It's a new semester and a new class. For the next 15 weeks I'll ponder the relationship between orality and literacy, our memory and its importance in both oral traditions and literate society, and the relationship between oral societies and mythtelling. It's sure to be a blast!
I am a middle school English teacher. I work hard. :)
It's just about the end of the semester. *sigh* I'm working on updating my notes page with group and individual presentations and will have them finished by Sunday afternoon. Please do not rely entirely on my stuff! Debbie and Nikole and others have also summarized presentations very well.
Here's my notes site again:
http://oraltraditionsnotes.blogspot.com Check it out! :O)
posted by Jennie @ 1:39 PM
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Hello all fellow Oral Traditions students! As you may know, it is most helpful (and fun) to read everyone's web journals to gain insight into new and different ideas and viewpoints. Here is a compilation of web addresses for your use.
Allison http://oraltraditions.blogspot.com
Brian D http://www.geocities.com/fenwayfan80
Brian J http://rememory.blogspot.com
Cara http://dineenc.blogspot.com
Cindy http://spaditions.blogspot.com
Courtney http://www.livejournal.com/users/wilsoncourt/
Debbie http://oraltraditionsdeb.blogspot.com
Dustin http://dythonoraltradition.blogspot.com
Ed http://trex2.oscs.montana.edu/~eshanley/index2.html
Hanna http://precontamination.blogspot.com
Jennifer Turcotte http://jst-oraltraditions.blogspot.com
Jeremy http://www.adamlamb.com/webPages/Oral%20Traditions%201/Feats%20of%20Memory
Jeremiah http://guywiththecowboyhat.blogspot.com/
Josh http://www.livejournal.com/users/jgerdes
Juliet http://julietno.blogspot.com
Justin http://oraltraditionsengl337.blogspot.com
Kelly http://galacticgerbil.blogspot.com
Kristi http://saffiatu.blogspot.com
Lauren http://oraltraditions337.blogspot.com
Mick http://msuenglish337.blogspot.com/
Nikole http://www.geocities.com/nikoledidier/index2.html
Opai (Apabrita) http://www.geocities.com/apabritabasu
Samantha Fife http://originaldrivel.blogspot.com/
Shauna http://ideasandramblings.blog.com
Sophie http://oraltradsophie.blogspot.com
Stephanie Urban http://stephurban.blogspot.com
Tracy http://assignedjournal.blogdrive.com
Valerie http://thefirebird2005.blogspot.com
Wayne http://www.wayne.blog-city.com
Wesley http://www.livejournal.com/users/wesleyfriske/
Zac http://zaxoraltradjournal.blogspot.com/
That's all I've got for now. I'll add to it as you all establish your sites. :O) Thanks!
posted by Jennie @ 1:18 PM
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I hope that many of you were fortunate enough to check out Sherman Alexie's lecture on Thursday night. He was hilarious, but he really made some interesting insights, too. I was sitting by Allison at the lecture and at one point Alexie said "That's the oral tradition." Since we are both now students of the oral tradition we took notice and paid closer attention as he continued, "someone tells a story and then the next person tells it wrong and then he tells it wrong and then we have American History". (This was not exactly how lexie phrased it, but, you get the jist) I thought that was hilarious. The oral tradition created history. I totally agree with that and now I wish I had written my term paper about it. I love history but how can we really know what's true and what's not? Although some might get caught up in the "truth" of history, I don't think we have to. At its heart I think that history is just stories. Stories of people and places and events. Early history certainly has imaginative touches. Anone who has read Herodotus would know that! Thank goodness for the oral tradition! Without it, where would we be?
posted by Jennie @ 8:50 PM
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It's weird that I'm writing this entry becuase it is assuming that people are reading my posts....anyhow. I've just made my weekly (or bi-monthly) journey through each journal for this class and I am quite impressed by the entries! Kristi's site has some great insights. I have especialy enjoyed her short response to "Hotel Rwanda" and her entry "African Time". Allison's entries are always entertaining. Valerie and Hanna are doing cool things, too. Really, I know it takes awhile to read every person's journal, but it's worth it. I come away with a new idea everytime.
posted by Jennie @ 12:43 PM
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Here are some pictures of our last few weeks of presentations. :O)
posted by Jennie @ 9:00 PM
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A BIG "Great Job!" To everyone for their fantastic memorizations and group presentations. I think that all the groups really stepped up to the challenge of entertaining us and engaging in the oral culture's prominant ideas of storytelling. I have to say that my favorite group was the Cindy, Valerie, Juliette, Dustin, Wayne, Opai group with their blindfolds. At certain points the noise of the ongoing conversations was almost unbearable and that's something that I don't tend to notice when I can see what's going on. The smells were a fantastic effect; especially the smell of the pipe smoke. I loved your creativity. Awesome job. To all the groups though, we have a class of budding actors and directors in this class. :O) I was thoroughly impressed by all.
As for memorizations...AWESOME! I love the wide range of topics that the class has chosen. Music to universities, to poetry. I was the most "into it" when Wayne recited from the First Quartet. I have never heard those read aloud and it was so captivating and magical. Ed was rocking my socks with his German/English translations of "Prometheus" and I actually was learning from some people! Wildflowers, religions, top songs. Thanks for all your insights.
I chose to do Dr. Seuss because I love Dr.Seuss and I think that his messages, especially in Oh, The Places You'll Go, are valuable for all of us to remember. Now, whenever I know someone is off to do something great, I can recite the book to him/her. I think that's an important thing. :O) Above you will see a picture of our very own Shaman Sexson as Dr. Seuss...great! I just figured out the picture thing and I LOVE IT! Too bad it's the end of the semester. :O(
posted by Jennie @ 8:13 PM
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I still haven't posted my journal entry re: memory and Shakespeare. I will do that at some point. Really. This last few weeks has been pretty crazy though.
Great job to the performers on Tuesday. Sadly, I was unable to see groups one and two because I told Brian I would "suit him up" in his...armor? I hope that everyone enjoyed our production. It was fun but next time, we should each have reading lights. It was a little difficult to see our lines. Or maybe we should memorize them. I am looking forward to tomorrow's presentations. :O) Good luck to groups 4, 5, 6!
I've got half of my memorization for Tuesday the 19th down. It's going pretty well but the memory palace wasn't working for me. I don't know how to use it with phrases and words. If you used the memory theater and memorized a poem or passage from something, tell the rest of us about it. I want to know the secrets.
posted by Jennie @ 10:22 PM
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I'm glad that we graded this test in class because there were a few that I wasn't sure about. I was sooo close to coming up with Xanadu for the Citizen Kane mansion question, but I just couldn't. My memory failed me. I was not surprised by anything on the exam except the questions from the Top 100. I wasn't expecting that to be on there. Interestingly, I had been reviewing my memory palace just this weekend to see that I could still make it all the way through. I can' believe that I still have them all in there.
Anyhow, good exam. I do expect, however, that the essay question will be extra credit. I don't think that anyone ACED it.
posted by Jennie @ 12:21 AM
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While we were presenting our poems in the last week and a half, I definitely began to see the huge role that the audience plays in an oral performance. I was smiling through every single poem, and, in looking around the room, I noticed that everyone else was, too. It was really fun to see the class getting so into the performances. People fed off of the energy in the room and made their gestures bigger and greater than they might have normally. We all incorporated Ong's idea of a participatory quality in our stories in order that we could draw the group in. I hope that our group presentations are just as memorable.
posted by Jennie @ 10:16 AM
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Due to the upcoming test, I have updated my notes site (finally). Here, in case you have forgotten it, is the site:
http://oraltraditionsnotes.blogspot.com/
Feel free to go here to study. I have done my best to get the important stuff written down. Nikole, Hanna, and Opai have notes on their sites as well. Use them all!
posted by Jennie @ 12:33 PM
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