Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Márgarét, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
The Measure of a Man (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 9)
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Data’s autonomy is at stake in a taut, character-driven courtroom drama that resists pandering — no distracting fist-fights or space battles. This episode not only succeeds as a stand-alone meditation on the human condition, it meshes narratively with events from past shows and offers affordances for future story arcs…
A tale of two headlines: CNN and Fox shade their reports of UFC crowd’s reaction to Trump
Headlines from CNN and Fox shade in different directions, but both articles agree in substance that Trump got a mixed reaction from the “Ultimate Fighting Championship” in New York yesterday. The Fox reporter carefully cites the phrasing of other journalists who saw the reaction as mixed, as opposed the CNN reporter who confidently describes the boos overpowering the cheers.
Love This Headline: “He took a date to the park where he was gored by a bison, figuring it wouldn’t happen again. He was wrong.”
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You, Too, Can Have a Viral Tweet Like Mine: Demystifying Poetic Meter
Saving for the next time I teach “Intro to English Study.” It’s all well and good to sing “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd” to the tune of “Hallelujah,” but why can’t you do it the other way around? For that matter, why does it work only when you limit yourself to the first two lines…
My Review of the Charlottesville Tryout of “A Few Good Men” 30 Years Ago
A librarian at the University of Virginia kindly scanned and emailed the review I wrote, as an undergraduate student journalist, of the pre-Broadway tryout of A Few Good Men, in September 1989. I was prepared to cringe, but I was actually kind of proud of the lead, which applies equally to the professional production now…
Overwhelmed? Start a new to-do list with “1) Breathe; 2) Make ‘to-do’ list”
Felt momentarily overwhelmed by the day’s tasks. Made the following list: 1) Breathe. 2) Make “to do” list. 3) Post blog entry about “to do” list. 4) Go to lunch. 5) Prioritize to-do list. (Break up the intimidating tasks into smaller steps.) 6) Do first important item on list. (Repeat as necessary.) I’m…
APNews.com Photo Still Says Sam Smith “declared his pronouns ‘they/them'” a Week Later
The Associated Press was widely criticized by readers for publishing a story last week under the headline “Sam Smith announces his pronouns are ‘they’ and ‘them’”. The body of the story also used male pronouns, in passages like “He added that he was ‘very nervous’ about the announcement because he cares to much about what…
A Few Good Men at the Pittsburgh Public Theatre
Fantastic performances, powerful writing. 30 years ago when this play had its pre-Broadway tryout at the University of Virginia, I wrote a review for the University Journal. (I just sent an email to the U.Va. library in the hopes of tracking down that review.) Director Marya Sea Kaminski, who consistently introduces herself as someone who…
What Critics of Student Writing Get Wrong
[T]o improve as writers, students need to write frequently, for meaningful reasons, to readers who respond as actual readers do — with interest in ideas, puzzlement over lack of clarity or logic, and feedback about how to think more deeply and write more clearly to accomplish the writer’s purposes. There is no shortcut… When…
Me (glares in iambic pentameter)
Me: I need to post the opening lecture for my online Shakespeare class. Also me: I should compose it in blank verse. Me (glares in iambic pentameter): Also me: O for a Canvas of fire, to surpass The farthest distance of instruction. SHU tech is cool, but can a Macbook hold A seminar discussion? Can…
Bureaucrats Put the Squeeze on College Newspapers
Few school newspapers are financially independent from the institutions they cover, says Chris Evans, president of the College Media Association. As a result, college administrators hold powerful leverage over student journalists and their faculty advisers. The need for aggressive student news organizations is as acute as ever. But image-obsessed administrators are hastening the demise of…
In August 1999 I was blogging about Poohsticks Bridge, penmanship, Archimedes, and ebooks
In August 1999, I was blogging about Conservation efforts at Poohsticks Bridge A Penmanship camp in Philadelphia Recovering the only known copy of a lost work by the Greek mathematician Archimedes (erased by a 10th-century monk who scraped off the writing to reuse the parchment) Fourth-graders using e-books at Resurrection Catholic School in Dayton, Ohio…
What is Technical Writing?
I noticed an uptick in traffic to an older page, “Technical Writing: What Is It?” So I touched it up and created a new graphic. Similar:Time lapse movie shows exoplanets orbiting star HR8799, 133 light years away. (Published i… AestheticsTell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing AssignmentsIt does take longer…
Take my feedback if you want to pass.
I won’t be so assertive in the first week of class, but I created this meme out of frustration that some students don’t actually read the feedback that I spend a lot of time writing. (I have experimented with giving more oral feedback. I’ll likely do more of that in my online Shakespeare class.) Similar:New…
The Child (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 1)
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. As science fiction, this was an interesting premise with great production values and character moments, that ultimately didn’t deliver any real drama because our main characters lacked any significant agency. The Child opens with some lovely footage of the Enterprise alongside another starship, and a…
The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and wave
There’s so much I don’t know! When teaching rhetoric, I often use “Is light a wave, or is it a particle?” as an example of a false dichotomy. My high school physics teacher (Rear Admiral Edward Metcalfe Peebles) set up a lecture giving us the “pro-wave” evidence and the “pro-particle” evidence and inviting us to…
New data on the first three jobs held by graduates of six popular majors
“There is an enormous part of the economy hungry for graduates with skills in analysis and communication — skills students are honing as they conduct close readings of texts, persuade their classmates in seminars and hone the style and structure of papers,” Sentz said. That might not be clear to students, however, or to college…
How do you spend your last week of summer break?
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Branding Essentials for the English Major: 4 Examples of How to Re-package Your Skills for Employers
It seems every week some “expert” publishes an article lamenting on the fact that if college students want to ensure they can get a good job after graduation, they should steer clear of “worthless” majors. Go into business or technology, say the authors. Stay away from things like English literature or creative writing. This argument…