Viral Video Vilifies Foul-ball Fan
A recent video that shows a kid in the bleachers bobbling a foul ball, and a man picking up the ball and presenting it to the woman next to him, doesn’t show what it seems to show. Julian Green of the Cubs said in a statement, “Unfortunately, a video that was quickly posted and unverified…
Would YOU trade a Hank Aaron rookie card for a Roberto Clemente… for her? Full Bloom (Aug 30-Sept 2)
In Suzanne Bradbeer’s play FULL BLOOM, Jesse (played by Seton Hill’s DeShaun Herzog) owns a prized Hank Aaron Rookie Card. The girl he likes from school, Phoebe (played by Carolyn Jerz), has always wanted the rookie card of her personal hero, Roberto Clemente. As Phoebe goes through a tough emotional struggle in this play, how…
‘Not good, not nice’: At Florida rally, Trump says China has ‘targeted our farmers’
They weren’t the most newsworthy part of Trump’s Florida rally yesterday, but I’m just taking a moment to acknowledge a journalist who is using muted language, in keeping with the charge of journalists to report objectively. It’s perfectly neutral to place, deep in the body of the article, a note about the president’s claim that…
Another delightful caricature by Rebecca Scassellati
The girl as Mrs Lovett with Ben Federico as Sweeney Todd.
16yo Carolyn Jerz performs “A Little Priest” with 14yo Ben Federico. A video clip can capture only part of the magic created by a huge, committed cast, live musicians, and an attentive audience. (Support the arts in your community!)
On the way to the theater for the show! Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd.
If You Ever Find a Link to ThoughtCatalog, I’m Begging You Not to Click It
Here’s a thought… nothing you can write can possibly encourage me to click through 40 separate chunks of text. Bye.
The Problems of Real-Time Feedback in Teaching Writing
Sometimes my students get nervous because I ask them to learn writing by, you know, writing. For some other subjects, it makes sense to ease students into the work, having them memorize facts to recall for points on multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank quizzes. But writers gotta write. That means taking risks, and occasionally stumbling. In a…
The problem with blog comments, in 5 images.
After I read Mark Sample’s blog post “What about Blogging Keeps Me from Blogging,” I tried to post a comment lamenting that I miss blog comments. I ran into these fun problems.
Just remember: what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.
Words apparently spoken by the President of the United States. If you trust the news organization that reported what he said. But the President has no reason to mislead the public. He loves the public probably more than anybody. Believe me.
Why Do People Share Fake News? A Sociotechnical Model of Media Effects
Verrit, like Snopes, Politifact, and a host of other fact-checking sites, reflect fundamental misunderstandings about how information circulates online, what function political information plays in social contexts, and how and why people change their political opinions. Fact-checking is in many ways a response to the rapidly changing norms and practices of journalism, news gathering, and…
How Common Core Testing Damaged High School English Classes
Helping my students understand how my role as a college literature teacher differs from the role of a high school English teacher is a sometimes daunting task. Preparing students for a standardized reading test is completely unlike teaching them about a work of classic literature. In an English class addressing The Great Gatsby, depending on student ability…
Moving from Debate to Empathy
In my freshman writing class, my job is to teach students how to write a researched essay. I encourage students to pick topics that interest them, but I warn them that if they go into their project already convinced that one answer is correct (that euthanasia should/should not be legal, that abortion is murder/healthcare, that…
I haven't seen this show since freshman year at Bishop Denis J O'Connell High School.
Attending the Texture Contemporary Ballet.
On this date in 1999 I first added a date to the list of web links I had been curating. (The image has long since broken.)
On this date in 1999, I first dated an entry in the collection of web links I had been curating since at least that January.
The Curtains Were Blue: In Which I Fix Another Meme.
Above is my response to a meme that makes some shaky assumptions about the purpose of an English classroom. Exploring the intent of the author is a huge part of the English discipline, but it’s far from the only way to study (or teach) literature. Author intent, new historicism, reader-response, structuralism… the list goes on.…
Journalism 101: I fixed this meme for you.
I can sympathize with the sentiment, but the top part of this meme (the white text on black background) is not how I’d frame the situation. My take (which I’ve added underneath the original) is that when two sources disagree, assuming that one must be right and the other must be wrong is a form…
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani: My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader
This fascinating essay, by the grandchild of a Nigerian slave trader, explores a complex cultural legacy. At least as provocative as “Did Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson Love Each Other?” and the stunning, bitter “Molasses to Rum (to Slaves)” from the otherwise cheery musical 1776. African intellectuals tend to blame the West for the slave…