Frisbee is a brand name, but how newsworthy is that?
What would you do? Today I wrote 192 lines of ChoiceScript code to address this journalism lesson.
Inside Voices — A Weekend Musical
Carolyn was in this short movie, conceived and produced in 48 hours, executed in a single unbroken take (with mesmerizing camera motion). If you can spare about 8 minutes, I think you’ll enjoy what you see!
An English professor tries to help ChatGPT write and revise a sonnet
Shortly after my online AmLit survey began, I received two obviously AI-generated submissions. The responses did not address the prompt, there was no textual annotation and brainstorming assignment that was supposed to lead up to the written response, and the student did not take me up on my offer to meet to discuss how the…
Students must learn how to get things wrong. Only one subject does that. [English.]
I invest a lot of energy asking my college students to unlearn the pattern of summary and personal reflection that was enough to to earn a good grade in high school. I emphasize repeatedly that their high school teachers didn’t do anything wrong by teaching them what they needed to do in order to get…
Spring 2023 Grades: Submitted! (I only had 3 last-minute submissions to mark today.)
Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? Universities Aren’t Ready for the Answer | The Walrus
I’m still grappling with exactly how the rise of AI writing apps will affect my teaching. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ban technology from the classroom. While I will likely assign more in-class, hand-written activities, that strategy won’t work for online classes — and I am just not interested in requiring students to use…
What can you do with an English Major?
Credible case that a lost Shakespeare sonnet has been identified
A dedication in the script of a 1603 Ben Jonson play (Sejanus: His Fall) may have been written by Shakespeare, who appeared in that play as an actor. “It’s tantalising. There are so many parallels with Shakespeare’s style that it must surely make even the most hardened sceptic pause and think.” Initially intrigued, he had…
In August, 2002, I was blogging about ebook readers and email in teaching; how urban legends spread; tales of a plush Chthulu; no, the creator of D&D was not on drugs; a paperless library; Marilyn Monroe; liveblogging an epileptic seizure
In August, 2002, I was blogging about Educational technology spending that doesn’t benefit students; ebook readers that students don’t like; email as a tool in online course (all free at the time, but now behind the Chronicle of Higher Ed’s paywall) A prof spreading bad papers in order to catch plagiarists Expensive goose tracker leads…
‘We’re back’: Bushy Run’s 2023 battle reenactment will be held
I’m glad to know that this recent controversy has been resolved in a way that lets Bushy Run respectfully continue its scheduled historic August re-enactment, and I hope that appropriate safety and cultural sensitivity checks will preserve the educational value of the event, while not romanticizing the violence. HARRISBURG — This year’s Battle of Bushy…
In July, 2002, I was blogging about military close reading, weblogs in journalism, UX evangelism, Walker on links and power, Lileks on a realistic WWII game, and QUERTY vs Dvorak keyboards.
In July, 2002, I was blogging about Intelligence Officers Read Between the Enemy Lines A great headline for an LA Times story about interrogation and document analysis during the military campaign in Afghanistan. Weblogs: Put Them to Work in Your Newsroom Journalism was still a print-first medium at the time, and local TV reporters were…
AI is better at writing poems than you’d expect. But that’s fine.
Even the most rebellious poets follow more rules than they might like to admit. A good poet understands grammatical norms and when to break them. Some poems rhyme in a pattern, some irregularly and some not at all. Poetry’s subtler rules seem hard to program, but without some basic norms about what a poem is,…
Avoid static, wordy nominalization. Prefer compelling verbs.
New graphic for a handout I first posted in 2000. “Nominalization.”
ChatGPT Can’t Kill Anything Worth Preserving
Many are wailing that this technology spells “the end of high school English,” meaning those classes where you read some books and then write some pro forma essays that show you sort of read the books, or at least the Spark Notes, or at least took the time to go to Chegg or Course Hero and grab…
Pa. agency explains why it enacted new ‘no force-on-force rule’ for Bushy Run, other sites
Attending the re-enactment of the Battle of Busy Run was a favorite and familiar part of our homeschool curriculum. The end to battle reenactments at Bushy Run Battlefield has left many members of the community saddened and frustrated. But in Harrisburg, officials with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission consider the new “no force-on-force” policy…
An afternoon with Ben Franklin.
The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months
“I have always understood the Nazis,” Golding confessed, “because I am of that sort by nature.” And it was “partly out of that sad self-knowledge” that he wrote Lord of the Flies. Rutger Bregmen writes: “began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island?…
The Toulmin model for analyzing arguments came up at a faculty pedagogy workshop today. I spent some downtime updating a web page I posted in 1999.
Academics work to detect ChatGPT and other AI writing
Today I met a class of English majors who love writing, and who expressed concern that AI writers will put them out of a job. Human- and machine-generated prose may one day be indistinguishable. But that does not quell academics’ search for an answer to the question “What makes prose human?” […] “Think about what…
Historians Admit To Inventing Ancient Greeks
I knew it! Busted!! “One night someone made a joke about just taking all these ideas, lumping them together, and saying the Greeks had done it all 2,000 years ago,” Haddlebury said. “One thing led to another, and before you know it, we’re coming up with everything from the golden ratio to the Iliad.” “That was…