I JUST noticed that Julie posted .... I was so busy trying to get the assignment for our class in the lab, I didn't even bother to read before the post. I love when Julie posts cuz it surprises me! I get jolted out of thinking that somehow I own this writing space, whatever that means. I get reminded that writing is a social, collaborative activity...no matter how much we do the act of writing by ourselves or alone. My words do not rest in a vacuum. They are not vacuum-packed, freeze-dried, shelved away to gather dust.

Julie, thanks for asking about Black Poetry Day and the powerpoint show. I love this phrase that you quote...."drone pedagogy." Powerpoint tends to be "drone presentation," in my experience. I think people should have to get licenses to do Powerpoint presentations. So many of them simply show on a screen what they give to you in handouts. D'oh! Why not make use of the technology! Take advantage of the relationship between the screen and the viewer ... there's a gap there. Engage the viewer's mind by contrasting and supporting what goes on the screen and what gets presented through speech. OK. Easy for me to say, since I don't use powerpoint much. Has powerpoint become a verb yet? "The teacher powerpointed us" = "The teacher bored us to tears"??? But Arema Cleveland, who did the design of the powerpoint, did a beautiful job. She split the presentation up into groups like "In the Spirit of family," "In the Spirit of ancestors," "In the Spirit of revolution" -- and ended with "In the Spirit of unity." She chose a sparkly night sky background for most of the poem slides and the background echoed the mini-lights draped on the podium where folks spoke their poems. I worked my butt off getting pictures of poets and example lines or poems. Most of my stuff was older stuff and Arema had some more really contemporary poets. Pretty much everybody said they loved the powerpoint but that it was distracting when the slide changed...so if someone was listening to a poet and the slide changed, attention got shifted from the reader to the slide. Others just said they spent a lot of time reading the poetry, watching the slide show.

I gotta finish getting ready for class. I'm so glad you write on this blog, Julie!!! Reminds me of when we used to write together. I really like writing with other people at the same time. I like doing the timed writing practice/freewriting with class. I've got the prompt for today. I've decided to do the Explaining a Concept essay with the class cuz I can use that to explain the concept "blog"....eeek! I don't want to have a draft by next Thursday. Hmm....where have I encountered that kind of resistance before? Ah, yes. Any time I have a writing deadline......