writing
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Willing to Read and Write
Yesterday, I told my college students that they need to read the next 150 pages of the novel we are studying, Life of Pi, over the next seven days. This is not news – they got a reading schedule on the first day of class, and were told to read ahead. Nevertheless, there was a Continue reading
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“Either You Can Be a Teacher or You Can Be the Plagiarism Police”
As the new semester creeps nearer, I’m starting to think about plagiarism again. My use of Turnitin.com, a plagiarism-detection software, is helping me relax a bit – last semester, the software made discovering plagiarism, and talking to students about it, a lot easier. However, cheating is a perennial source of anxiety for most teachers, and a Continue reading
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I’m Not Blocked. I’m Obsessively Diverted.
What does it mean to be “blocked”? Is it possible for a “block” to be a diversion, a new inspiration, a productive distraction? Or is it just laziness? Right now, I am “blocked” in a number of ways. I’ve been working on a novel for the last ten years. I use the term “working on” Continue reading
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Blogger’s Block
Lately, I’ve had blogger’s block. I could say that I’ve been busy. (It’s true. The school year just started. There’s stuff to do.) But that’s not really what it’s about. I’ve been blocked. I recognize it, because I’ve experienced it so very often in the more classic “writer’s block” form. You think about writing stuff, Continue reading
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what makes a blog good?
What do you think are the characteristics of a good blog? My goal for today is to put together a handout for my Travel Literature students, who will be blogging next semester as one of their major projects. Before they begin, I’d like to give them a list of criteria for a good blog, focused Continue reading
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Watching a Fire; Skimming across Water; Painting a Dragon and Dotting its Eyes
I should be marking papers on this, the last day of my Easter weekend, but instead, I’m checking my Twitterific and being sucked into reading blog posts. Clay Burell at Change.org has posted this tantalizing bit of info from Richard E. Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently . . . Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 