Here’s a thought… nothing you can write can possibly encourage me to click through 40 separate chunks of text. Bye. Similar:Facebook touts fight on fake news, but struggles to explain why InfoWars isn't banned10 points to CNN’s Oliver Darcy for work…BusinessWhat Does the Demise of Cursive Mean?Are you aware that our children aren’t b…CultureThesis Reminders…
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:The Life and Times of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯But, in addition to symbolizing despair,…CybercultureTrials and Tribble-ations #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 6) Trivial Time…
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:All the world’s an appA review of three books — The App Gener…CultureIrony…
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:To DoTo Do (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) 5: …AcademiaLittle Women (the daughter plays Amy, the youngest sister)PersonalAfter some long-delayed recabling, these are the bits I culled from my work setup.PersonalHaving a rough day. But in a span of about 24 hours, three former students reached out to …One former student said I’m the only adu…AcademiaVote for Carolyn's…
Similar:Zooming into the abyss: Black squares don’t contribute much to the learning environment.PersonalDress Rehearsal for "My Son Pinocchio"My wife, daughter, and I waiting to star…AmusingToday's unexpected but welcome moments of grace She waived a fee. He accepted a…AwesomeA Successful Failure: The TI-99/4A Turns 40My family had one of these when I was 12…AwesomeThe Girl's Obsession…
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:10 Ways AI Is Ruining Your Students’ Writing (And how to help them see that AI cannot craf…During an idle moment I was recently tal…AcademiaPrime Stage's THE OUTSIDERS Stays Golden…
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…
I have always taken a neutral stance in my journalism classes, modeling the objective nature of reporting the news “without fear or favor.” I shall continue to uphold reporting designed to publish objective truth, and criticize and expose exaggeration, rumor, wishful thinking, and outright lies presented in the guise of truth. This fall, I…
When a Facebook friend asked for tips on teaching a large class, I inventoried what I’ve learned about the flipped classroom. For the classes I teach on a regular basis, sometimes online and sometimes in-person, I’ve had many opportunities to develop stand-alone resources that I reuse. For example, I’ve recorded some stand-alone audio lectures on…
Journalist Sam Husseini, who had been holding a sign that said “Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty,” was forcibly removed from the Trump/Putin press briefing in Helsinki today.
10 points to CNN’s Oliver Darcy for working both “when asked about” and “this reporter” into a news story that was not written by a supporting character in a 1940s gangster flick. When asked by this reporter how the company could claim it was serious about tackling the problem of misinformation online while simultaneously allowing…