From Daisy Dunn’s review of Puchner’s The Written World: Socrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to remember. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Indian epic Ramayanahad been preserved through an oral tradition that seemed destined to perish through overreliance on papyrus. Akhmatova remembered because she had to but Socrates simply chose to. He…
I recently came across a box of old writing, including a binder where I had saved some undergraduate papers. When returning a Beowulf paper for a Brit Lit survey, my instructor had stapled a page of hand-written notes that began, “You come very close to successfully combining argument and explication here, much closer than…
Isn’t the news pointless and boring? Haven’t powerful people who have no personal stake in the matter and obviously have nothing whatsoever to hide called the lying fake mainstream news media the enemy of the American people?Why would anyone want to study journalism? Oh, wait… Former sports doctor Larry Nassar likely still would be sexually…
In English grammar, we use the definite article in front of a noun when we believe the listener knows exactly what we are referring to. Further, use of the word “the” suggests singular, as in The Pope. When you meet The Pope, then you’ve met The Pope. When you meet “the elderly” you’ve really only…
Today is the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists. We are sharing a famous prayer that #PopeFrancis has adapted: a prayer to fight #fakenews. If you know a journalist, give them some love today, and feel free to share this prayer. (CNS illustration/Joanna Korhorst) —Catholic News Service Similar:In Defense of DistractionIf you’re a fan…
A multimodal news package simply means “using more than one mode,” typically the written word + some other medium. Exactly what goes into a multimodal news package is negotiable. Editors and journalism instructors will each have their own expectations.
Students who are new to college literature classes often value literary biography very highly, expecting that one of their tasks is to spot one-to-one relationships between the literary texts and the personal lives of the authors. For instance, from the two Sylvia Plath poems that use Nazi imagery to describe troubled relationships with paternal figures,…
Similar:My brother, in town to see The Nutcracker, starts a chess game with my sonPersonalThat moment when you're logging into a table read of #RUR (Rossum's Universal Robo…PersonalLooking forward to more live local theater. (Support the arts!)PersonalEnterprise-D Blueprints As a newlywed, when my in-laws were …BooksReport to the bridge so the captain can assess…
A student in my “American Literature: 1915-Present” class used the medium of a 2D graphic adventure game to deliver her multimodal final project. (Students also wrote a traditional term paper.) You are the cameraman of a new TV show based on Thornton Wilder’s “The Skin of Our Teeth.” But things quickly go downhill when a…
Reagan recognized that as leader of the free world, his words carried enormous weight, and he used them to inspire the unprecedented spread of democracy around the world. | President Trump does not seem to understand that his rhetoric and actions reverberate in the same way. He has threatened to continue his attempt to discredit…
A mechanism description analyzes (that is, subdivides into components for further scrutiny) an object in space. When you try to organize your major subsections, if no other obvious pattern seems appropriate, you can always fall back on the more-important-to-less-important strategy. Don’t sell the object. A technical writer is not required to persuade the reader that the object is wonderful,…
Don’t spend three pages establishing that some people burn to death, some people freeze to death, and some people drown. Start by saying what we need to do now that the iceberg we are stranded on has caught fire. Similar:Another section of a #steampunk control panel. Useful for a cutaway shot after a character…AestheticsThe…
The car shop wanted to charge over $300. I found the part online for under $40. With the help of a YouTube video, the job took about 45 minutes. (Much of that time I spent wandering around my house looking for tools. Grateful that my father-in-law gave me a ratchet set as a wedding present.)…
Similar:It's exam week, and at the moment I have exactly one unmarked assignment (for a paper due …It’s exam week, and at the moment I have…AcademiaShe was a musical ingenue Sunday, filmed a slasher movie past midnight Monday, and was pre…AcademiaThe daughter opens another show. This weekend only.The daughter opens another show. This we…PersonalAgain…
That’s a prop knife in my right hand. Similar:Introduction to The Cherry Orchardhttps://youtu.be/8o_4Bjcfl0Y …AcademiaWeb Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers: Four MovesThe confirmation bias describes the very…AcademiaToday's 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel went pretty fast. At this stage I'm mostly re…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsThomas Jefferson on "newspapers without government" vs "government…
I have no reason to trust Facebook to filter my news for me. However, so many people get their news by social media, maybe this will be an easy way for people to check whether a viral meme is a hoax. Maybe an option marked “Look up vetted news reports related to this post.” Yes,…
In general, I avoid clicking on any headline with the weasel words “can” or “might.” However, I did enjoy this reflection on the positive impact of literary reading. I’m teaching a compressed online literature course, so that involves re-reading the literary works I assigned, as well as engaging with what my students write about those…
Similar:What Is Gamergate, and Why? An Explainer for Non-GeeksI’ve been following the frustrating slow…Current_EventsThey grew up in a mostly analog/paper world and squirmed with joy the first time they clic…Today’s students have many strengths. Th…AcademiaWhen Robert Pinsky Wrote a Video Game[F]or a brief time in the mid-nineteen-e…CultureThe Media Pyramid: “Any content where ideology leads to…
Similar:Seeing Lyle Kessler's "Orphans" with the girl.PersonalPater Noster Passenger ElevatorsSome 50 years ago, my father took me to …AmusingWonderfully Detailed Tribute to 1970s British TV Show Space: 1999″A middle aged geek” puts it well: “Utte…AestheticsI had already created the little utility craft on the lower left, but this weekend I expan…PersonalLimit child TV viewing…
Similar:Leftovers from the food my colleagues brought in to bribe/reward those few students who sh… Leftovers from the food my colleagues b…AcademiaThank you, Bogdan, for fixing and dropping off my light.PersonalPart of my daily routine is practicing German for about 15m per day. With no particular pr…EducationWinners Chosen in Annual Shakespeare Monologue and Scene ContestMichael…