Is this a blogger which I see before me? (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The other day I read a kid’s version of Macbeth to my son (age 7). It’s William Shakespeare’s Macbeth (retold by Bruce Coville / pictures by Gary Kelley). A couple nights later, instead of the science-fiction paperback we’ve been ploughing through for weeks, my…
Private vs. Public Anyone can read this: professors, classmates Don’t write about your love life or last weekend’s activities unless you want your professors (or the academic dean) to read about it Take caution when complaining about classes or classmates Also, watch what you write – don’t link to pictures of you doing anything illegal…
The fact is, there will be no more books to restock. The UT library is undergoing a radical change, becoming more of a social gathering place more akin to a coffeehouse than a dusty, whisper-filled hall of records. And to make that happen, the undergraduate collection of books had to go. This summer, 90,000 volumes…
If you’re older than about 38, words and phrases like “frotz,” “xyzzy,” “maze of twisty passages all alike,” and “eaten by a grue” trigger sharp remembrance, like Marcel Proust eating a madeleine. You’ll instantly reminisce about text games like Infocom’s Deadline, Suspended, Infidel, Leather Goddesses of Phobos, and a zillion Scott Adams titles from Adventure…
I know I should worry. I am a historian, after all, and if people will not read fiction, surely they will read less history. And I’m a teacher, and like everyone else in the humanities, I know students just do not read like they used to do. The trouble is, I am not sure the…
What happens when the title of a hit movie doesn’t conform to AP style? That question was answered in recent days when newspapers started reviewing and writing about the new box office hit whose official name is “The 40 Year-Old Virgin.” Of course, as any reporter or editor worth his or her salt knows, there…
On the first day of classes, the ritual has been the same for decades: Professors hand out copies of the syllabus and walk students through it. But in most courses at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh this fall, the only thing professors may hand out is a URL. That’s because the dean of the…
Terugkerend thema in onze gesprekken met klanten is de wijze waarop het internet als beste ingezet kan worden. Aandacht hierbij gaat vaak uit naar de wijze van communiceren. Vandaar dat wij graag u hierbij een overzicht van interessante artikelen over dit onderwerp willen presenteren: —Schrijven voor het web (”Writing for the web”) (Darwine Nieuwsbrief) A newsletter…
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that a surprisingly large number of native English speakers, who are otherwise very technically competent, seem to lack strong English skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as varying degrees of poor spelling and grammar: ‘definately’ instead of ‘definitely’; ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’; and I even…
For one thing, we overestimated academe’s interest in the humanistic study of video games. True, colleges and universities across the country are rushing pell-mell to grab a piece of the game pie, but that rush seems to be more about pipelining students into industry jobs than helping them develop critical-thinking skills. Ensuring that young people…
Computers and the Internet are changing the way people read. Thus far, search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take you to a new Web page, have turned the online literary voyage into a kind of U-pick island-hop. Far more is in store. Take “Hamlet.” –Gregory M. Lamb —How the…
The firststuffs have their being as motes called unclefts. These are mighty small: one seedweight of waterstuff holds a tale of them like unto two followed by twenty-two naughts. Most unclefts link together to make what are called bulkbits. Thus, the waterstuff bulkbit bestands of two waterstuff unclefts, the sourstuff bulkbit of two sourstuff unclefts,…
Most composition courses that American students take today emphasize content rather than form, on the theory that if you chew over big ideas long enough, the ability to write about them will (mysteriously) follow. The theory is wrong. Content is a lure and a delusion, and it should be banished from the classroom. Form is…
Researchers and educators blame the gap between books and boys on everything from a built-in fidgetiness to low expectations to a lifelong association of reading with their mothers, teachers, librarians — all female role models. But now more are suggesting that the problem may not lie entirely within the boys themselves. Some educators believe that…
An English teacher’s heart will go pitter-pat whenever he or she sees close engagement with the language of the text. That means reading every word: it’s not enough to have a vague sense of the plot. Maybe that sounds obvious, but few people pay serious attention to the words that make up every work of…
Working on ”Drama as Literature” Syllabus (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m working on my goals statement for a 200-level “Major Writers and Genres” course. I’m still working it out — the final version will be less chatty and more infused with academicspeak. The primary research method I teach in a survey course is close reading – the…
To assure its continued success, Gemini has further increased it’s [sic] exposure to retailers and consumers alike with innovative marketing and a successful brand[-]building strategy. The For Dummies brand was recently added to Gemini’s stable of product lines. With it’s [sic] recognizable brand name, For Dummies compliments [sic] the current Gemini brand profile that includes…
Are classic essays like Swift’s still being written, or has the elegant thoughtfulness that is the essay’s legacy been winnowed away by its rapacious bastard offspring, the blog? And will the Internet generation, suffused by the blogosphere, lose the ability to write essays altogether? (The plethora of essays for sale online to students portends they…
The kind of writing valued by the SAT reflects a set of assumptions about writing?and about ?good? writing?that we find problematic and which diverge from what the best current scholarship tells us about the nature of writing. Although it is possible that the new SAT will promote more writing instruction, preparation for the test…
Over the last 50 years, we’ve had to cope with an explosion of media, technologies, and interfaces, from the TV clicker to the World Wide Web. And every new form of visual media – interactive visual media in particular – poses an implicit challenge to our brains: We have to work through the logic of…