Reading a Classic American Play to My Daughter

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Coming of Age (TNG Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 18)

Rewatching ST:TNG A character-heavy episode, full of familiar tropes that add up to little. Starfleet seems much darker than we’ve ever seen it before, in two parallel storylines that intersect only thematically. Wesley, who we know full well isn’t leaving the show, applies to Starfleet Academy, and a grumpy admiral friend of Picard brings aboard…

Controversial Content in YA Literature: A College Professor and Homeschooling Parent Answers an Aspiring Teen Writer’s Questions

I received this comment on my blog: [F]or my Senior Project I am writing a young adult short novel. I found the article on your blog, “Short Story Tips: 10 Ways to Improve Your Creative Writing,” very helpful. However, I was wondering if you had any opinions on the boundaries of what is appropriate content…

Home Soil (TNG Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 17)

The concept was good, and the production values were decent (I really liked the main lab on the planet); however, it starts out as a murder mystery and spends some time developing the human suspects, only to drop them abruptly when the “microbrain” starts growing, so this episode ends up lopsided and disappointing. I did like Troi’s speech: “We see and hear you now. We didn’t know you were there. You are beautiful to us. All life is beautiful.” Yes, it’s corny enough that I couldn’t help but think of the reformed Sour Kangaroo at the end of Seussical. But it captures one of the enduring appeals of Star Trek — it lets us envision what it would be like to be part of a society where idealism and selflessness and intellectual curiosity is mainstream culture.

Greensburg student wins Shakespeare contest

A Greensburg student did the Bard proud, winning her category in a Shakespearean competition with more than 1,000 Pittsburgh-area competitors. Carolyn Jerz, a homeschooled student, won best monologue in the 8-12 grade division for her performance as the Duke of York from Shakespeare’s play “King Henry VI, Part 3” —Tribune-Review Similar:That’s one small step for…

The Girl Wins the Upper Division Monologue in the 25th Annual Pittsburgh Public Theatre’s Shakespeare Contest

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The U.S. government and Facebook are negotiating a record, multibillion-dollar fine for the company’s privacy lapses

Are you still relying on Facebook to filter your news for you? Zuckerberg will probably apologize — yet again — and then keep on Zucking. The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are negotiating over a multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the social media giant’s privacy practices, according to two people familiar…

Journalism Isn’t Dying. It’s Returning to Its Roots.

An important reminder that “objective” journalism is a recent innovation. In the past, even a small town would have a liberal paper and a conservative paper. If you wanted to be truly informed, you’d subscribe to both. Out-of-town publishing chains with more interest in profits and less investment in the communities started buying up both…

Enjoying my “Dystopia in American Literature” class.

After a kind of prelude in which we looked at Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle” and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” as proto-dystopias, my “Dystopia in American Literature” class looked at Jack London’s post-apocalyptic “The Scarlet Plague” last week. Because it’s an online class that never meets face-to-face, I’ve been posting regular 15-20m context lectures,…

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

Student: “Just wanted to let you know that your class has benefited me outside of just literature studies and thank you.”

In my online class on literary dystopia, I am asking students to post one-minute podcasts to share with each other, so the class doesn’t feel so lonely. About half of the students chose to do audio recordings, and half chose videos. While this isn’t a media production course, I am still giving tips on eye…

In 2019, I have a college student who annotates readings like this!

I asked students in my online “Dystopia in American Literature” class to demonstrate “whylighting” — not just highlighting a passage, but adding a note explaining why it’s worth noticing. If this were an in-person classroom, I’d just walk around the room and glance over their shoulders to confirm that they’re dong the work. In this…

Too Short a Season (TNG Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 15) When an old admiral youthens, shows bad morale, that’s a facepalm

Rewatching ST:TNG. I was underwhelmed. The Enterprise delivers an elderly Admiral Jameson on a mission to negotiate with terrorists on a planet where he brokered a hostage release decades ago. The regular cast has very little to do because the story follows the visiting admiral, who ends up being rather unlikable. When we meet him,…