My 10yo has a complex relationship with books. She loves being read to, and she reads quite a lot, but she says she doesn’t enjoy reading. Of the various lessons she has to accomplish each day, she will often choose reading first, but only, she says, because she hates it least. Today when I finished…
The Idealist Similar:How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweetOn Sunday night, President Donald Trump …AcademiaWriting for the Godless: Flannery O’Connor on Dogma, Belief, and the Difference Between Re…I’m not teaching her time period this te…BooksStick to facts, but write news your readers will actually want to read. Students…
The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls Of mastodons, are billiard balls. The sword of Charlemagne the Just Is ferric oxide, known as rust. The grizzly bear whose potent hug Was feared by all, is now a rug. Great Caesar’s bust is on my shelf, And I don’t feel so well myself. Similar:One Man's Mission…
If you have written anything you think my readers will appreciate, feel free to suggest it. Dankeschön. Similar:The Irreversible Damage of Mark Zuckerberg’s SilenceWired, obviously having worked on a thin…BusinessOne Author Breaks Down the Reality of Violent Games in the MediaChris Person posts a link to this very c…AcademiaTSA Agent ConfessionIt was May 2007. I was…
That’s one small misspeak for a man… “The `a’ was intended,” Armstrong said. “I thought I said it. I can’t hear it when I listen on the radio reception here on Earth, so I’ll be happy if you just put it in parentheses.” Although no one in the world heard the “`a,” some research backs…
Someone who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated. And one’s heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. “I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would…
I don’t get to teach technical writing much anymore, so when I touched on it in a new media class I took the opportunity to freshen up some older web resources. A business memo, a lab report, or a professional e-mail are all variations on the basic report structure described in this document. Feel free to modify these guidelines…
Are we moving toward an era where Americans will speak discernibly red versus blue accents? It’s hard to say. Social identities are complex, and can be defined along a number of different dimensions like class, race, or ethnicity. Not everyone feels that politics are a part of their core identity. But I suspect that political…
I’ve been meaning to create a screencast like this for a long time. Teaching an online lit course is great motivation for churning out these things. 1. What is Literary Close Reading? (0:30) Why a literary close reading doesn’t mean “anything goes” (1:00) 2. Why Do We Read Closely? (1:35) 3. Let’s Read a Text…
Newspapers and their fans make a lot of noise about the professionalism of journalism, that journalism needs to be paid for, that the Internet is no substitute for the hard core objectivity and insightful commentary newspapers offer. and so on. Whether these arguments are true or not does not interest me. I have found…
As gimmicky as “steampunk Huck and Tom” sounds, the characters actually may be quite well suited for steampunk. Twain’s novel Tom Sawyer Abroad was a play on Jules Verne-style adventure stories, and featured a mad professor and his absurd, futuristic airship. And Tom Sawyer had his own mystery story with Tom Sawyer, Detective. However, Twain…
Vote for Carolyn’s Headshot — Round 2. Similar:My Polish grandmother used to bake these cookies, which my wife picked up at a Ukranian fe… My grandmother shaped …AestheticsThe only snow alert you'll ever need.AmusingAlex and Carolyn rehearse for “The King and I” Saturday nightPersonalAnother random background control panel for a #blender3d #steampunk project. I wish…
Here’s a fantasy workspace, that I built in Blender 3D, using various Googled images of old books and this awesome steampunk keyboard. Here’s me in my real office. The books aren’t as neat and tidy. I just took some reference photos of the chair… I’ll add it to my fantasy office the next time I…
There’s often a moment in a lit class when a student says, “Since the professor says there’s no single ‘correct’ interpretation of a story, then pretty much anything goes, so I’m going to argue ‘Huck was a girl’ or ‘Hester was a witch.’ ” Of all the possible “correct” answers, the stronger ones are better…
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Which of these headshots do you like best? Let me know on Facebook. Carolyn Headshots. Similar:Epilogue to Rossum's Universal RobotsMy big finish as Alquist in a Zoom-based…DramaStar Trek: Voyager Premiered 20 Years AgoI remember wanting to like Voyager a lot…Culture#AugustWilson #CenturyCycle Three week intensive course (whew!) All the students did very …PersonalLego TimelineThe Lego brick…
“If we really are trying to teach the world, including people from other cultures, we have to take a responsibility to educate people about plagiarism, not just vaporize people for it,” said Mr. Severance, who is also a clinical associate professor of information at Michigan, in an interview on Wednesday. —The Chronicle of Higher Education.…
My students and colleagues sometimes wonder why I don’t approve the Seton Hill student paper before it’s published, or give students grades on their published work. Student journalists at the University of Georgia resigned en masse rather than relinquish editorial control to an “editorial director” and nonstudent staff. In a draft outlining the “expectations of editorial…
Multitasking, when it comes to paying attention, is a myth. The brain naturally focuses on concepts sequentially, one at a time. At first that might sound confusing; at one level the brain does multitask. You can walk and talk at the same time. Your brain controls your heartbeat while you read a book. Pianists can…
Last week my daughter and I were a little too early to see the Westmoreland Museum of American Art’s new exhibit, so we revisited some of our favorite items in the permanent collection. Similar:Universities must stop presuming that all students are tech-savvyAlthough considerable resources have bee…AcademiaBattle Lines (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 13) Bajor's…