Imagine, if you will, a Shakespeare course / Propos’d in blank verse like the Bard would write

Verses Proposing a New Course: “Shakespeare in Context” You’ll pick a modest count of Shakespeare plays– Say, five. Three weeks to each you’ll dedicate. One context week, one week on text, and next One week to multi-modally create A research paper, podcast, monologue, Or supercut of twenty diff’rent Lears Who curse their sixty daughters’ cruel hearts. Professional and student actors we will hear, In stagings mounted locally. What’s more, We’ll…

The Pepe the Frog Meme Is Probably Not Worth Understanding

“Life is short, much of Internet communication is more Dada-esque than denotative, and mastering dank memes has an effort-to-payoff ratio that really, truly is not worth it.” –NPR reporter Camila Domonoske, taking a cleansing breath before explaining the Pepe the Frog meme. Similar:This Is Not a Book: Thomas Jefferson & Apple's App StoreHumanities professors from the Universit…AcademiaPluto…

Ode to Huckleberry Finn, Dec’d

(Inspired by Emmeline Grangerford, Dec’d.) Girls, take his cold dead hand and kiss The knuckle – very thin, And bid adieu and ballyhoo Poor Huckleberry Finn. And was it prowling cannibals Or adversary’s sin That spilled the flood of crimson blood Of Huckleberry Finn? O hear my sad, sad words of woe (As I more…

How to Make a Website: Guide to Web Creation, Design & Styling

Similar:Log Off, You Losers! Electronic Flatulence Must Cease!”Put your hands in your laps. Close your…AcademiaViral Video Vilifies Foul-ball FanA recent video that shows a kid in the b…EthicsIndependence of the press: the "essential ingredient of liberty" (Alexis de Tocqueville)CultureA Video Game About Changing What Happens In Shakespeare's HamletElsinore is a game where you play as…

How to Make a Website: Guide to Web Creation, Design & Styling

I am a textual thinker, not a visual thinker. The resources I create for my own students focus on my own strengths and needs as a college English teacher:  the writing, basic conventions, and genres such as instructions and emails, and user-focused areas I’ve picked up out of necessity after watching my students learn to write for…

The neglected history of videogames for the blind

Similar:Google: "how can u" vs. "how can an individual" is not really about grammar Yes, I got a chuckle over this, but …CultureAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsMy simulated city has 1000 capsule inhabitants that are just smart enough to gather around…My simulated city has 1000 capsule inhab…DesignVerification HandbookOne of journalism’s…

The neglected history of videogames for the blind

What kind of a “videogame” has no video? Nomenclature aside, this is an interesting exploration of audio-only games. Playing Real Sound as a sighted player, it’s hard not to be disoriented at first. Its dialogue—better acted than in any game I’ve played—cannot be skipped over or sped up by mashing a button repeatedly. We’re used…

My Son Plays Mozart Too Fast

He says “My piano teacher told me not to play it this fast. But I don’t really care, because I am having too much fun.” Similar:Facebook, Now You Remind Me of a Half-Drunk Cocktail Party SchmoozerLast week, Facebook asked me what sports…BusinessShakespeare’s Choose-Your-Own AdventureIf meeting three strange ladies in the s…AmusingSenior Tech #1: How To Master…

STEM Education Is Vital–But Not at the Expense of the Humanities

Promoting science and technology education to the exclusion of the humanities may seem like a good idea, but it is deeply misguided. Scientific American has always been an ardent supporter of teaching STEM: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But studying the interaction of genes or engaging in a graduate-level project to develop software for self-driving…

A Dance Mom Gets Schooled by a Ballet Mistress Who Can Write

Avoid trying to publicly shame a ballet mistress who can write.

This morning, someone pseudonymously spammed the parent email list at my daughter’s ballet school, with a scolding complaint about a delayed cast list. It read, in part: “We pay our fees on time…. We received the email to donate to the school’s fundraiser this week on time. But no cast List. This is a teachable moment to demonstrate that being on time, especially when a promise is involved, is important.”

The school’s response, posted about a half hour later, ended thus: “Emailing using an address we can not identify and failing to sign your email shows a lack of conviction. Failing to understand that it is a relatively easy thing to discover your identity through your IP address is another indication that your action was not thought through. If the lessons you wanted to teach here were your own ignorance, arrogance and cowardice, you’ve succeeded.”

The whole response is worth a sincere, rousing “slow clap”.

“Jewish priests do this. It’s where Leonard Nimoy got the Vulcan sign,” says the geekling, who is excited for Fiddler on the Roof auditions.

Similar:A spooooooky post about predatory journals for this Halloween season.Predatory publications are not concerned…AcademiaIn between 3 walks and a chess game with my son, today I managed to churn out a second 10s…AestheticsSesame Street Is Moving to HBO, and the Symbolism Is CrushingI’ve been fascinated by the rhetoric of …BusinessIn Defense of DistractionIf you’re a fan…

“What Teachers Make” Sequence of Assignments

Every year I rewatch Taylor Mali’s passionate defense of “What Teachers Make.” As part of a sequence of assignments designed to help students write a more engaging personal literacy narrative, I use Mali’s speech. Yes, it’s my job to teach composition, but composition is a term that applies to music, photography, choreography, athletics, etc. Students…