clara (as a chemist)
3 weeks ago
Friday, March 7, 2008
Stunned, exhilarated, gratified, vindicated, proud like a mother hen
A few days ago (Feb 19), I posted about an assignment I'd given my devotional lyric students: to write a devotional lyric, and an essay explaining why it was a devotional lyric. And I am eager to report that their poems are SO JAWDROPPINGLY FANTASTIC that I may do a toe-dance in class next week. The poems are smart, sometimes metaphysical, sometimes heartbreaking, revelatory, and more sensitive to the theories of lyric and of devotional writing that we've been studying for lo these many weeks than I could have hoped. Each student's essay indicates that the successes of the lyrics--the stuff that works really well poetically and argumentatively--is totally intended, and has arisen out of our discussions. In short, I'm feeling very, very pedagogically hot- rocking right now.
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3 comments:
Just what I needed: a story of joy and success in the time of Dread leading up to Spring Break.
I am looking for such joy about now. Congratulations and Thanks!
Oh, man, RG! This is amazing. What good work you must do.
When you first posted about the assignment, I was going to leave a catty comment about what would happen if you asked the average undergrad at my alma mater to write a devotional lyric. It would be something like, "Uh, well, I guess I'm pretty devoted to the White Stripes and skinny jeans. I guess I'll write about that." ...That is what would happen. Unless, of course, these students had as devoted a poet-scholar as yourself in front of them. Hipster Devotional Smackdown, task #546 on the Pedagogical Gauntlet -- you've got it so covered, grrrl.
Rock on.
Yep, you've got it going on, RG, and how very wonderful it is to have something prove out like this. How truly excellent.
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