Kerry Defends Wife's 'Shove It' Comment

“We have to turn back some of the creeping, un-Pennsylvanian and sometimes un-American traits that are coming into some of our politics,” she said. Morning television shows broadcast the remarks. When a reporter from a conservative Pennsylvania newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, pressed Heinz Kerry what she had meant by “un-American” she said repeatedly, “No, I…

Vacation Blog Pause

Vacation Blog Pause (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’ll be on a little family vacation until August 1. My access to the Internet will be sporadic at best. Feel free to chat among yourselves while I am away. And enjoy the postings from “buup114” and the other spam that will doubtless collect in my absence.

Tribute to the Typewriter

It’s not just the dainty pressing of keys we’re talking about, and none of those pansy wrist pads are involved. We’re talking real, blood-circulating, bone-strengthening snapping on the machine. We’re talking about the sweep and thump of the carriage after each line, the bing of the bell adding a little music. We’re talking exercise not…

Traditional Methods are Tools, Too

Traditional Methods are Tools, Too (PILOT Reflections) One often hears that computers and other online instruction methods are only tools, and that they should complement, rather than replace, traditional methods of instruction. But aren’t traditional instructional approaches also tools? I just finished a week of teaching a Vacation Bible School, and I absolutely love sitting on…

Teaching Students with Psychiatric Disabilities

Teaching Students with Psychiatric Disabilities (PILOT Reflections) When I was a grad student teaching a freshman writing class, a student wearing a leather jacket and miniskirt put her fishnet-stocking-clad leg up on the table and blew spit bubbles through her front teeth, popping them with her finger while talking to me about her assignment. Maybe that…

Varying Instructional Methods

Varying Instructional Methods (PILOT Reflections) I wonder if I’d do a better job varying my instructional techniques if every college classroom came equipped with a first-grader to act as an early-warning system, ready to flop over on the carpet and moan at the first sign of boredom. I love writing workshop days because there’s usually little…

Missing Class

Missing Class (PILOT Reflections) Preface: Did I Miss Anything, a short poem by Tom Wayans. Amusing: A FAQ page that I put up is the top Google hit for “missed class“. Students sometimes miss class for extended periods due to illness. I once had a student who was a group leader in a technical writing class.…

Accessing a Map of the United States for a Visually Impaired Student (no answers — just musings)

Accessing a Map of the United States for a Visually Impaired Student (no answers — just musings) (PILOT Reflections) If I wanted to use a map of the United States in a class that includes a visually disabled student, what would I do? For a low-tech solution, I’m sure there are Braille maps, or 3-D maps…

Universal Design in Education

Universal Design in Education (PILOT Reflections) At the local Shop ‘n Save grocery store, after you swipe your credit card through the slot, the green LED’s light up with the message, “$9.95. Is this OK?” But there’s no “OK” button on the credit card machine. There is, however, a well-worn arrow, scrawled in black ink from…

Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project

Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m taking training in acessibility via Seton Hill’s Promoting Instruction and Learning Opportunities with Technology (PILOT) project. I’ll be blogging some of my thoughts on the “inclusion” unit of this online course. Revising Seminar in Thinking and Writing (with an eye on inclusion) Universal…

Getting back into the groove

Queen Victoria, Abraham Lincoln, Florence Nightingale and other characters from history may soon be able to speak again, as scientists perfect techniques to recover the sound from recordings that are far too delicate to be played. —Maggie Shiels —Getting back into the groove (BBC) Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary.

Guide to the Early Star Trek Novels

Today STAR TREK spans six television series, ten feature films and several interactive CD-ROMs. In addition, the STAR TREK afficionado had hundreds of novels to choose from with dozens more being published each year. It was not always thus. Those of us who were loving STAR TREK in the late 1960’s and into he early…

Reading at Risk: A Response

The NEA’s recent “Reading at Risk” report, which concludes that there has been a 10% national decline in what it calls literary reading since 1982, with the drop-off even more precipitous among younger age groups, is surely of concern to anyone who cares about the future of literature and a literate populace. While the report…