This is just hilarious, and a brilliant idea at the same time: taking the Wasilla Town Meeting minutes (Sarah Palin presiding), and turning them into a one-man drama performance. Do yourself a favor and laugh as you learn about the extent of this woman’s experience, and worse yet, her leadership style.

http://www.FeedBurner.com).gif" />

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

Related posts:

1. Of Great Productions and July Genius Alrighty, Mr. Meyer - you've won me.  What you're doing...
2. “Quick In, Quick Out” Podcast: PLN Class Design Discussion with Cleveland, Maryland, NYC, Qatar, and Seoul [quicktime]http://ia311317.us.archive.org/2/items/ClayBurellNetworkedLearningPodcastwithInternationalEducators/PLNtweetskype.m4a[/quicktime] (right-click and "save as" here to download enhanced podcast...
3. Networked Learning Class Reflection 1: Basketball without Borders Project That Networked Learning elective "English Seminar" class I taught last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

My favorite hip-hop vlogger Jay Smooth has eloquently described those nagging voices that reside inside the heads of people who do creative work as  “little haters.”

He even wrote a song about his:

When I’m writing, my “little hater” tells me I need to find a fifth or a sixth corroborating piece of evidence before I can make a claim, and even after I do, the damn thing still comes out tentative.  He sometimes makes me think that the idea that I just came up with can’t be anywhere near as good as I originally thought because, well, I’m the one who came up with it.  Someone else probably wrote something similar somewhere else, and I just haven’t seen it yet.

I’ve about had enough of this bastard getting in my way.

Sometimes, when I need get a post up on this blog, I start writing about interests that I don’t get to explore when I write reports, papers, proposals, or emails.  It’s possible to tie almost anything into that topic taped up there across the header.  “Write what you know” isn’t useful just for getting our students to break through their shells.  It’s also a useful way to put your little hater on his heels, get the engine revving, and start a conversation.

ShareThis

[The Unsucky English Gilgamesh series so far: 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ 3: this post~ 4. The Seven Deadly Sins, Backwards ~ 5. Good and Evil, Nature and the Hero - Backwards]

~     ~     ~

So there I was: caught, before all my new 14-year-old students’ eyes, with Enkidu’s pants down - and his mythic Sumerian wee-wee in hoo-hoos I knew nothing of.¹ And because so many of these Korean kids were evangelically Americanized, I wondered if it would cost me my job.

When we would come to Genesis later in the semester, I knew I’d be walking the netless tightrope over the heads of the many 14-year-olds who had predictably swallowed whole, since before their first teeth, their literalist childhood teachings about Adam, Eve, and the Six Days’ Creation.

But I had no idea I’d be dealing now, in tender Week Three of their high school careers, with this whopper of a sex scene between Shamhat, the temple prostitute, and Enkidu, the innocent, half-neanderthal and half-Adam “wild man” - and his jaw-dropping seven days’ erection: ²

Shamhat stripped off her robe and lay there naked,
with her legs apart, touching herself.
Enkidu saw her and warily approached.
He sniffed at the air. He gazed at her body.
He drew close. Shamhat touched him on the thigh,
touched his penis, and put him inside her.
She used her love-arts, she took his breath
with her kisses, held nothing back, and showed him
what a woman is. For seven days
he stayed erect and made love with her,
until he had had enough.³

Again, in the schooly translation I read when I was in high school, somebody had forgotten to include that part.

But the alley cats were out of the bag. Since we were all reading this translation for the first time together that night, half of my students were surely at that very moment in pop-eyed sync with me, “wtf?”-ing their margins and asking the same questions:

Would the “good people” students tell their parents? Were those parents emailing or calling the principal at the very moment we were all sitting there gawking at these lines? Tomorrow, when the monster lumbered into the school-building to corrupt their young, would a mob of torch-bearing parents send this poor, misunderstood Frankenfreak to his tragic end?

All that monster wanted was to give their kids the deepest, most relevant, coherent, and beautiful year of literary studies they would ever receive. And now, because of an unexpectedly graphic scene about what birds, bees, and each of these parents do - or did, at least once, when they made the shiny-eyed wonders brightening my classroom - would it all come down in flames?⁴

And would they make allowances for the fact that I first found the book in the school library? If I went down, should I bring the librarian with me? (Joking. Joking.)

I was jealous, suddenly, of math teachers. They never had problems like this.

But there was nothing to be done, for now, but finish the homework by finishing Book One. In the end, I realized, it all depended on whether these three-week-old high schoolers could handle it. I couldn’t wait to check the chapter annotations I’d assigned.

I finished the chapter and went to sleep.

The Next Day

“Beautiful.”

“Profound.”

“Deep.”

“Lovely.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes. All the students’ annotations sang this section’s praises. Not a single immature reaction.

I was so proud of them. And I was saved.

The class discussion was even better.

“It’s a different culture, so it’s not surprising that sex would be treated with a different outlook,” said one.

Answered another: “The sex scene itself is wonderful for its simple narration of the events we study in biology - the voice is so objective, it’s almost scientific.”

A third: “And that shows how radically different this culture saw sexuality. It’s just another thing in life, described as simply as the weather, or a flower, or a beautiful sunset. It’s not pornographic or anything. It’s just part of life.”

A fourth: “But it’s more than that.”

“Explain that,” I said. “What do you mean?”

This student went on to give the most perfect explication of what happens after the sex scene, and what a deep, beautiful, mysterious, and alien point of view the world’s earliest civilization had, 2,000 years before King David and 3,000 years before Jesus, about the meaning of sexuality.

Before Shamhat

“Look at what happens to Enkidu after the sex scene,” he said, “and compare it to who he was before it.

“Before it, Enkidu was this weird wild man, created by the goddess Aruru - in exactly the same way, by the way, that the later god of Genesis created Adam - from clay - which makes me wonder if this isn’t another Judeo-Christian-Islamic borrowing from the older Sumerian/Babylonian culture.

“He was ‘one-third man, two-thirds animal,’ remember: the perfect ‘double,’ just as the god Anu ordered, for the ‘one-third man, two-thirds divine‘ Gilgamesh. And I mean ‘perfect’ in the ‘balancing’ sense too. Remember, Anu said Gilgamesh’s ‘double’ should ‘balance’ him - to bring ‘peace’ to Uruk by making Gilgamesh stop snatching all the new brides from his subjects’ beds.

“But the ‘balancing’ doesn’t stop there,” he continued. “It gets deeper.”

“How?” asked another.

“Setting, basically. Gilgamesh is the king of the first city in the world, and he knows that and is proud of it. He’s proud of civilization.  I would argue he sort of symbolizes it.

“But the setting associated with Enkidu?  ‘Wilderness’ - Nature. Enkidu drinks with gazelles at watering holes, runs with them (and as fast as them), and knows nothing, literally, about cities and civilized humankind.

“So Enkidu ‘balances’ Gilgamesh by symbolizing Nature - the opposite of the city, and its civilization, which literally has a wall to keep Nature out.

“But it gets deeper still, this ‘balance.’ Because contrary to what we’d expect, ‘civilized’ Gilgamesh is not superior to ‘wild and natural’ Enkidu. We see that because Enkidu saves the other animals from the ‘civilized’ hunter’s traps. He’s compassionate, this natural man. And he’s innocent. Gilgamesh, though, is screwing the brides of every groom in town. The civilized king is glorious, yes - he built Uruk’s walls and is semi-divine, after all - but he’s also really flawed by his heartlessness. Enkidu ‘balances’ this, too.

“Finally,” he continued, “Enkidu ‘balances’ Gilgamesh in his physical strength. It’s like Achilles and Hector in the Iliad - perfectly matched superhero types. So that’s it: Aruru did a bang-up job of creating exactly what Anu ordered - a ‘balancing double’ to Gilgamesh.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. Who was this kid? I had to break in: “Did you steal my annotations?” I asked. “Who are you? I haven’t memorized all of your names yet.”

“Not now, Mr. B.,” he said. “I’m on a roll. Don’t interrupt. I’ve only covered the ‘before Shamhat’ Enkidu. I want to get to the ‘after Shamhat’ stuff now.”

Could I adopt this kid? Buy him from his parents? He was too good to believe.

“Wow. My apologies. Go for it.”

After Shamhat

“I’ll keep it short. It’s this: Gilgamesh’s mysterious ’solution’ to the ‘problem’ of the wild man worked brilliantly - though I don’t quite get why. Sex with this prostitute from the goddess Ishtar’s temple transforms Enkidu. And it does it in clear stages. I numbered them when I annotated.

“First, this sacred sex lifted him above the other animals that he used to hang out with. He doesn’t realize it - this is the weird thing - but the other animals do. They all run away from him when he tries to rejoin them at the watering hole.

“It’s mysterious, for sure,” he said, while I fought back exultations over this kid’s genius. “But the best guess I can give is this: All animals have sex, so it can’t be the simple sex that makes the other animals realize he’s no longer like them. So the only thing I can figure is that the poet is trying to say that sex seen as a holy thing - initiation into Ishtar’s mysteries, maybe? - is what separates man from animal. Seen this way, it’s not a brute act with Shamhat.

“And did you notice,” he went on, “that thing where Enkidu tries to run after the fleeing animals - before Shamhat, he was as fast as them, remember - but now he can’t catch up with them? Where is it . . . . yeah, here:

He tried to catch up
but his body was exhausted, his life-force was spent,
his knees trembled, he could no longer run
like an animal [he emphasized this line], as he had before.

–doesn’t that remind you of the story of Samson and Delilah in the Bible? It did me. I tell you, Mr. B., you’re right about that one. You see a million things in Gilgamesh that you thought were unique to the Bible. My preacher says the Bible is ‘the word of God.’ Well if that’s true, God sure seemed to plagiarize a lot from the Sumerians and Babylonians.

“But he also reverses them. Because in the Bible, Delilah is bad for Samson, while in Gilgamesh, Shamhat is good for Enkidu.”

“I never thought of that,” said another. “I think I see what you’re saying.”

“Yeah. It’s all there. The next thing that happens because of Shamhat is deeper still: Enkidu realizes - where is it -

‘his mind had somehow grown larger.
He knew things now that an animal can’t know.’

“So what are these things he ‘knew’? It doesn’t say. But it reminds me of the scene in Genesis where Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and it doesn’t tell us what they learned either. All it does is show us that they covered their private parts.

“But here, they don’t cover anything, and no god gets angry. Instead, Enkidu just keeps transforming. Since the bell’s about to ring, I’ll rush: the next thing he learns sitting ‘at Shamhat’s feet’ is language and communication:

‘He understood all the words she was speaking to him.’

“And man, those words were interesting:

‘Now, Enkidu, you know what it is
to be with a woman, to unite with her.
You are beautiful, you are like a god.’

“‘You are like a god‘” he repeated. “So what’s happening here? Gilgamesh is ‘two-thirds god,’ remember. Is it okay, Mr. B., to read into this that sex with Shamhat maybe makes Enkidu less of a ‘balance’ to Gilgamesh now?”

“It’s okay to read anything you want into it, as long as you can justify your interpretation with good evidence. And you’re doing fine so far.”

“Because I was thinking that again, it was Gilgamesh that sent Shamhat in the first place. He wants to bring Enkidu over to his ‘civilized’ side. And it seems like it worked.”

“How?”

“Because the next thing that happens is that Shamhat tells Enkidu that he should not ‘roam the wilderness and live like an animal,’ but should instead come with her to Uruk, to Ishtar’s temple, and to Gilgamesh’s palace. And he goes. Because of Shamhat, a temple prostitute, Enkidu is no longer an animal. He’s closer to the gods now; and because of Shamhat, Enkidu is about to become civilized.

“And that’s like Adam and Eve upside-down and inside-out.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s obvious,” he said. “Eve seduced Adam and the result was God’s curse. Shamhat seduced Enkidu and the result was Ishtar’s blessings of godliness and civilization for Enkidu.”

“Strictly speaking, weren’t Adam and Eve cursed for disobeying their God?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “But it’s still pretty opposite. After all, the gods here aren’t giving any orders at all - the absence of orders is the opposite of their presence, right? - and the result of the seduction is a blessing, the opposite of a curse.”

“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see what happens. It’s been ten years at least since I read this story, remember - and I’ve never read this version, either. I’ve forgotten most of it. So I’m as clueless as you about what will happen next.”

“There’s just one thing I wanted to ask, though,” he said.

“Shoot.”

“The plot’s really weird. The gods create Enkidu to make Gilgamesh change his ways.  But now, instead, we see Enkidu changing, not Gilgamesh. What’s going on?”

“It’s a mystery to me, too. We’ll see. But you left one thing out.”

“What?”

“You didn’t mention the last way that Enkidu changed: when Shamhat described Gilgamesh to him, isn’t his reaction confusing? The narrator tells us Enkidu ‘felt‘ something ‘deep in his heart . . . . the longing for a true friend.’ So that’s one more point for your theory that Shamhat civilizes him - he wants to escape his solitude and join human society, enjoy friendship.

“Again, that’s what he felt. But what he says is totally unexpected:

‘Take me with you
to . . . the palace of Gilgamesh the mighty king.
I will challenge him. I will shout to his face:
I am the mightiest! I am the man
who can make the world tremble. I am supreme!’

“Those hardly sound like words of friendship to me,” I said. “So maybe the gods’ plan for Gilgamesh is not as off-track as it seems.”

End of Class

The bell rang.  I turned off the alarm, and rose to get ready for work. An interesting bit of fantasy that was. “Too good to believe” indeed? I could only hope. I’d find out after the shower and drive to work.

~     ~     ~

Just kidding. I wouldn’t pull that on you. Here’s the real story:

Most of the annotations from the girls in the class were minor variations on: “ewwwww.” Sometimes three w’s, sometimes ten.

The boys? Smiley faces in the margins.

I wonder if those gender reactions for this age group are cross-culturally similar, or different. And I don’t know.

I imagine I tried to elicit discussions like the points made by the dream student above.

When I explained to them that I was as shocked as they were to read the scene, and was afraid they wouldn’t be able to handle it, they all assured me it was unexpected, yes, but nothing they hadn’t seen before online, on TV, in the movies.

“But it was weird to see it in English class.”

~     ~     ~

Can You Take a Minute?

If anybody has made it this far, I’d appreciate feedback on the three approaches I’ve tried so far in this Gilgamesh series. Number One was straight lecture style; Number Two was told as a “teacher story,” but in the second-person “you” point of view - I wondered if that would make the experience more immediate for readers, but also feared it might get old, especially if I continued it for months. This one was still a “teacher story,” but told in first person, with heavy Socratic dialogue.

If any of you care to share which of the three you think I should stick with, I’d be very appreciative.

Photos:
Belly-Dancer by macwagen
Bizarro World © DC Comics,
used under Fair Use Law

http://www.FeedBurner.com).gif" />

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

1. I stole this “wee-wee/hoo-hoo” line from Bill Maher’s brilliant “New Rules” rant about how American Puritanism silenced John Edwards, the most important voice for the poor “since Robert Kennedy,” per Maher. It’s very relevant to the discussions we’re having in this series.
2. And did I later joke in class, “This guy’s a walking Viagra commercial”? Or, “And you thought the Six Days’ Creation was impressive”? Or, “Talk about needing a rest on the seventh day”?  I don’t remember. But if asked, please say that I did.
3. all excerpts taken from Stephen Mitchell’s admirable 2004 translation of Gilgamesh.
4. If you think I’m exaggerating, check out this and this from readers who have seen it happen to other teachers.

---

33 Comments

• At September 4, 2008, The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] [The Unsucky English series so far: Gilgamesh 1: Dangerous Questions ~ 2: This Post ~ 3: Adam and Eve in Bizarro-World] [...]

• At September 4, 2008, Unsucky English, Lecture 1: On Gilgamesh | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] [This post had major problems in its original draft. I heavily edited it for all you stumblers. Subsequent posts in this series: 2. The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job, a serious farce ~ 3: Adam and Eve in Bizarro-World] [...]

• At September 4, 2008, Narro87 wrote:

  Your posts on this topic are absolutely wonderful! It's a highlight of my day to see another ready to be read. Keep up the amazing work! And as for your style, simply do what's more natural in your mind--all of them are very effective and very engaging.

• At September 4, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thanks for that. Please spread the word. I'm possibly losing a lot of readers uncomfortable with this series. I'd love to find new ones who might appreciate it. :)

• At September 4, 2008, Jack641 wrote:

  Came across your site quite by accident but I've read up on the Gilgamesh series you've had going here. This is some really great stuff; everything so far has been easy to read and fascinating at the same time. I had a teacher in high school who would teach a bit like this, and he really opened my eyes to a lot of things. Surprisingly, no one ever gave him any trouble for challenging us and making us uncomfortable with our preconceived ideas, even though we went to a catholic high school.

  Anyway, reading stuff like this makes me think about a career change. Keep it up; I'll be reading.

• At September 4, 2008, Alyce wrote:

  I stumbled upon the first lecture in this series and have since added your blog to Google Reader. I am loving it!

  I must say that I enjoyed the first post's format the most. With the latter two, the story of Gilgamesh seemed to get lost in the story you were creating of the classroom. We are the students, and I think your brilliance has a better chance of standing out if your writing takes the form of a lecture. Believe me: your thoughts can stand on their own!

  My two cents. :)

• At September 4, 2008, Louise Maine wrote:

  I particularly cared for the third followed closely by the first. Love the posts and will be coming back to them when life is less hectic to digest further. Religion, science... great fuel for the mind...

  Louise Maines last blog post..Wiki woman?

• At September 4, 2008, Hannah wrote:

  Hello!

  I particularly liked the writing style of this one. The first one was enjoyably readable as well, but the second I couldn't finish - wayyyy too much teacher-jargon on how to teach a subject. I was lost.

  I guess I should actually get a copy of this book before continuing... :D

  Hannahs last blog post..What I'm Going To Do With My Life

• At September 4, 2008, Jazzyblueteach wrote:

  The third was definitely my favorite of the three, but you killed me when that alarm went off! Don't ever ruin a perfectly good dream again! I was in awe of this boy wonder and then you had to go and wake up. For shame!!

  Ok, I can say this much. The version I am being forced to read for this Babylon class is not even close to as much fun. I am tempted to suggest a text change. Of course I can read what I want and no one will ever be the wiser. :)

• At September 4, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Your teacher was a lucky person.

  If you're thinking of going into teaching because of me, that's ironic - I just left it :)

  School-teaching, anyway.

• At September 4, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thank for that, Alyce.

  I hear you on diluting the message with stories from the classroom.

  I think I just wanted to paint a picture of the silly but very real fears teachers have because of all these social forces at play in schools.

  Now that I've got that out of my system, I'll probably do as you suggest for most future posts.

  Thanks again.

• At September 4, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Louise, Hannah, Jazzy,

  Thanks for the feedback.

  Without being defensive at all (I'm really not), it's ironic that my own favorite so far is the second one - "The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job."

  I think it has something to do with the set-up via the Sedaris stories. That "seeing with your ears" syndrome is so real, and Sedaris proves it with "Us and Them" (and what a pregnant title).

  But I know, anyway, that I'm pulled in two directions at least when writing these: to write for the old "edublogger" audience that I said (and meant) I was bored writing for; versus to write for students anywhere.

  I'll figure it out (or not).

  Hey, Jazzy, what translation are you reading? A.R. George? Mitchell has taken some heat for his liberties. He claims to have based them on the most accurate translations - and George's is acknowledged to be that - but others charge him with too much lassitude at times.

  It would be interesting to hear what your prof thought of the Mitchell translation - would love a report back if you do :)

• At September 4, 2008, Tim wrote:

  Hi Clay.

  All of the posts so far are fascinating, but I have to say the first was my favourite, stylistically-speaking, but then I'm neither a student (currently) nor a teacher so maybe I'm not your intended audience.

  In any case, I'm loving this series and can't wait to see where you take it next. Keep up the good work!

  Tims last blog post..http://caananite.stumbleupon.com/review/24728827/

• At September 5, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:

  I loved all three, but I enjoyed the second the most. I could analyze all the reasons why I love blueberries, too, but I come here to be entertained.

  (I enjoyed the third, and maybe I am too naive, but I've had the rare kid take off in thought in science, and I was going to compare notes, then you woke up. That hurt.)

  Any sort of well-crafted Socratic dialogue is always welcome. (Works well in the class once kids get used to it, but it leaves them a bit exposed. I have to work hard to erase any hint of "aha!" when using it--but if I can get the dialogue going on in their heads after class, I've done my job.)

  Michael Doyles last blog post..First day of school, biology (sophomores)

• At September 6, 2008, Uniasus wrote:

  Well, I totally wish I had you as a teacher in high school. I haven't actually read Gilgamesh, but have always wanted to get my hands on it. I'm enjoying your series immensely, and as for the feedback you requested I liked the second one the least. It might be because I find it hard to imagine myself as a high school freshmen. Personally, I enjoyed your latest edition the best. It was amusing at times, the dialog certainly broke things up and made it less daunting to read, but the information still got across. Your first installment wasn't bad either. I could picture a professor pacing the classroom and accenting his lecture with dramatic hand gestures. That lecture would have stuck.

• At September 6, 2008, Ted Mateoc wrote:

  I stumbled upon this blog, and I really enjoyed reading it.

  Speaking as a current student in high school in NYC, I really enjoyed the Socratic dialogue in this post. The first post and the second post also made incredibly stimulating late-night reading; however, I liked exploring the implications of the main characters' actions.

  What you said concerning indoctrination in your first post really struck a chord with me. Last year, for example, I had an English teacher who was a very nice person, but extremely...in touch with modern ideals, to put it nicely. For example, when we read Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "Chronicle of a Death Foretold," she refused to accept the idea of moral relativism, and that different cultures will have different takes on (among other things) honor killings. And she also exaggerated when grading papers; one time I lost a full 4 points on a paper because I used the term "mankind" instead of "humankind" - she commented that it was a "dangerous term" to use.

  Oh, and I don't know if you've seen

  http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/ap-reading-exam.php already, but I can actually picture some of my English teachers taking that approach. I found it funny - I hope you will, too.

• At September 6, 2008, Agnes wrote:

  I liked the first straight lecture style. I like to feel like I'm being taught something and not just mildly entertained.

  Keep up the good work though. :)

• At September 7, 2008, Bunny got Blog wrote:

  Well I stumbled upon you literally. I enjoyed all three and my favorite is Lecture 3.

  Keep up the great work.

  Bunny got Blogs last blog post..Bunny’s Bucket List - In Celebration of Dave Freeman’s Life

• At September 7, 2008, diane wrote:

  Never thought about it this way before, but Eden was a "wilderness". No original sin, no journey into the larger world and the future...including technology.

  In Adam's fall,

  Benefited we all

  dianes last blog post..Classroom Rules Part 2

• At September 7, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:

  [F*ck technology, the internet just ate my last response. And that I am even responding here highlights my hypocrisy. Read at your own risk.]

  Ahem. Of course Eden was "wilderness", that's the beauty of The Fall.

  No original sin, no journey into the "larger" civilized world, an arc that will, I suspect, end disastrously in the next few hundred years. I'm thinking your sympathies lie on the other side of the fence.

  At 3 AM, when a tropical storm howls over my roof, the electricity fails, I (for a moment) can imagine my mortality. I glimpse wilderness, and lulled by my belief in technology and immortality, I fall into an abyss, a Nietzschean nightmare where god is dead, and I have nothing left to hold.

  Before the apple, Adam and his love were in the wilderness, with boundaries. (Clay talks of happiness and limits in an earlier post--reduce the options, and people smile.) Adam dared to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and got tossed out of the garden.

  Eden was indeed a wilderness without a "future," just the herenow. Before Constantine and his ilk defiled what was worthwhile in the Christian sect, the focus was on the herenow.

  Should Clay live long enough, I hope he tackles the Tree of Knowledge and original sin. (Yeah, I know, ClayClayClayClay, but it is his blog). Clay has bitten me on the nose for my occasional lapses into irrationality, but he gets the gist of the question, and I may be one of the few westerners left who think maybe Adam should have left that apple alone.

  Clay's discussion on Gilgamesh has strengthened my resolve.

  I would gladly trade technology, even my indoor toilet, for that peek into the web of wilderness we are all a part of. We lost our way once we put knowledge above wisdom.

  (Yes, Clay, I'm overstating my case. Still, we need some kind of substitute for that Man With The White Beard, some formal way to acknowledge our limits of knowledge. Many Westerners (particularly those with any power)would not recognize hubris if it smacked them in the nose.)

  I'm ranting. I'll stop.

  But maybe, just maybe, Adam screwed up.

  Michael Doyles last blog post..Science, dogma, and the American Way

• At September 7, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Hi Michael -

  I think the "F-bomb" may have thrown you into the spam bucket. (And you know I don't mind colorful language, but I don't think I've ever tossed an F-bomb in these pages, probably out of some hangover from Camp Joy.)

  I take it the bulk of this comment is a reply to Diane, commenting above you?

  As for the rest, I'll only ask you to hold on and be patient. We're only approaching Book Two of Gilgamesh, and by the end, I think you'll find it a pretty superior substitute for the Man in the Gray Beard - the teacher with all the rules and schooliest god I've ever had the displeasure of meeting.

  Seriously, I think you'll be impressed by the way the "Nature v. Civilization" theme plays out in this oldest book.

  And Michael, I've never bitten you in the nose or anywhere else. At most, I've rubbed you behind the ears. As you have me.

• At September 7, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thanks Bunny. It's interesting getting instant reader feedback. Lots of cognitive dissonance, which isn't necessarily bad. What a new world for writers :)

• At September 7, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thank you, Ted. I love the link and hope others follow it for a good sad laugh.

  You point to a variation of schooliness I haven't dwelt on much - the teacher who actually docks you for any "critical thinking" that differs from his/hers. Ugh. I would have fought her on the "mankind" thing, though I'm sympathetic enough to her argument. Half a grade is a harsh way to make a feminist point about terminology.

  Thanks for your help re: style, too. Hope you comment again soon, as seriously, I'm trying to stay true to the intended audience, which is people like you.

• At September 7, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  The only problem I have with that argument is that the wilderness has no authoritarian rules telling the wild-life what it "shalt and shalt not" do.

  Eden seemed more a sort of theocratic monarchy with Adam and Eve as the lucky goat-herds. They didn't have to worry about predators, foraging, inclement weather, shelter, etc, because it was a fairy land of nude-friendly weather, always-fruitful trees, and toothless lions, etc.

  The "fortunate fall" thing is very Milton. I've always liked Blake for calling the entire notion of an angry god and a guilty humanity as an "invisible worm" that makes us all "sick roses." (That's my reading, anyway, of the great Billie Blake.)

• At September 7, 2008, diane wrote:

  Ah, but you know my feelings on this

  http://tinyurl.com/22wrqw

  Better to have sinned and known

  Than never to have known at all

  dianes last blog post..Transformation

• At September 12, 2008, Unsucky English, Lecture 4: The Blessings of the Flesh (Gilgamesh, Book Two) | Beyond School wrote:

  [...] Dangerous Questions ~ Gilgamesh 2: The Day I Thought Gilgamesh Would Cost Me My Job ~ Gilgamesh 3: Adam and Eve, Backwards (Book [...]

• At September 13, 2008, Peter wrote:

  Awesome posts, really peaked my interest. I really dug the style in the first one, I wish I had a teacher like you in high school!

• At September 14, 2008, Charlie A. Roy wrote:

  I think I need to reread Gilgamesh. I don't remember it being so entertaining during high school.

  Charlie A. Roys last blog post..The Debate on Drug Testing

• At September 16, 2008, Shannon wrote:

  Clay,

  I am currently living in Wichita Falls, TX, getting my Master's in Curriculum and Instruction. I hope to be teaching high school English by Fall of next year. That said, I have been trying to catch up on all the reading I know I should do, and your series of Gilgamesh has been absolutely lovely! I have never even heard of it before, can you believe that?! Now I want to read it on top of my 18 hours of graduate course work. Posts 1 and 3 were my favorite, but your writing style is so amazing and clear that any way you post will bring new insights and ideas. Thank you for your wonderful reads.

  -Shannon

• At September 16, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Shannon, it's weird that we in the West fairly ignore the first half of recorded history - I mean the Sumerian and Egyptian above all (not to mention the Chinese, who've been literate for 5,000 continuous years, if memory serves, without any of the "dark ages" breaking Western literacy in Greece for 400 years, and Europe during the Medieval Period - and China's rightly proud of that, I learned while living there).

  We seem to act like civilization started with the Greeks and Hebrews, when they're really at the mid-way point. It's just weird.

  Anyway, this is a horribly convoluted comment. Tired. Just wanted to say thanks, really, for the kind words. And good luck in the classroom (hint: those Sedaris stories mentioned in Lecture 2 are great light vehicles for heavy lessons).

• At September 21, 2008, speroni wrote:

  There were rules in the Eden wilderness before civilization. The punishments were pretty harsh, by and large breaking a rule means death. They weren't authoritarian rules though. They're more subtle than that. I don't want to say the rules were as simple as kill or be killed, but one did have to learn how to survive. The rules kind of revolved around a limited aggression pact. You have to hunt to eat, but you can't go crazy and start killing all willy-nilly. Even with other tribes, you have to fight to protect your territory but it doesn't work well to go commit genocide either. I think one theme in the garden of Eden was when Adam and Eve broke these rules. Not the rule of God says don't eat this apple, but the rules that people had been living by to keep in balance with nature for the hundreds of thousands of years before our brand of civilization came along. Since then we've extinct how many species? Polluted how much of the planet? Our society may well come crashing down around our ears in the next few hundred years. Perhaps not, we do have a pretty good track record for pulling through.

  At the same time there's this idea of the noble savage. That these ancient tribes had more virtue than current humans. I don't know about this, there was still murder and adultery in tribal life. On the other hand it really meant something to be part of your community, not to have it was death. Now, I don't even know my neighbors.

  Still its not the technology thats to blame. Humans a hundred thousand years ago still had tools. Thats part of what defines being human, thumbs are cool. (Aaayyyeeee!) This doesn't take us out of the web of nature though. I own a computer but I was made the same way that all animals are made. I'm at a point in my life where I'm considering making some of my own. Am I less of an animal because I can do this on a space age memory-foam mattress? I'm well aware that I'll be returning to the earth as well. I accept that. I don't envy those who live long enough to make it into nursing homes. I know if you were to ask me at any given moment if I was ok with dying right now, the answer is always going to be no, but in the general sense I'm ok with it. All that and I don't even believe in God. Or if there is something that powerful out there he's literally beyond our comprehension. Its not some father figure with a swishy white beard who wants to save me. (Or in my case condemn me.)

  (I've just ordered my very own copy of Gilgamesh. From stone tablets to amazon.com)

  speronis last blog post..Spore

• At September 21, 2008, speroni wrote:

  I like the style in part one. Sounds more like you're talking to me directly, more engaging. The others were good stories, but felt more like being told a story with its own conclusion and less like a conversation that is starting out.

• At October 1, 2008, Chris wrote:

  I wouldn't worry about picking just one style for all of this. The content is superb. I like the variety in style. Keep it up.

  I don't recommend using this as a venue for extreme experimentation with style, but I do suggest keeping things varied. Your writing has thus far been easy to read, regardless of the style. The variety makes reading the pieces all in one go more pleasant than if they all shared the same tone.

John Larkin in Oz nudged me to consider playing with the idea he so creatively played with on his own site: “How Far I Roamed as a Child.”

John’s post gives the full background of the idea, and a nicely visual guided tour of his own childhood using personal photos and satellite imagery from Google Maps¹. But this excerpt from John’s post brings out the historical and educational thrust of the idea:

[An] article in the Mail online, ‘How children lost the right to roam in four generations‘, is particularly telling. It sets out quite clearly how from one generation to the next children are not roaming as far as their parents and grandparents.

Firing up Google Maps and revisiting my elementary and junior high years’ stomping grounds in Tennessee was a blast - and as John seemed to understand by inviting me to play with his idea, it has all sorts of engaging applications for the writing classroom. One example is all I have time for at the moment, and it’s this:  By typing in my childhood home address on Google Maps, then clicking “street view” and zooming and panning around a bit, I found, of all unremarkable things, the street-drainage ditch in front of my house, with its tunnel under the street to the other side, which I crawled through as a child surely hundreds of times - and up the hill from that, in what was once my yard, the grandest hickory tree you could ever imagine, whose autumn leaves I and my brother and sisters and parents and dogs raked into piles (okay, the dogs didn’t rake), dove into, splashed around in like leafy surf, on and on.  Here’s a screenshot:

Wouldn’t This Work in the Writing Classroom?

The photo above may not do anything for you, and it shouldn’t.  But me?  I can hear the flung rocks echoing from the tunnel, smell the algae in its puddles, remember the sense of mystery of the world opening out at tunnel’s end.  For autobiography and personal narrative, again, this beats the utter hell out of brainstorming with pencil and paper about my childhood.  Never in a hundred years would I have even remembered that ditch and tunnel. But now that I do, the related memories wax exponential.  That ditch, for example:  after a heavy rain, it was a child’s river, and so, with my best friend Gary (who drowned with his father a few summers later), we named that “river,” in a bit of blood-brother name-combining, the “Clary.”  Again, just an example of how this goes beyond brain-storming to brain-flooding.

How Far I Roamed

Anyway, like John, man did I roam as a child.  I must have walked four or five miles a day on average.  Here’s Google Maps, with my first attempt to use Adobe Illustrator for labels and arrows, to show the details (click image for larger view, and note the key in the lower left corner):

(And for the students out there who read this, let me know: do you roam as far these days? Or have you “lost the right to roam”?  And Dad: you can comment too, you know. How far did you roam as a child, on a daily basis?)

If you decide to play with this meme, by the way, please link it to John’s original post. It’s his baby, and it’s a good one.

http://www.FeedBurner.com).gif" />

If you like this post, please spread it: (But don't tag it "education." That will bury it.)

1. including the astonishing “street view” which, as the name implies, puts you in the perspective of a photographer standing on whatever spot of road you choose, and allows you to pan 360°, tilt up and down, zoom in, “walk” up or down the street

---

12 Comments

• At August 19, 2008, davidcosand wrote:

  I grew up in a very rural setting; my parents still own about 80 acres of Oregon farmland. Some of my favorite memories involve the nighttime "maneuvers" my friends and I would go on. We'd don our stealth clothes and play intricate games of hide and seek in the surrounding fields. My mom always called the neighbors – especially Mr. Arbuckle, who had a quick trigger finger – to let them know that any strange noises were probably the result of boys sneaking around.

  Now, as the father of two boys and two girls, I have a hard time imagining giving them the same freedom to be out at all hours of the night without adult supervision. Sure, the world has changed…but I have no doubt that my children are missing out on a rich tapestry of memories.

  Reading your post, along with Larkin’s original, I’m inspired with new angles of approach to our class focus on personal and regional histories and the authentic writing tie-ins possible. I’m interested to discover the roaming ranges of my students and what those paths mean to them. I love how real life and the connections of conversation so eloquently inform and deepen learning. Thank you for an exciting new line of instructional possibilities.

• At August 19, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:

  Once again, an intriguing post, and one that has both my neocortex and amygdala firing away. I may need two cups of coffee before I'm through.

  First, the neocortex:

  What's not to love? Brain-flooding based on new technology tied to instructional strategies keeps the schools humming.

  Progress! Writing! Google! Budgets justified, curricula met, classes engaged. I'd have to wipe a tear of happiness from my eye as the principal walks in to witness this miracle in the classroom, having interrupted his day when he learned of the miracle in the science wing.

  (Despite my crankiness, I have to admit I'll likely try this in the classroom before the year is out--it's a great tool.)

  So why is my amygdala doing its own brain-flooding, clouding my brain with emotional energy, emitting vague noises that my neocortex interprets as obscenities? Here it goes:

  1) Clay, those of us who wandered in the 60's and 70's have memories tucked away worth flooding. We're grown-ups. Our memories are not screen memories, not ear bud memories.

  We wandered all over, and we did wonderful (and wonderfully stupid) things. We played with living and dead animals, we nearly drowned (and some of us did) or nearly got killed on a bike or a sled (and some of us did). We got lost without phones or GPS or even (gasp) a dime to call home. We ate unwashed fruit off the trees. We had our Suicide Hill. We ate apples and homemade popcorn balls made by strangers on Hallowe'en. We mixed blood as blood brothers.

  We lived.

  Most of us, anyway.

  And each of us will die. We are mortal critters.

  The myth, the Great Myth, is that the world is more dangerous now. It is safer, far safer, at least in this part of the world, but it can never be truly safe, and we lose something trying to pretend otherwise.

  Growing up, kids in our occasionally died growing up--one kid ran his sled under a parked car (no supervision), another kid got killed by an errant bat (no helmet), another broke his neck diving into a tidal creek at low tide (he died a few years later--a fine reminder for the rest of us to get a grip on tides), a classmate died of leukemia, another on a skateboard.

  A morbid list, but not a prelude to return to the Olden Days. The point is this: not one abduction by a stranger, not one death from the razor blade hidden in the apple, not one drug pusher said "Hey, kid, try this..."

  Our biggest fear was The Stripper, a man who supposedly lived in the woods and would make you take off your clothes. ("Don't walk alone in the woods," pretty good advice when you're eleven.)

  Were there sexual predators? Of course. Are there now? Yep, with even better access to children.

  2) I read your post, and as I got deeper into it, I'm nodding and thinking, yes, Clay's going to say something pithy and confirm my world view (why else wile away summer morning hours on a machine?)

  (You write so well I bet I would enjoy a tech manual on how to replace a timing chain written by you.)

  I thought you were going to suggest that we push the children outside, and let them roam again, so that they have brain-floods of thoughts beyond photon memories, memories framed by whatever size screen their family or district could afford.

  What I fear now is that kids will find their homes on the "street view" and somehow feel "more" validated.

  And the amygdala fires off another neuron or two.

  3) Administrators will have to block your site because you advocate unsafe mixing of bodily fluids.

  4) I love Google. I fear Google. Having a whole class of students type in this kind of information from various sites is powerful data.

  Google's not getting rich just because of a fancy pants search engine. A good chunk of their "value" comes from big investors who get the data thing.

  How confused am I? I want to be a Google certified teacher. I use Google in the classroom, and not just the search engine. I get lost for hours playing with a variety of their tools.

  Google knows more about me than my mother did. And only a ragged remnant tucked in my amygdala even cares anymore, and my neocortex cannot remember why anymore.

  And in another generation, the first generation raised by the generation that spent most of its conscious hours at work or at school or in front of a monitor, will no longer even ask why we do not roam anymore.

  (And now a completely off-topic apology--I am sorry I linked your thoughts with John Taylor Gatto's. I might even fix the reference if I am ever caffeinated enough to sustain goal directed activity for more than 47 seconds.)

  Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis

• At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Sorry both of you to shoot off a brief reply. Busy tonight.

  @David, it was nice to roam with you through Oregon past. Nicely written (and so much more evocative than your original Twitter respones ;-) ).

  @Doyle, my Apple dictionary says the amygdala is associated with the sense of smell, so I'm sort of lost. But that's okay and not unusual anyway.

  The "how far did you roam" frame sort of implies the "get outside and roam" message, or so I hoped.

  And Google? A scary beast, yes - but we're all mortal, and to me, I'll add it to the list of fears to ignore in order to enjoy the present. You know, traffic, baseball bats, parked cars, etc.

  Funny coincidence: I was reading your latest posts while you were apparently commenting on mine. Such a lovely voice, to unintentionally quote Blake's "Little Lamb.". (Update: oops, Blake used "tender," not "lovely." Never mind.)

• At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Oh, and Doyle: I'd love to talk with Gatto. Agree with much of what he says, but just wish he'd consider his basic ideological assumptions more critically than it seems to me he has. Overall, I admire the guy, to be clearer.

• At August 19, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Oh and #2: Doyle, can you tell me where I advocate "unsafe mixing of bodily fluids?" I'm laughing as I type!

• At August 19, 2008, Michael Doyle wrote:

  #1)More about the amygdala soon, I'm off to meet with a teacher about overhauling our curriculum, but for now, know that it is the part of the primitive brain that has long neural connections to the cortex, and is indeed where smell "sensations" pass through (and back) on the way to our "higher" part of our brain, It also appears to be the seat of fear and rage, as much as anything can be seated in our brain.

  If you remove a rat's amygdala, it will not run from a cat. (Which brings memories now of my mother singing "...and up on his haunches he sat, singing in the pale moonlight, bring out the goddamn cat" or something like that.;)

  #2) Given our generation, I took the "blood-brother name-combining" naming of your stream literally. And, of course, memories rushed in of the moments just before you prick yourself, to mix your blood with your eternal friend, becoming blood brothers.

  Or maybe we were just stupid literal kids with too much time on our hands--I think eventually every boy in the neighborhood had mixed blood with every other one within a grade or two in years.

  But if I'm an administrator, I'm playing it safe and removing it anyway--cannot have too much safety in this world.

  (Shoot...late...hit submit and run!)

  Michael Doyles last blog post..A Bloomfield menagerie: praying mantis

• At August 20, 2008, Claire Thompson wrote:

  This meme really seems to have grabbed people, myself included. When I was a kid my family moved around a bit (each of my dad's promotions meant a new town) so tonight after reading your post I hopped onto Google maps to check out each of my old neighbourhoods. I thought I'd like to see in which town I had the longest walk to school. To figure out the distances quickly I used Gmaps Pedometer. It's a great web app I started using a while ago to figure out how long my run routes are.

  I wasn't surprised at my longest walk; 3.6 km (2.3 mi) when I lived in North Vancouver, BC. But I could have sworn that the walk to my elementary school in Prince George BC was longer than 0.7 km (0.4 mi)! I guess the pretty cold winters (-20C was usual) coupled with high snowbanks and short legs skewed my sense of distance ;-)

  Anyway, I just wanted to share the Gmaps Pedometer link with those who are interested in taking on this meme. Thanks for the term 'brain flooding', and for the prod to take some walks down memory lane.

  Claire Thompsons last blog post..Combatting Teacher Burnout

• At August 20, 2008, John Larkin wrote:

  Thanks Clay for taking it up. Your stories of the ditch and the drain bring back memories of Cabbage Tree Creek for me. We sued to ride our bikes down a path and into the creek for a few metres up. Crazy. Riding one's bike down the main target hill of the old rifle range was also a bit hairy too. I think I soiled my BVDs on my first effort. After that you could not stop me.

  David: Loved reading your story of stealthy adventures. We used to play Phantom Agents as kids. My brother Peter even made some star knives. http://home.alphalink.com.au/~roglen/phantom.htm

  Michael: Great stories. Real stuff. Life. Happiness. Tragedy. We used cardboard or masonite sleds to ride down sand, not snow. If there was a hill we would find a way to slide down it.

  Claire: Those walks did always seem so long yet as we grow older those same walks become our old friends.

  Cheers, John.

• At August 20, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Thanks for that, Claire. I just used the pedometer instead of eye-balling the distances and like you, found them shorter than I thought. I guess years and miles grow shorter with age.

  There's no way I'm going to fight Adobe Illustrator to correct the text on my map, though ;-)

• At August 22, 2008, Jason Green wrote:

  Clay,

  This was an odd memory stirrer for me, because rather than thinking of my own childhood, I noticed that my first place in Chattanooga (by which point I was married and in my late 20's) was just off your map. BTW, Eastgate is a ghost mall now. Everything has moved northeast around Hamilton Place.

• At August 27, 2008, Far From Home « Edumacation Of Moi wrote:

  [...] today in a blog I just found, about how far one roamed as a child.  The bloggers (John Larkin and Clay Burell)who wrote the original posts are probably in the 30-40 age range, solidly marking them as an older [...]

• At August 27, 2008, Your page is now on StumbleUpon! wrote:

  [...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]

Alrighty, Mr. Meyer - you’ve won me.  What you’re doing with video is worth it for everybody to watch.  I’m enjoying your questions and explorations, and you’re certainly upping the game. This one’s my favorite so far:

dy/av : 002 : the next-gen lecturer from Dan Meyer on Vimeo.

I’m hoping to be ready to plunge into upping my own game in a humanities-guy sort of way. Just bought a Canon HV30, soon to install FinalCut Express.  What’ll it take to get you to share your know-how?

Seriously - great stuff.  I hope everybody’s watching.

---

4 Comments

• At July 26, 2008, Morgante Pell wrote:

  Every time I watch his videos, I am continually impressed. The make me want to grab a camera and see what magic I can work.

• At July 26, 2008, skip olsen wrote:

  Man, this is great! I'm into stories and how useful they are. As I watched I thought about what a great model this is—reflective, innovative, instructive, and just plain cool. Nicely done.

  skip olsens last blog post..Serendipity

• At July 27, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  I'm with both of you. Dan's learning by doing, and doing impressively well. Love the last scenes re: "drive-by."

• At July 30, 2008, Shannon wrote:

  I'm taking an online graduate course called "Learning and Assessment." This video captures just about everything we have talked about in class this summer and I just shared the link with my peers on the discussion board.

  This was great.

Just saw this on Crooks and Liars, and think it’s worth sharing to teachers and students alike. Ira Glass, radio host of This American Life on (the USA’s) National Public Radio, shares how expectations - our own, and others’ - shouldn’t be too high for our media creations, because “it takes years” to bridge the gap between our “tastes” and our attempts to attain them in our media productions.

To teachers, this says, “Don’t grade blogging, podcasting, and other things too harshly.”  To students it says, “Whether you like it or not, it’s good to hold you to a required production schedule that forces you to regularly create - that’s the only way you’ll get better.” (Reminds me of the old saying, “Don’t wait for Inspiration.  She’s a lazy b*tch that has to be chased down.”)

Here’s the clip:

---

5 Comments

• At July 10, 2008, Rich Platts wrote:

  I saw this yesterday and thought about what it means to teachers in a different way. I think it says that as teachers begin to change their teaching, especially using technology to change the learning environment (teaching in general ought to be considered 'creative') , that you should keep your standard in mind, but realize that you might not always measure up to your own standard... and as long as you strive toward it you are on the right path.

  Simpler still . . . don't give up.

• At July 10, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  @Rich: That's a really nice angle for sure. Hadn't thought of it, glad you shared it :)

• At July 10, 2008, Andrew wrote:

  Clay,

  I shared some of this with my science class when we made iMovies. My high school students didn't know Ira Glass but their reaction was positive and they had a good class discussion.

  I also showed them Jack Black's acceptable.tv tutorial on "How to Edit". They thought he was hilarious.

  Result: they became more aggressive about editing and splicing clips together over and over again.

  I'll be showing these clips to another group of students in the fall. They might be good for other teachers to use as well.

  Andrew

• At July 10, 2008, Dean Shareski wrote:

  Do you think this only applies to multimedia or does it not apply to writing or another artistic endeavor?

• At July 10, 2008, Clay Burell wrote:

  Good question, Dean. I think teachers and students are attuned to the developmental curve of traditional reading and writing, but possibly don't transfer that to the new practices.

When you use a lot of technology to push the envelope and hang with others who do as well-- it is pretty amazing when you find yourself in awe of the tools. Darren, Wes, Dean and I continually use tools to collaborate since we all live so far away from each other. Wednesday night at NECC wasn't going to be any different than other countless K12Online virtual meetings we have had except that three of us would be together and Darren would be online- or so we thought.

We ended up at a pretty ritzy restaurant. Once we were seated Dean pulled out his laptop and called Darren on Skype. We made him full screen and sat him at the table across from ours. It made him seem as if he was eating with us virtually.

It was so dark that we had to use a candle to allow Darren to see us. It seemed a little like a ghost story moment. Dean took the laptop and walked Darren around with the camera on so he could see the RiverWalk and get a feel for what our surroundings were like. Someone walking by knew Darren and hollered out to him. It was wild, just like he was really there.

The waiter came up and greeted us all including Darren. When he found out he was from Canada he began to sing the Canadian National Anthem. Overall, it was an awe inspiring event.

Life is physically and mentally too cramped for me to write the posts I’ve been planning about Pink’s Whole New Mind and Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody.  I’m tutoring three days a week, finishing up my change of visa status (I never thought I’d need a Green Card, but there it is), and moving into our new apartment on Tuesday - after which I hope to be able to think clearly.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying simply sharing some of the amazing free resources I’m discovering these days. Today’s offering:  Celtx (click screenshot for full view).

From the Celtx site, a partial overview of the scriptwriting, storyboarding, collaborating, production scheduling, and on-and-on-ing it performs:

Celtx is the world’s first all-in-one media pre-production software. It has everything you need to take your story from concept to production. Celtx replaces ‘paper, pen & binder’ pre-production with a digital approach that’s more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share.

Multi-Media Friendly: Celtx helps you pre-produce all types of media - film, video, documentary, theater, machinima, comics, advertising, gaming, music video, radio, podcasts, videocasts, and however else you choose to tell your story.

All-In-One: Unlike scriptwriting software, you can use Celtx for the entire pre-production process - write scripts, storyboard scenes and sequences, develop characters, breakdown & tag elements, schedule production, and prepare detailed and informative production reports for cast and crew.

Fully Integrated: Celtx is designed to help your entire production team work together on a single, easy to share project file - eliminating the confusion of multiple project files, and the need for ‘paper and binder’.

There’s more, too: a Project Central community site for global Celtx users, and more beyond that. Check out the site for the goodness - and don’t miss the screencast tutorials to get the full effect.  Just wonderful - hats off to Celtx.

It’s cross-platform, by the way, so goodness for all, PC, Mac, and otherwise. (h/t to Ostatic for the excellent Six Essential Open Source Apps for Mac Videographers post. Go there for five more goodies beside!)

---

1 Comments

• At July 2, 2008, Paul C wrote:

  Hi Clay,

  Celtx sounds something like Animoto, a video production site which enables you to storyboard graphics and script to create your own MTV style video. The ease of use has great educational, hands on value for students.

  See my video I had so much fun creating at:

  http://quoteflections.blogspot.com/2008/06/animoto-rocks.html

  Paul Cs last blog post..Encyclopedia Dilemma

That Networked Learning elective “English Seminar” class I taught last semester ended two weeks ago. (Sift through the archives for related posts.)

For new readers or simply people not tuned in here during the last six months, here’s a recap: Ten students of mixed grades (9-12, ages 15-18), each with a MacBook laptop (the school is 1:1), were given the most open, autonomous, swim-or-drown class experience they’d probably ever had, and are likely to ever have again.

The idea was simple:

This is a language arts course: writing, speaking, communicating.  If you spend this semester communicating about topics that “teacher” assigns, you will not be real writers. You will just be doing homework.  Writers write of their own interests and ideas.  That means you will have to find your own topics, in order to experience being a writer, speaker, film-maker, etc.

So you will develop a web-based project based on your interests; use whatever modes of communication you desire - writing, podcasting, screencasting, movie-making, etc; launch and grow your project over six months, and apply the principals of quality - in whatever “language art” mode you’ve chosen - from the mini-lessons and sitting together conferences we had; do your project singly or in teams; extra credit for using Twitter, Skype, Facebook, YouTube, and the rest to network, go global, and “imagine big.”

If you “try big” and fail, you can still receive an A, if you articulate and apply the lessons your failures taught you.

A six month project in absolute freedom will bring you to brick walls, slumps, quagmires, that may last for weeks.  As long as you push through them, and come out the other side, you don’t need to fear for your grade. I want you to experience the difficulty of not being able to quit in the face of adversity, the difficulty of freedom and responsibility, of keeping an idea alive.

If you’re lazy, unproductive, unimaginative, unconcerned about quality - you won’t do well.

You will be given almost the entirety of each 77-minute class to independently work on your project. I will occasionally give whole-class mini-lessons on authentically good writing, audio- and video-production, and will