Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the U.S. I want to just briefly summarize what has been going on in OK Computer Italian during the last two weeks. I had fallen approximately one week behind in the syllabus, and it was also time to begin discussing the students' video clip projects. Thus I asked the students to work on the Lucio Dalla "Tu non mi basti mai" clip and associated grammatical points independently. They will be responsible for all of the grammatical points on the final. As those of you who have worked with the Lucio Dalla song know, it is excellent for exemplifying the conjugation of the future and the conditional tenses. I should note that our colleague and collaborator Colleen Ryan has begun to integrate grammatical exercises with the grammar points on the syllabus (beginning with the imperfetto e passato prossimo: 27 October on the syllabus), and I suggest you have a look at these. These will be going on-line during the Thanksgiving holiday and should be available sometime next week. Our goal is to develop exercises according to this model for the entire grammar in the coming months.
I asked the students to present the video clips and transcriptions during the week of the 10th and the 12th. The assignment is to transcribe and translate a clip or series of clips and to provide a brief cultural commentary to accompany the clip as a final class composition. One of the students selected the clip of Vittorio Gassman reading the first twenty lines or so of Canto V of the Inferno. In connection with our discussion of that clip, I gave the class an introduction to Dante's prosody. Basically, I gave them the twenty minutes on Dante's hendecasyllable and its typical accentual patterns as well as elisions, sinalefes, etc. This student is planning to analyze the verses from the beginning of Canto V and perhaps also give a series of different English translations of the passage. I'm not quite sure how we will go about getting these projects on-line, but this is a goal of mine,--to exhibit, so to speak, student courseware in a separate archive. This project on Canto V of the Inferno, if done properly, may well be useful for teaching students about Dante's verse. We'll see. Another student selected a series of Mulino Bianco pubblicita'. She plans to analyze them for the language and also for their cultural content. Another student selected segments from Nanni Moretti's Caro Diario; another student selected Robert Benigni's song "La Marchia degli Incazzati" (which has recently been added to the Italica site under "lessons" and includes a fine cultural page dedicated to the theme "parolacce"). In any event, we spent a fairly interesting week looking at clips and working on difficult passages in the transcriptions. I encouraged the students to seek out on the Internet native Italian sites which are related to the clips they are developing. I'll know better how these projects are progressing when I receive the hard copy of their transcriptions and translations after Thanksgiving and meet with the students to discuss the final form of their projects.
While discussing these projects and continuing during the week of 17, 19 and 20 for November, we completed the "Milarepa" and "Consigli per l'esame di maturita'" units. "Milarepa" was a big success. It's a handy unit for reviewing the imperative. While the clip itself is not very compelling, the students really took to the assignment of composing their own meditative invocations on the model of "Milarepa" using the theme of i cinque sensi and utilizing the imperative. We had a good time reviewing together and correcting the compositions which were produced by the students. I include below for illustrative and documentary purposes a few examples. "Consigli per l'esame di maturita'" was a fairly successful unit, I thought. The student independently reviewed the clip and the associated cultural material dealing with the Italian scholastic system. I asked them to find and present native Italian sites dealing with l'esame di maturita' as a cultural phenomenon. They turned up numerous interesting sites (which we will be adding as links to the cultural part of the unit), including student diary entries, newspaper articles about scholastic reforms involving l'esame di maturita', educational publishers who were selling textbooks designed to prepare students per l'esame di maturita'. Following this preparatory work, we were able to have a serious discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the Italian Scuola Superiore system and the esame di maturita' when compared to our United States educational system. Everyone got involved in the discussion, and, in the future, I think I would like to include a series of discussion questions specially designed to stimulate conversation on this topic and compositions.
The students will prepare the next series of clips, all of which treat different aspects of the Italian "food system" (Nutella e cappuccino, gli spaghetti, la pizza, il gelato). I've asked them each to prepare an oral presentation on these clips based on their study of the clip and the associated unit and to lead us in a brief discussion of these clips next week.
Until then, buon lavoro e buon divertimento! Ted
Atenzione tutti gli studenti di Notre Dame! Lasciate i vostri studi per un momento e prendete parte alla nostra meditazione per alleviare lo stress. Trovate un posto per terra e sedetevi come Budda. Chiudete gli occhi e immaginatevi che siate in cima alla cupola dorata. Guardate tutto il campus con le foglie degli alberi di ogni colore. Sentite la brezza fresca che vi accarezza il corpo e girate la testa verso il sole caldo. Udite le campane della basilica vicina che pero' sembrano di suonare da lontano. Odorate l’ethanol che emana da uno stabilimento accanto e gustate il yo-cream dalla mensa sud. Siete in cima al centro del mondo, con Maria e con Dio. I problemi terreni non vi preoccupano--siete liberi. Siete da soli ma uniti con tutto. Adesso e' tempo di ritornare alla realta' e tutti gli esercizi e lo studio che vi aspetta. Buon divertimento!
Siediti in una sedia solida e comoda. Mettiti i piedi sul piano, e le mani sul grembo. Respira profondomente e chiudi gli occhi. Respira lentamente e ritimicamente. uno...due...tre...quattro, uno...duo...tre...quattro. Continua a respirare in questo modo ed imagina che tu sei in una selva. tu vedi foglie verdeggianti, sono 8agnate con la rugiada della matina. Le felci e gli aghi dei pini coprono la terra. a destra vedi un rivuletto che corre gentilmente. tu odi il cinguettio degli uccelli, e il profume fresco della selva riempe le tue narici. A sinistra c'e' un sentiero che divide in due direzioni. Scegli una via. il tuo sentiero deporta al prato con i fiori. I fiori fanno un dulce profume. le api ronzano. In fondo del prato tu vedi la tua casa. Entra e immagina l'interno. Nell'angolo c'e' una sedia comoda. siediti nella sedia, apri gli occhi.
Quando gli occhi parlano, ascolterebbero gli orrechi? Puoi sentire la terra sotto le scarpe quando respiri con il naso? Ogni senso e' una isola, non puo' communicare con gli altri. Quello che gli occhi dicono al buio non e' lo stesso che i piedi sentono quando camminano piano sulla strada. I sensi non vanno d'accordo. Se le mani credono solo quello che gustano nella boca, ti mancerano tante cose buone nella vita. Quando vedi una faccia povera, e asolti le parole infami di una ragazza puo' essere la volta quando tu potrei assaggiare le labbra di miele. Non fare affidamento su usolo uno dei sensi. Hai cinque sensi per una ragione, cosi non sarai ingannato da uno solo. I sensi non sono gli amici fra di loro. Non funzionano insieme. La tua vita e' controllata da cinque forze. Ogni forza puo burlare ad qualche volta. Tu devi decidere quale dice la verita' in ogni situazione.