This is a great story about a parent who tries everything when she learns her boy is being bullied. The mom shouts at the principal, gives her son advice on how to fight, and gets the cops involved. The gentle son takes a very different approach. Powerful story. I didn’t trust the principal to help…
A colleague just sent me this kind note, which supplies a very-welcome jolt of enthusiasm as the semester winds down: This is probably going to be the best written paper I’ve published, and I could not have done it without your help! (In part because your suggestions make so much sense that it’s making me…
Humanities students are not used to failure. They want to get it right the first time. When they are new to the game, they want to get good grades on what are essentially first drafts. Once they learn how much work it is to write and edit a really good essay, their goals shift—from getting…
I already felt fairly independent from my parents before I went off to college, as my older siblings were both good students who did not get into any trouble, so because I kept bringing home good grades my parents let me be very independent. I had (and still have) a good relationship with my parents,…
I’m not giving any final exams this term. On the one hand, we tell students to value learning for learning’s sake; on the other, we tell students they’d better know this or that, or they’d better take notes, or they’d better read the book, because it will be on the next exam; if they don’t…
I love a good infographic. HubbleSite – NewsCenter – Hubble to Use Moon as Mirror to See Venus Transit (05/04/2012) – Release Images. Similar:Dennis Jerz, R.U.R (Rossum's Universal Robots), Karel Capek's "Fantastic Melodrama" – YouT…”In which the origin of the word “robot”…AestheticsFor some reason, I saw a bump in traffic to a page that linked…
Pittsburgh’s Trib Inadvertently Advises Readers to Shit Themselves. The copy I picked up has been fixed. Similar:HTML5 Boilerplate: The web’s most popular front-end template HTML5 Boilerplate helps you build fast…CybercultureWhen He Clicked the Link, You Won't Believe How Disappointed He WasAuthors of overhyped link text are like …CybercultureDisaster (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode…
Our last day of classes is Monday, followed immediately by final exams. My freshman writing students still have a final revision and a final reflection due, but they seemed surprisingly relaxed today. They have all given informal presentations in both informal and formal settings, and turned in solid drafts. For my part, I’ve already returned…
Great little story that I’m saving for a future “history of journalism” module. The German surrender happened at 2:41 a.m. on May 7, 1945. Kennedy was one of 17 reporters taken to witness the ceremony. He and the others were hastily assembled by military commanders, then pledged to secrecy by a U.S. general while the…
I already knew that a free press is precious, but I had no idea it was so rare.. A Washington-based human rights organization says that, overall, press freedom around the world stopped declining in 2011. But while there are positive changes in some countries, the overall picture is not too bright. Last year, less than…
I don’t really want to assign a grade to this draft… I just want to sit down with the student and have a conversation about why the words “cannot” and “because” mean completely different things according to context. “The ice cannot be melted because the temperature is below freezing” uses “cannot” as a physical impossibility…
Hap Aziz, who’s running a Kickstarter campaign to fund an interactive fiction exploration of colonial Williamsburg, was interviewed by Emily Short. One of the fascinating things to me about the events surrounding American independence is that there was so much disagreement and debate regarding whether or not the colonies should dissolve their bonds with England.…
The other day, a worker was pushing his cart through my office building, attaching these little cork board strips to our doors. Something about the moment cried out for commemoration. Similar:PHD Comics: It's in the syllabus PHD Comics: It’s in the syllab…AcademiaSynergistic Synthesis XVII Sub B1 Chair by Kenneth SmytheAfter my daughter’s theater workshop,…
I don’t want to put Humpy Dumpty back together. Let him lie there, a cracked shell oozing yolk. He is broken. And he is beautiful. The smell, the colors, the flow, the texture, the mess. All of it, it is unavailable until we break things. And let’s not soften our critical blow by calling it…
Wish I had come across this a little earlier in the term… too late it to add it to my “Media and Culture” new media seminar. Morris — a novelist who has written graphic novels, games and, yes, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories for kids — has changed the original text in other ways, as well. (Let’s take…
I knew Rather was still fighting, but I didn’t know what he’s saying now about the Killian memos that ended his career: A CBS-commissioned investigation of the disaster—headed by Richard Thornburgh, U.S. attorney general when Bush’s father was president, and Associated Press chief executive Louis D. Boccardi—faulted Rather and his top producer, Mary Mapes, among…
An American child could go to a public school run by Pearson, studying from books produced by Pearson, while his or her progress is evaluated by Pearson standardized tests. The only public participant in the show would be the taxpayer. If all else fails, the kid could always drop out and try to get a…
The Internet has become a Wild West of hooligans apt to besmirch the name of anybody they don’t like, because they think they can get away with it under a cloak of anonymity, legal experts say. “The real difficulties you are going to have is finding who are the John Does who are posting this…
Backed. The Historical Williamsburg Living Narrative allows you meet the people and experience the circumstances that lead to the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The setting is Williamsburg, Virginia, in colonial times, and game is pure Interactive Fiction: engaging prose will take your imagination back nearly 250 years into the history of…
Walden, A Game simulates both personal and environmental life, modeling the basic personal needs outlined by Thoreau, as well as some of the more experiential concepts he described. Furthermore, the game takes advantage of the detailed notes that Thoreau took about the pond, and its surrounding landscape, flora and fauna. —Walden, A Game – USC…