In a literature class, the author’s words matter more than the author’s life and times, or our own feelings and values.

Updating the graphic for a resource I created in 2012. Similar:This actually happened the other day when I was offline.This actually happened the other day whe…PersonalAnother delightful section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #design #aesthetics #…AestheticsChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaI just discovered what will grind up a significant…

Disagreement Hierarchy: Arguments, ranked from name-calling to the careful refutation of an opponent’s central point

My weekend coronavirus lockdown project was writing up a new handout devoted to Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” for academic arguments. Does the word “argument” make you think of angry people yelling? This document presents Graham’s “disagreement hierarchy,” which catalogs multiple stages between juvenile name-calling and carefully refuting an error in your opponent’s central point. Siblings might…

In “World Drama” I’m adding the absurd, optimistic “The Skin of Our Teeth” (dropping bleak “Waiting for Godot”)

In light of current events, I’m dropping the bleak Waiting for Godot from my World Drama class (actually I’m making it optional; students could drop a different play) and adding Thornton Wilder’s absurdist but optimistic The Skin of Our Teeth.   Writing while World War II was still raging, Wilder depicts a representative American family…

O tea, O moistened herb! Mug-harbored, Spouse-delivered Steaming under the canopy of a spare shirt. O essence, Inhaled (so that’s what breathing is… now I remember) Consumed (so that’s what swallowing is… now I remember),  Now you are gone, But your goodness endures.

O tea, O moistened herb! Mug-harbored, Spouse-delivered Steaming under the canopy of a spare shirt. O essence, Inhaled (so that’s what breathing is… now I remember) Consumed (so that’s what swallowing is… now I remember), Now you are gone, But your goodness endures. Similar:Mars Is a Hellhole: Colonizing the red planet is a ridiculous way…

Watching ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ with 18,000 teenagers was one of the most profound theater experiences of my career

The arts are vital to our lives as humans. And if one entered the cavernous arena suspecting that 18,000 teenagers might view this as class-trip goof-around time, those suspicions evaporated with the extinguishing of the house lights. The students from Queens and Brooklyn, Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island laughed with the actors playing the…

“You work for the @CollegeBoard?” the bright-eyed teen behind the fast food counter asks. I tell her I sometimes mark #APEnglish tests. “I’m taking three AP classes now!” she says. “After I go to college, I want to be the #POTUS!”

“Unsweetened tea. And can you use this cup?” “You work for the College Board?” the bright-eyed teen behind the fast food counter asks, spying my branded mug. I tell her I sometimes mark #APEnglish tests. “I’m taking three AP classes now!” she says. “After I go to college, I want to be the president!” I…

My students seem increasingly confused by the difference between journal title vs. article title

Sometimes students will submit bibliography entries that repeat a title — either the journal or the article.  I assume they are using an online citation generator and I assume they’re not bothering to check its output. What I had previously thought of as a random careless error now seems evidence of a paradigm shift. I’ve…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In January 2000, I was blogging about dancing paperclips, the transience of literary judgement, “bafflegab,” and a planned B&N/Microsoft online bookstore

In January 2000, I was blogging about Dancing paperclips and telemarketers A “100 best novels” list published in 1899 Updike’s prequel to Hamlet The “bafflegab” jargon generator “Bookseller Barnes & Noble is teaming with Microsoft to build a new online e-book store.” (but the link is dead) Similar:The Zombie Argument that Refuses to DieThe idea…

Me loving my birthday truck, c. 1971.

  I adored this truck, and spelling words with the letters. When I got older, it was the shuttlecraft for my Star Trek figures. Similar:Looking in on the officers' wardroom (conference and dining) one deck above the main … I thought of the interior as “Missisip…AestheticsMore modular, swappable building components. I’ve got to work on…

Opinion: A deceptively edited video of Joe Biden signals what’s coming (Washington Post)

Critical thinking skills and basic textual analysis are increasingly important in a cultural landscape where the powerful are counting on the average person not caring about such things as the truth. Biden opened by talking about how English common law in the 1300s allowed for husbands to beat their wives, and then said that we…

Long Live The English Major—If It’s Paired With An Industry-Recognized Credential

What does this simple question and its results tell us? It’s not the English major that’s the problem. It’s an industry-recognized skill attached to the English major that’s the opportunity. I’ve long advocated for a rebranding of the term liberal arts. Americans generally and employers more specifically value the elements of a liberal arts degree such…

The difficulty is the point (teaching critical thinking skills differs from teaching facts to memorize)

In the past few years I have seen more students who are very bright, hard-working, and grade-conscious, who are very comfortable when they have a list facts to memorize, or a formula to follow. Rather than thinking of a revision as an opportunity to develop, these students think more transactionally than organically about their learning, and prefer to see revision as a punishment for not getting it right the first time. I see it instead as an integral part of the critical thinking process.

Let’s conſider ſome ſurpriſing old type: “Did you ever hear ſuch a wind-ſucker, as this?”

I ſhall always treaſure the pleaſant ſurpriſe of ſeeing the “long s” while reading Epicoene, by Ben Jonſon. Similar:Crying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship EverI’ve felt a bit like this guy the last f…CultureNotes on watching "Aliens" for the first time again, with a bunch of kids”This movie has so many cliches…

Set Phasers to Teach!

Fans of Star Trek have thus already been introduced to the plays of William Shakespeare, and experienced intertextual analysis in action as the aforementioned Star Trek episodes directly relate to Hamlet and Henry V. The same can be said of the motion picture The Wrath of Khan, which portrays Ricardo Montalban’s villain as a futuristic Captain Ahab from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.…