Summer Schedule: The Plan
Two Days a Week: I have two days a week presently assigned to completion of my sophomore early Brit Lit iBook and the creation of my senior early Brit Lit iBook. Sophomore book: The sophomore book is...
View ArticleCalendar
I am working on my calendars for the fall, but since I want to determine what the students already know before I determine what we will cover, I am having a bit of a difficulty. I specifically am...
View ArticleWhy English?
English departments democratize the practice of reading. When they do, they make the books of the past available to all. It’s a simple but potent act. From Why Teach and Study English? It’s about...
View ArticleWhat is Motivation?
According to Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers, motivation comes from doing work that is complex, when you have autonomy, and there is a clear relationship between effort and reward (150). How can I provide...
View ArticleAemelia Lanyer: Elizabethan/Jacobean Poet
I am adding Aemelia Lanyer to the readings we are doing in Brit lit. I was introduced to this author last semester during a presentation on women and spirituality, so I am a newcomer to her work. If...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Two Texts Essay: Song Lyrics v. Music Video
Yesterday I was checking my email and discovered an email I had missed from last month. The author wrote: I am an adjunct at a community college. I am gearing up for my Fall semester and have been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
History and Theory of Rhetoric: Retrospective 2013
Last year the course was once a week. This year, we had it at the “normal” time, which meant it met twice a week. I liked that organization a lot better. I felt like the students had more time to...
View ArticleAcademia is not an excuse for not living life.
Red Lips and Academics talks about how she has viewed academia, how it impacted her life, and how she has changed her life. Academia is not an excuse for not living. Yes, often we have fifteen hour...
View ArticleRadical Teaching Success
Wired has an article on a radical change in education. I’ve seen the TED talk that Sugata Mitra gave over his successful experiment in educating the poorest of the poor. I’m interested in the ideas...
View ArticleThat Time of the Semester When We May Need a Reminder
That school is really a great thing.
View ArticleMajor Spanish Author Ignored?
On Twitter, Erin Cowling ?@profecowling sent a message recently that said: @Comprof1 @readywriting even though Zayas (woman) was 2nd only to Cervantes in her time she is usually left off syllabi and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Student Control of the Classroom
This is a preliminary retrospective on my British literature course. This semester, just before school started, I talked to a long-time instructor at the university about what she was doing in her...
View ArticleLiterary Analyses
A literary analysis, or LA, is basically the outline for an essay. It has five main parts: title and author of the work a paragraph first response to the reading a thesis or claim in answer to a...
View ArticleDigital Presentations
I teach an early British literature course for sophomores. When I arrived at my university, I was told that we were encouraging technological involvement as part of the classroom experience. As part of...
View ArticleProofs!
I received the proofs for a review I wrote (seems like a hundred years ago!) that is going to be published soon. It looks very good and it is also well written. I think I went through three or four...
View ArticleGood Advice for Successful Academic Research and Writing
I’ve read several books on the subject, and some of them are quite good, but an article I read today sums up the advice fairly neatly in a “short” list of 30 tips. 30 Tips for Successful Academic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Happy File
Somewhere along the way in my career, someone suggested keeping a “Happy File” or “Gold Star” file, where I put all the nice things (notes, comments, emails) that students send me about my classes....
View ArticleImages!
The British Library has released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use and repurpose. Yay! . Each image is individually addressible, online, and Flickr provies an API to access it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Happy File B&P
My business writing class was very small this semester. Apparently late afternoon classes are not popular with our students. (A scheduled class for next semester in the same time slot did not get any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Puns for English Folks
I am always on the lookout for comics and good English joke sites because I intend to use them in class. (I do this less than I used to, but I still am thrilled to find them.) On Facebook, one of my...
View Article