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:The Miller of the Dee; by James Baldwin; read by Dennis JerzI showed up at the recording studio for …AestheticsThe daughter is working hard as a dancer and Flaemchen understudy. @frontporchtheatricalsCultureRandom #steampunk workstation with a porthole, because why not. Most of the surfaces are f…AestheticsPlaying with depth of…
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…
Mars Panorama — My 10yo Pretends Her Bed Is NASAs Curiosi – YouTube. Similar:The AI Mirror Test: Why Even the Smartest People Keep Falling ShortWhat is important to remember is that ch…CultureText, Speech, Machine: Metaphors for Computer Code in the Law : Computational CultureOn my to-read list once I post midterm g…BusinessFather-daughter bonding between takes.That’s…
Which of these headshots do you like best? Let me know on Facebook. Carolyn Headshots. Similar:''Uh…''And yes, Liz’s face registers the shift …Aesthetics"Chores" — Clip from Snow White: The Musical (Stage Right Greensburg, Sept 2012)Here’s what it sounded like at our first…CultureCanadians Love Poop, Americans Love Pizza: How Emojis Fare Worldwide The company SwiftKey analyzed…
“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:Space:1999 design aesthetic merged detailed miniatures with curvy Euro-futurist interior d…Clearly influenced by Kubrick’s 1969 fil…AestheticsPresidential RhetoricCultureThe cultural implications of the myth…
Students also need to learn that being offended is an emotional response, not a rational one. If you don’t like something I’ve said–or, as in this case, something somebody else said–don’t just get upset about it. See if you can formulate a cogent rebuttal. That, too, is a key element of critical thinking. Finally–and most…
Soon after WWII began, the USS Requin began serving as a training target for sonar crews. After several refits during the Cold War, she eventually came to rest in Pittsburgh as a museum exhibit in 1990.
Because a beautiful sunny day at the pool apparently by itself isn’t enough, we upped the ante with SCUBA gear. Similar:Sigma Tau Delta English Honors Society induction ceremony. Congratulations new members. #s…PersonalAnother 10 sq cm of details for a #steampunk control panel. Just background eye candy, not…AestheticsFor New Acquisitions, UMD Libraries Choose Ebooks by DefaultIncreasingly…
I was at a youth car wash today, watching my son and the other the kids spray each other (and sometimes the cars). One of the customers happened to be carrying an anthology of dystopian science fiction. We got to chatting, and he told me about this parlor game — which sadly seems to be…
A long-time fan of Edith Nesmit recounts what it was like to be asked to write a sequel. I was flattered to be asked but initially declined: I felt it would be restricting to try to write in another author’s style, especially if they were writing long ago. I did say, just to sound obliging,…
That awesome image showing Earth, Venus and Jupiter from Mars? It’s cool, but according to Phil “Bad Astronomy” Plait, it’s from planetarium software. I was about to reblog it myself, but did a quick check first. An unreal Mars skyline | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine. Similar:Just Doesn’t LIke MasksCurrent_EventsMedia Companies Are Getting Sick of…
More great satire from The Onion. PASADENA, CA—Barely 72 hours after the landing of its Mars rover, NASA officials announced Thursday that their mission had ended, as Curiosity’s two-gigabyte memory card was now filled to capacity. “Well, that’s that, folks,” said chief scientist John Grotzinger, explaining that after Curiosity’s Mars Descent Imager took an especially…
My colleague Fran Leap, a thoughtful and wise explorer of intellect and the human heart as related to the divine, describes her experience as a Christian coming to know a very different holy text– one that comes from an aural rather than scriptural tradition. The Qur’an longs to convince its hearers of the fragile and…