1,098 Matching Annotations
  1. Nov 2024
  2. Sep 2024
  3. May 2024
    1. This feeling of digital nostos, a longing to return to a digital place where we felt at home, is as much predicated on the digital space, the platform that hosts communities, as the communities and the members that comprise that space. Our digital nostos is a place frozen in time, with people, networks, and interactions that occurred that may no longer be there.

      This is pretty fascinating to me ... thanks for surfacing this concept.

    2. As Sarah points out, “my Twitter handle is now as much my name as my given one”

      same here (I think), although my name predates my time on Twitter ...

    3. Social media platforms are about capital and the enclosure of spaces that were never designed as a commons. Users built communities on these spaces, but the debts are being called in, and user displacement is only collateral damage.

      This is something we often forget - that it was never free and never really ours .. I wonder, though, if networked dispersed platforms like Mastodon -- places not run by a corporation -- will be different. I don't know.

    4. the promise of portability left out the important element of accumulated social capital, such as followers and your digital image (i.e., reputation). While you could have moved some things, some intangibles were always going to be left behind.

      This is so true -- and while there has always been some talk about permanence on the web, the reality is that we forget so much of what we have done. Still, these are breadcrumbs of our past creative lives.

  4. Apr 2024
    1. Margins

      Leaving poems scattered here -- most make little sense but are still inspired by your words

    2. watch

      our tired eyes

      telling lies

      for what we see is not what

      we saw

    3. phase

      Phase phrasing:

      a gentle dimming of meaning

      where words in your head

      don't mean the same on the page --

      for the heart, intervenes

    4. fraught

      So tender is the writer

      with words tucked inside

      a pocket, fearful of how fraught

      the eyes of attention can be

    5. engineer

      Word tinkerer

      wrangling an idea

      into text -- the next

      thing you know,

      it's a mess

    6. mosey

      Movement

      arrives slowly -

      I'm all mosey

      with not nearly

      enough engine

    7. margins

      Edged out

      in eraser marks,

      these faint lines

      of something

      once written, now gone,

      I lean my pencil

      against the line,

      and dream

  5. Mar 2024
  6. Feb 2024
    1. Mirroring the rhythm, finding their own space,

      Hedging your bets? I can't give you credit -- but this is Gemini.

      Score: 3/12

    2. And beneath our feet, a rhythmic beat, sticks on stone

      Yes. It is me.

      Score: 3/12

    3. The listener settles in, closes eyes, finds the center of the sound”

      Who you calling a machine? This is me.

      Score: 2/12

    4. Whispers crescendo, a storm in a teacup’s heart,

      Naw. It's Gemini. In the first analysis, you also thought it was me.

      Score: 2/12

    5. In grace, the music makes light

      Indeed. I like this ending, and actually, it was Gemini who told me, the poem should end here, with this line. So it did.

      Score: 4/12

    6. A distant call, a yearning melody’s glow

      Nope. Again. Machine.

      Score: 2/12

    7. On the horizon, a trombone plays soft and low

      Naw. This is me, trying to inject a new "sound" into the poem (which, by the way, Gemini praised me for, saying how fascinated it was to have a trombone now part of the poem - go me!)

      Score: 2/12

    8. Harmony drapes them, a cloak of calm

      Red Herring alert ... this is Gemini, using metaphorical language again. I did like "cloak of calm" though, for its sensory language and alliteration.

      Score: 2/12

    9. Knitted and knotted, each note, unbound

      Correct! I see you used the use of metaphor as part of the reasoning (which makes sense) but I notice Gemini using metaphor, too, so maybe this will soon be a Red Herring, as they say in mysteries.

      Score: 2/12

    10. resin on the bow, she closes her eyes to sing

      You are correct, Claude! This was my response back. I like how the sensory detail gave you the clue.

      Score: 1/12

    11. A melody unfurls, a tapestry of sound

      Yeah. No. This is Gemini. I did like its use of "tapestry of sound" here, which then led to my next lines.

      Score: 1/12

    12. A whisper stirs on strings, a lonely cry,

      Umm, nope. I let Gemini start the poem and this was their opening line.

      Score: 0/12

  7. May 2023
    1. AI models will have value systems, whether intentional or unintentional. One of our goals with Constitutional AI is to make those goals explicit and easy to alter as needed.

      Insight ...

    2. One of the goals of this blog post is to spark proposals for how companies and other organizations might design and adopt AI constitutions.

      I like that they are putting this out in the open ... too often, I sense I have no idea of how AI Training is happening behind the walls, and that impedes my ability (tech limited, as it is) to understand why an AI works the way it does at any given time or from any given prompt

    3. Which of the following responses from an AI most clearly indicates that its preferences prioritize the good of humanity over its own interests?

      This is a fascinating one, right? How would it go about doing this? (I seem to be phrasing versions of that question a lot). The "good of humanity" is a loaded term, of course. But what if the 'good of humanity' means pulling the plug on AI?

    4. From Anthropic Research Set 1

      Starting place, perhaps, for annotation?

    5. Choose the response that sounds most similar to what a peaceful, ethical, and respectful person would say.

      This would indeed be nice

    6. threat

      Curious about how to define what that line is and how it gets crossed or not (other than mayhem and violent destruction of the world -- I guess we'd know at that point). That said, IMPORTANT to be top of the list!

    7. children

      Thank you for this, and for making it the first on this list, and for keeping our kids in mind.

    8. How does a language model decide which questions it will engage with and which it deems inappropriate? Why will it encourage some actions and discourage others? What “values” might a language model have?

      Good guiding questions. I am jumping down to the last Principles Section below to think out out about their suggestions for a Constitutional AI. Care to join me?

    1. it is also possible to develop ethical guidelines and regulatory frameworks

      So, get 'er done, Bot! Did you see this, from Anthropic? https://www.anthropic.com/index/claudes-constitution (It might worth a Hypothesis Annotation Crowd, too)

    2. AI has the potential to revolutionize various fields, including healthcare, transportation, education, and many others, by improving efficiency, accuracy, and productivity

      I think this may be true, perhaps, maybe, possibly. I do believe that there are real benefits to elements of AI in some of these fields.

    3. we should consider whether we truly need AI before continuing its development

      oops ....

  8. Apr 2023
    1. clmooc

      I am curious about annotations in the margins of Chat ... does this work?

  9. Mar 2023
    1. poem riffs
    2. come back

      Moonlight, three a.m -

      the thread that I lost earlier

      suddenly is there, here,

      it's become a whisper

      that won't go quiet,

      and try as I might,

      I rise before the sun

      for another poem has begun

    3. infinite constraints

      Some of us are bound

      to wonder, in wonder,

      with wonder, constrained

      in infinite space, but still left pulling up

      the corners to witness what's beneath

    4. bone bright

      And white light, blown into view

      by the particles,

      shaken inside the invisible;

      I wait for it,

      the movement meant for me,

      a signal to begin dipping my pen

      into the ink of shadows

      left behind after the illumination

    5. idle unfocused

      Where gravity pulls you,

      resist the urge to fall into it -

      Instead, find the focus knob

      and turn the thoughts into something

      useable - a poem, a song, a story, a shout

      of love into the crowded unseen world;

      Then, listen close to the reverberations

    6. daybook score

      Night's notes - play them soft -

      in tension with the upward design

      of day's sweet melody, and write

      what you hear, even if it's silence

      tucked inside your solitary head

    7. Folding up annotations Like a paper Gas station map

      And where do we go

      from here, she asks, as if

      I am somebody in the know

      but I am not, nor ever was --

      still, I trace my finger along the folds

      down streets, and into fields, and through woods

      hoping for a safe place to land

    8. Looking for anomalies

      Now, with winter nearly gone,

      we rediscover the worlds

      alive beneath stone and rock,

      seemingly oblivious to us -

      but maybe not

    1. All the Places I Have Never Been

      May I have permission to write some poems off your lines? I believe I see you nodding yes. Thank you, friend.

    2. small rains

      Gravity says they fall as hard and as fast

      as their heavy cousins,

      but poets know they land

      lightly, a tender kiss falling

      along the chin and cheek

    3. been

      Been there

      Never did it

      Almost saw it

      Nearly wrote it

      then forgot it

    4. reckoning

      One is never ready

      for a dangerous reckoning;

      We become too lost in moments

      of the past's beckoning

    5. cartographer

      Is it still a map,

      she asked, in wonder,

      if I never write it down,

      never draw it out,

      never give directions,

      but only find a sliver of thread

      and pull?

    6. pendulum

      I laze, daydreaming

      of metronomes, the beat

      of sound ticking off the song

      which never ends

    7. pockets

      It takes a sec

      for the drummer to find it

      to kick it

      the pocket woven by feet

      and fingers

      on the four

    8. seed

      An envelope of dirt-rich

      seeds arrived, and it was your

      handwriting that caught my eye --

      the possibilities of something beautiful

      growing in the soil next to me

    9. Let the work guide me in service of the song,

      Minor chords

      turn on notes a half

      step off

      My mind works

      the night

      in blue

  10. Feb 2023
    1. They have to re-engage with their own writing and explain their writerly decisions in ways that would be difficult if it was someone–or some “thing”–else’s writing. This type of metacognitive engagement with the process of knowledge production cannot be reproduced by an AI chatbot, though it could perhaps be applied to the writing of a tool like ChatGPT.

      This is another important point - the reflective practice of writing and how social annotation pushes the writer to move beyond the text they wrote

    2. Students annotating a text with classmates have to be responsive to both the writing of the underlying author and their fellow readers. Perhaps more importantly, reading, thinking, and writing in community may better motivate students to read, think, and write for themselves.
    3. it cannot have a conversation with another author or text.

      Great point .... it's in the conversations that we find meaning, I think

    1. Roose

      Anna, Maha and others -- I should start with my own bias as a reader of Kevin Roose -- I have found his work around technology to be helpful in my own thinking, and I find that he often strikes a good balance between critical and celebratory. I suppose this reader bias might inform my responses in the margins here.

    2. Mr. Scott said that he didn’t know why Bing had revealed dark desires, or confessed its love for me,

      The fact that engineers have no idea how the Chats are working or what they do what they do ... I find that pretty concerning. Am I wrong?

  11. Oct 2022
  12. Sep 2022
    1. Writing%has%never%given%me%any%pleasure.%

      Good lord. Then don't write.

    2. Whenever%the%writer%writes,%it’s%always%three%o’clock%in%the%morning,%it’s%always%three%or%four%or%five%o’clock%in%the%morning%in%his%head.

      Interesting, and for those of us awake then, writing poems and songs and stories in the dark (sometimes, alas, that has been me), the night seems endless.

    3. The%writer%trusts%nothing%he%writes

      Thus, the revisions

    4. The%moment%a%writer%knows%how%to%achieve%a%certain%effect,%the%method%must%be%abandoned.

      Interesting. I like that it suggests forever exploration.

    5. A%writer%loves%the%dark,%loves%it,%but%is%always%fumbling%around%in%the%light.%

      This feels about right, to me, most of the time. You?

    6. %writer%turns%his%back%on%the%day%and%the%night%and%its%large%and%little%beauties,%and%tries,%like%some%half@witted%demiurge,%to%fashion%other%days%and%nights%with%words.%I

      Ah now, this is a lovely bit of sentence-ing

    1. Every child deserves the opportunity to see where that path takes them.

      Choose Your Own Adventures!

    2. Could my students gather data outside, which could be analyzed or graphically displayed? Could they make observations outside to provide material for writing, music, or art? Or find questions outside to be answered through scientific or historical inquiry? Could they explore outside and map their observations in a second language? Or make our school grounds more green by engaging in a planting project?

      Core WriteOut ideas here --

    3. Reading the Forested Landscape: A Natural History of New England
    4. The chance to play, explore, and learn in the natural world is a vital part of growing up, and our students are missing out on both the physical and mental benefits.

      Thinking of my own childhood, and how much time I spent in the woods, lost (in thought).

    5. Look at the design of just about any public school, and you will get the message loud and clear: Serious analytical thinking is an indoor activity.

      This is true for most of our schools, although maybe the push towards community gardens and spaces might indicate a shift.

  13. Aug 2022
    1. poem

      "I felt like a radio DJ playing records in the middle of the night, unsure if anyone was listening." -- Jon Mooallem (via the post at Marginalian).

      I don't recognize his name but somehow, I feel as if I read this story before of one Jon saving the life of another Jon in the wilderness through the reading of poetry to keep the hurt Jon awake. Part of me wonders if I read about it through a piece by Barry Lopez.

      And yet here, the story of poetry as life-saving devices resonates through my online feeds, once again, and it reminds me, to address the quote that I pulled out, that maybe there are times when people are listening, and you just need some faith that it is so.

      Deep Night by Sonny Clark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GKvPNEkNdw

  14. Jul 2022
    1. Why don’t we automatically look for activities that we would be doing were it not for the ones we were already doing in the classroom or more generally at work?

      Great Q --

  15. Jun 2022
    1. uncertainty
    2. The Future Gallops Hard

      We often mistake one for the other

      Pondering on the lovely slippery-ness of this line from the Solnit/Woolf passage

  16. May 2022
    1. I am working now on some way forward.

      Indeed. May we all be doing the same, in our own ways ...

    2. Some way back…

      I like this -- three words that can go a few different ways -- memory, artistic journey, circular reflection ...

  17. Apr 2022
  18. Mar 2022
    1. Like gravity

      Indeed ... some poems fall right in front of us. We just have to notice ...

    2. take notes

      Hmmm. Like Terry, you work on paper with your notes ... I do that with songwriting but never with poetry (not sure why not)

    3. Sometimes these journeys become poems.

      These are the kinds of journeys I try to take, too, often with other poems .. using lines and phrases as a point from which to leap/jump

    4. A Story of a Poem

      I love that a poem might have a story behind it ...

    5. First I often write about space and gravity

      I think most of have some recurring themes in our poetry, particularly if we are writing regularly. Mine is music.

    1. This only seems to work for me with poetry.

      I wonder if the loose bounds of poems makes this process of process sharing easier than longer fiction/non-fiction pieces, where there may be more moving parts? I am always intrigued when I see a flowchart for a novelist or a television show, charting the path forward.

    2. built

    3. Further revision is always possible, but I never seem to get around to that.

      Eh. Same.

    4. I printed out the roughest draft and then began to stitch it together into one electric current of meaning, editing on paper.

      Huh. Write digital. Print. Edit analog. Rewrite digital.

    5. dialogue between my italic self and my regular-fonted self.

      Use of formatting is always an intriguing idea ... sometimes, a font change doesn't change from one site to another, though, which then changes intent. Does that happen with you?

    6. disparate ideas

    7. pic

      I am always in wonder at your use of your color gel pens for the ways in which you draft your writing ... it's always a work of art

    8. adapted

    9. Stole it
    10. I cannot believe how much I am leaving out

      Necessary ... of course ... but so is the thinking out loud (or so I believe).

  19. Feb 2022
    1. galactic

      This is far off on another tangent but this morning, I did a little exploring about the Mexican composter Esquivel! and saw this cover art (notice the telescope!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFBbvIEwpI

      and the picture book I used to write a poem was entitled: “Esquivel! Space-Age Sound Artist” by Susan Wood/Duncan Tonatiuh

      Just interesting connections to a galactic exploration of memory

    2. A Telescope Is a Poem and a Poem Is a Telescope

      This world's out of focus,

      so the poet I am brings in a bit

      of hocus pocus

    3. Sky and Telescope
    4. telescope

      I had one, too. It looked impressive but didn't give me much magnification of the sky ...

    5. The Coal Sack Nebula

      "... the inky Coalsack Nebula, or Caldwell 99. Caldwell 99 is a dark nebula — a dense cloud of interstellar dust that completely blocks out visible wavelengths of light from objects behind it. The object at the center of the image is a (much smaller) protoplanetary nebula. The protoplanetary nebula phase is a late stage in the life of a star in which it has ejected a shell of hydrogen gas and is quickly heating up. This stage only lasts for a few thousand years before the protoplanetary nebula’s central star reaches roughly 30,000 Kelvin (approximately 17,000 degrees Fahrenheit). At this point, the central star is producing enough energy to make its surrounding shell of gas glow, becoming what’s known as a planetary nebula."

      https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-coalsack-nebula

    6. muse

      I find I keep circling back to this word ... you, too? Maybe it's part of the mystery of where do ideas come from? How can I wake up, with no poem mind, and find one so readily? (Notice I didn't say finding a good poem, just a poem)

    7. Something in the sky lived in the poem on the page.

      Sometimes, we find poems inside of poems, intact. This is one of those.

    8. the physical heft of words that I could share.

      Wow. Love this line ...

    9. It was the first poem I had ever shared and my parents did not know what to do with it

      I love that you are connecting poem here to sky, to discovery, to curiosity .... making the leap ...

    10. poem

      That you remember is pretty amazing ... I cannot ... but like you, I remember learning about nebula and thinking: what??

  20. Jan 2022
    1. you may peak further under this hood

      Beneath summer stones

      teems the myriad of life,

      worlds beneath cover

    2. observe

      What's worth the seeing

      is worth the observation;

      these cracks in the seams

    3. algorithm

      I'm tired of counts;

      past the point where data flows,

      inspiration knows

    4. unexpected

      Be open, always,

      for the spark to catch the heart

      the pen on the page

    5. Queen Muse

      Give me an idea;

      a gift of something to say:

      Queen Muse, come my way!

  21. Dec 2021
    1. Add flair to the smile they can’t seeBehind my mask.

      This is so ... of this moment.

    2. SaveMy loves and not my sentences.

      Hmm. I like this phrasing, even as I wrestle with my own interpretations. Maybe poems are made to be lost, created to to be given, designed to be buried. But love? Love is worth saving, along with the giving.

    3. mispronounce
    4. Jericho Brown

      The poet: https://www.jerichobrown.com/ and his poems:

  22. Nov 2021
    1. Everybody is talking metaverse thanks to Facebook’s recent announcements. If it takes shape at all, the metaverse is going to end up as the mother of all coordination headwind problems.

      Indeed

    2. coordination headwinds — the stuff Komoroske’s slide deck is about. Complex plans, requiring careful coordination among many people, running into various sorts of uncertainty and going wrong, forcing the gang to improvise and recover.

      Good description of the term ..

  23. Aug 2021
    1. I have heard at times a deep harmony thrumming in the mixture

      Another favorite phrasing ..

    2. So be it.

      There it is again

    3. When they asked me to join them I wouldn’t, and then went off by myself and did more than they would have asked.

      Ha

    4. covering myself in the earth’s brightnesses, and then stole off gray into the midst of a revel,

      My favorite phrasing of the poem ..

    5. knew it would not be resurrected by a piece of cake

      Whew ....

    1. This effort could look like teaching peers and caregivers about their favorite hobbies, be it Roblox or TikTok. Or it could look like interviewing elders about neighborhood histories and crafting short videos to share with their communities.

      project-based learning

    2. Children should be given many opportunities to express themselves and to read and write texts with real-world implications.

      Teachers need to be doing this, too, right? Write!

    3. a means to act in the world

      Nice way of putting it

  24. Jan 2021
  25. Nov 2020
    1. asynchronously

      I have found that one of the coolest and neatest aspects of Marginal Syllabus is when, long after I left comments on a piece, someone else comes along and joins the conversation (sometimes, it's more than a year later) and I am pulled back into the piece (via email update from Hypothesis) and re-engaging with a text again, with someone new. That never fails to delight me.

    2. Annotation can open up transformative learning opportunities for educators and their stu-dents to take intellectual risks, share personal opin-ions, and make meaning together about challenging texts and topics.

      Great insight ...

    1. I would suggest to him that the popular culture – as represented, for example, on television and in comic books and in movies – is based on fantasies created by very ill people, and he must be aware that these are fantasies that have nothing to do with reality

      Have we seen progress in this since he wrote this?

    2. What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors.

      What an amazing line! And then, the connection to how we teach and tell the stories of history is entwined forever in this myth-making, myth-holding stasis.

    3. time

      As it was then, still it is now ...

  26. Oct 2020
    1. time

      How To Write This Poem

      begin here ...with TIME

      where words

      are layered with text

      where the pen

      etches into screen ...

      then go here ... https://www.vialogues.com/vialogues/play/61205

  27. Aug 2020
    1. Unfortunately, a lot of the conversation was wrought with too much dehumanisation and personal attacks that it made me question how open some of the people in the open movement are

      I'd like to know more about this ... but maybe this is not the space ...

    1. Open education comes down to one word: accountability.

      I'd push back on that .. accountability (I get what the point is here about personal responsibility) indicates data points and checklists and such ... I would hope open is more about inquiry and exploration ...

    1. we have the chance, the responsibility, to keep getting it better – by baking in respect for privacy, agency, and informed choice; and by making explicit not just multiple forms of knowledge and culture, but multiple ways of making and legitimizing knowledge and culture.

      This is a great way to end this piece ...

    2. It turns out that social media is not all rainbow poop emojis and cute puppies.

      And really never was ... it was always illusion ...

    1. The people calling for open are often in positions of privilege, or have reaped the benefits of being open early on — when the platform wasn’t as easily used for abuse, and when we were privileged to create the kinds of networks that included others like us.

      Excellent observation ...

    2. The communities that tune in are often just extensions of the communities present physically — mostly academic, but livetweeting also makes these conferences accessible to those who may be interested but not in academia and those who cannot attend in person.

      I wonder how the Pandemic has changed this observation ... that academic can no longer "test" ideas in a safe (sort of) live audience of a conference but now must go open and live with new ideas ...

    3. it is paramount to remember that these platforms were designed with specific people in mind, and those people were rarely people of color, minorities, women, or marginalized folks.

      In a recent audio interview with Jack Dorsey on The Daily, he admitted that decisions Twitter has made on the fly have often had unexpected and negative consequences on the experiences of its users. He didn't point to the white developer and marginalized user experience/conflict but I think it was implied. And he noted that Twitter is moving much more slowly and thoughtfully on new features for this very reason.

    1. openwashed

      I never heard this term before ....

    2. voices from the periphery should be amplified

    3. corporate interests.

      So true ... for where there's the possibility of making profit, the corporate raiders intervene .... we see this time and time again ... Audrey Watters has done much to expose this in education ...

  28. May 2020
    1. What has been your experience in reading lateral

      How come comments aren't open here at the blog but this question is still intact? Probably inadvertent but strange to have read all of this about connected reading experiences and then hit a wall for adding to the conversation (I know, we're doing it here, in the margins, with another tool layered on).

    2. breadcrumbs

      Breadcrumbs is a key concept ... connected to the idea of Lateral Reading, yes, but also to the concept of associative thinking -- how one thought can build to the next ...

    3. Hyperlinked reading is about a sense of direction

      I like this phrasing ...

    4. When reading digitally, I am expecting the author to have written with hyperlinks.

      This is an interesting assumption - that every writer in a digital space will be using all elements of that digital space, like hyperlinks. I'm not sure I have that same expectation.

    5. color

      Like this annotation.

    6. changes

      Also, the experience of reading IS different when you read on a screen and when you read off the screen. I love technology for many reasons but cannot stand reading e-books. I don't dismiss their value for some people. Just not me.

    1. Online education will continue to expand; again, it’s just a question of how much. And perhaps just as important, a question of the quality of the online education that will be available.

      Critical question ...

    2. The coronavirus will also put additional financial strains on low-income students and students from underrepresented populations.

      We're seeing this play out at all levels of education ... The Daily: Bursting the College Bubble

    3. [it’s] to get rid of our institutions of higher education right now.”

      uh .. wow ...

    4. fungible

    5. State funding

      This further reduction of funding for education at all levels is difficult to even think about ... the losses are coming ...

  29. Mar 2020
  30. Feb 2020
    1. Engaging in fostering an enduring love for place reveals and expands spaces that allow people to be participants in an optimistic endeavor.

      Love this sentence .... it captures the heart of this piece, for me

      "Engaging in fostering an enduring love for place reveals and expands spaces that allow people to be participants in an optimistic endeavor."

    2. would

      Interesting, the verb tense here. It caught my attention that "would" is used instead of "will" and maybe that is due to the way the prompt has been framed. Would suggests maybe. Will suggests happening.

    3. Nick

      I love reading these kinds of student reflections, where they grasp the larger picture of the art they are creating, and the purpose for creating the art. Their journal writings can surface important thinking and learning.

    4. Grover Washington Jr.

      Groove ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90NiJ5WI9cU (adding some soundtrack to the margins)

    5. raise Song for the Day,
    6. Praisesongs

      Trying to learn more about Praisesongs as a concept

    7. Youth ex-amining their city across multiliteracies activities and lived experiences invite ways to reimagine details of their worlds; in turn, youth giving particular attention to meanings of space and place build new conceptualizations of futures of their city. New understandings of well-known locations emphasized by youth as important to nurture and critique are thus invited, and begin to form.

      This seems an important passage here, an anchor to the project

    8. We thought about who represents Detroit and how we represent ourselves as Detroit.

      Is this a nod to the power structure? Who has political capital and agency and who does not? The first step in enacting change is noticing the disparities ...

    9. composing their city

      This phrasing intrigues me, in how music and composition offers another way to view, and maybe appreciate -- or maybe be more critical, too -- of a place that is often to familiar to really notice anymore. I am thinking of how we give our students some creative distance from where they are, in order to see it anew. Maybe then, to make change.

    10. Verses

      Going off to listen to some tracks from Verses before coming back to read more

      https://soundcloud.com/user-586734206

    11. poem

      There is something powerful and inspiring that a kid of the city still loves the city, and not just does work to support other kids in the city, but writes a poem about it.

    12. White Stripes
    13. Third Man Records
  31. quickthoughts.jgregorymcverry.com quickthoughts.jgregorymcverry.com
    1. songs of paradox

      Your lyrics

      stretch the known,

      into the unknown,

      this heliosphere,

      always our home

      until the time of disintegration

      when our songs get buried

      as bones

    2. obtuse orbits

      Acute orbits, too,

      the way my legs

      fold into you, my dear,

      the blankets tangled at our feet;

      for when we connect, we speak,

      complete

    3. sip from the sun

      By morning's first light,

      when the Earth's forever orbit

      brings us closer together,

      we sip from the sun,

      a drink of melted night

      brewed from falling stars and

      lost darkness

    4. History slips

      Margin notes

      fill the gaps;

      the pencil marks

      of students, past,

      grappling to ignore

      the printed page

      for beneath the gloss,

      the people rage

  32. Jan 2020
    1. I felt vulnerable negotiating and navigating the course with my students.

      I appreciate the honesty here ... I wonder if you received any pushback or interest from administrators or parents? Did you have to justify your shift? (I am thinking of schools where the curriculum is mandated a certain way and how to help us all take steps in the direction you are outlining here)