Visitors

Having visitors to the class was very helpful as the subject of psychology is Poetics allowed people to open up about how poetry help them through difficult times and such. Several students attended the poetry reading that one of the visiting poets had before our class so having a noon time poetry reading was new for the department but was overall successful.

Final presentations

 We had students the final week of class give 15 minute presentations along with handouts about what their final project was while having the final project actually do during finals week. We gave them a heads up about a month-and-a-half before  the end of the semester to give them  the layout of what we were asking for , as well as to get them to thinking about  what they would do for their final project.  It was to stem out from what we had covered  something weed covered in class but also include additional research  to get them to thinking of taking it further .  I don't think anyone really took us up on the hybrid  choice to which is okay it's the end of the semester after all.

Discussion

As we had students use the mrad model of writing essays it proved to be really helpful to have the discussion part as everything was to set up the concept of what they would do as a poem and then the discussion would reveal how they could take the poem in New Directions as well as give them the chance for reflection on if there poem did set out to do what they did. One poem student decided to write about her Filipino and Caucasian backgrounds being who she is and she just wrote out in words like a free right as we just covered trance Poetics. She then developed the overall driving figure metaphor of coffee for her poem and she had another student do the artwork in coffee so she could make a broadside to pass out during a student presentation conference.

Reflections

One of the most influential parts of the course even compared to the psycho Geographic drift is the Erasure. More students chose to do the Erasure as part of their last project. Some did it for their final product. One of the most effective final products was when a student who was struggling with getting through what poetry meant to her as well as in the semester upon reflecting on the whole semester to choose what she wanted to do did a choice of part poetry therapy and part Erasure. She thought about how she struggled with poetry but she really thought about how much she struggled with math. In her presentation she confessed to the class she was taking math for the third time and was finally going to pass it. She looked at her current syllabus but then looked at a previous syllabus which was eight pages. In our discussions about Erasure as thinking of documents that have caused harm she chose to do an Erasure of that 8 page project. Another student chose to take responses from Brock Turner and created an eraser of what he should have said. Reflected my colleague sad it would be something to erase the words of our predators. Another student upon learning the revised documents of Mental Health or mental evaluation chose to do an eraser of those things she had been diagnosed of but now the diagnosis was changed.

There is another part after class where we brought in the diversity and inclusion director of projects to talk about when we were talking about cognitive psychology and writing Persona poems about the boundaries and ethics of writing such poems. She made an interesting discussion of how the oppressed knows the oppressor better than the oppressor knows themselves. So the boundary of who you can take on as persona is there based on historical and cultural racism sexism etcetera. One student wrote about being on being black on a white campus and being an outlier of an outlier.

Poetry as therapy

As we are moving from the cognitive Neuroscience of poetry writing as well as the article about how poetry can relieve different symptoms it's interesting a students asking questions now about writing and the process. That they're worried about sharing poems with others which is really interesting writing centered things. The psychology students really faster than interested in wanting to write poems. One of the questions even is what is more important writing the poem or reading a poem. Different students chimed in with their own experiences. It was a really good discussion.

documentary

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/nov/08/guilt-was-the-biggest-injury-how-veterans-are-using-poetry-to-heal

https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/we-are-not-done-yet

EQ

https://www.fastcompany.com/90218772/the-2000-year-old-origins-of-eq-and-how-it-became-a-crucial-job-skill

http://www.emotionalfitnesstraining.com/improve-your-emotional-intelligence-write-poetry/