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…
Similar:The girl told me to post this with the caption, “The Addams Family Goes to the Big League….PersonalHappy Father’s Day One of my favorite pictures of my fa…Current_EventsHow PatrioticAmusingI am a dog and I am a good boy and I am prepping my Spring courses.AcademiaThat gut-wrenching photo of immigrant children in a cage? First published…
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!) Similar:Educators approve national campaign to halt high stakes, “toxic tests”Not a news item, but an announcement…
Similar:We are all of us works in progress. Sometimes progress looks messy.PersonalWhile searching my bag for a cable, I found an unexpected wealth of food-substitute items.AmusingLonely Among Us (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 6) Crew-posessing spark roams and a droid …Conflict between two species who petitio…AestheticsProgress (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 15) Kira befriends…
Here’s a thought… nothing you can write can possibly encourage me to click through 40 separate chunks of text. Bye. Similar:Youth Can Check Out Briefcases, Neckties via NYPL Grow Up Work AccessoriesThe New York Public Library has a progra…BusinessInverted Pyramid: A news story starts with what's most important, not with whoever spoke f…Jerz > Writing >&nb…JournalismStudents Learning about…
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…
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. Similar:Dear News Media, When Reporting Poll Results… JournalismWhy Computers Will Never Write Good Novels If it were possible to build a digit…BooksImma…
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. Similar:The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our ImaginationsPossibly, in a few months, we’ll return …CulturePolice…
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…
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…
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…
Similar:On Office Hours and Student Contact at the Small Liberal Arts College I don’t expect students to be constantl…AcademiaI've missed doing this! Another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel goodness. #blender3d …AestheticsI just installed the "Old Layout for Facebook" plugin for Chrome.I just installed the “Old Layout for Fac…CybercultureA student who is writing her…
Similar:Making more retro props for a #blender3d project. The way to get better at a thing is to d…PersonalForgotten closet box: powder blue summer suit with a crisp 1990 $10 bill in the pocket and…The chunky laptop seems to boot and the …DesignHelping students find my office (St. Joseph 403)PersonalProgress.PersonalEnjoying a soul food dinner in…
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. Similar:Liberal Arts Classes Could Teach Neil deGrasse Tyson a Thing or Two about the Path from Da… Your mileage may vary, but I immediate…BooksThree challenges for the web, according to…
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.…
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…
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…
My wife Leigh received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grant towards producing the small-cast drama Full Bloom. She’s found a good space and found the right cast, and so we’re doing the whole crazy “Hey, let’s put on a show” thing again! If you’re within shouting distance, and you think the arts should matter…
This is why journalism matters: The Atlantic offers a good overview of the confusing fact that the official transcripts published by the White House and the Russian government don’t match the video. Compare this transcript, of what actually happened, to the White House’s version. Here is the record of what took place, starting with the…
We’re all still reeling from Trump’s statement yesterday that he “didn’t see any reason why it would be” true that Russia had meddled with the US election. Standing there next to Putin, he publicly rejected the positions of multiple US intelligence authorities. Today, in the face of blistering criticism from foes and friends alike, including…