Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

Posted by Tom Fasano on January 31, 2010 – 11:22 pm

I found this interesting short film about Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I plan to use it as part of my poetry unit with bith 10th and 12th graders.


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“The Daffodils” by William Wordsworth (Rap)

Posted by Tom Fasano on January 31, 2010 – 11:14 pm

MC Nuts spits William Wordsworth hip-hop style.

The Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.


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Libraries in Danger

Posted by Tom Fasano on January 9, 2010 – 11:04 am

Can libraries possibly remain relevant in the digital age?

As I see it they won’t survive as repositories of books that people don’t want to own (or reference books nobody can afford). My students don’t even know what’s available in their school library, and the public librarians I’ve spoken to are telling me that patrons are mostly interested in free DVD rentals and the latest Twilight. That’s a strategy for disaster, and to think that these repositories are publicly funded and hardly used is disquieting.

But In a refreshing sense, people are taking the intellectual initiative.

The Web has turned everything upside down. Information is now free. No need to collect taxes to make reference books available in a dusty library. Ultimately I’m encouraged by how aggressive we’ve become in searching for and using information. Let’s continue to knock down the walls (barriers) to learning (and maybe a couple of those old libraries while we’re at it) while transforming our newfangled gadgets into our own personal libraries.


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The Simpsons Hamlet

Posted by Tom Fasano on January 5, 2010 – 11:36 am

The following video is copyrighted material and is used for educational purposes only.

 

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Video: Will E-Readers Kill Books?

Posted by Tom Fasano on January 2, 2010 – 7:56 pm

For the first time, electronic readers like the Kindle outsold printed books on Amazon.com. Some industry experts believe books are perhaps becoming a thing of the past. This Newsy video examines the issue from different perspectives. See transcript.


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