Read-Think-b4-u-Write

If you've ever read Roman, Old English, Medieval, or Renaissance lit, you may have noticed how devoid of feeling it is? Many of the ancient sagas from Homer to Iceland are filled with action, especially violent war-type action. But didn't any of these societies have any feelings? Of course, they must've by why don't they ever write about it? Is it because we expect everyone to reveal their every feeling on the page? Is this desire something that makes us modern? I mean pick up a novel, open it to any page and read. Feelings are spread before us in almost every paragraph with gallons of ink. There are so many feelings that it sometimes takes the characters forever to DO anything. "Literature certainly reflects the preoccupations of its time, but there is evidence that it may also reshape the minds of readers in unexpected ways. Stories that vault readers outside of their own lives and into characters’ inner experiences may sharpen readers’ general abilities to...

Do you still want to get a Bachelor's, Master's, and Doctorate in order to become a professor? Think again. Not only does it take a lot of time and resources, and while money may not be everything, you most likely will find yourself living in poverty, That's right, not poor, or lower middle class, but living in actual poverty. Here's academia's dirty little secret. Those professors that you respect and admire (hopefully), and who spend hours planning, grading, and teaching your classes, are most likely part-timers. Over half of all college instructors today are adjuncts. That means that they are not entitled to full-time pay or benefits even though many of them teach four, five, six, or even seven classes a semester in order to make a decent salary.  Do you have any idea how much time it takes to teach five courses? Let's think about it. You need to get to those courses, which may be at one, two, or even three different campuses. You need to pre...

The New York Times article "Bosses Seek 'Critical Thinking' but what is that?"  mentions that employers find critical thinking to be a valuable skill, but have a hard time defining what the term means. Does it mean you should think inside the box? Outside the box? Break the rules? Bend the rules? Job seekers complain that "critical thinking" is often listed as a requirement in a job posting, but they have no idea what the phrase means until they arrive at a job interview and discover that it sometimes means "forming your own opinion from a variety of sources" or even analyzing data with some kind of rubric. Some bosses believe it is the ability to deal with problems found in the business world or to "accumulate data, analyze data, and synthesize it to make a balanced decision." That seems to reflect a belief in wanting problem-solving skills. Most bosses say college graduates don't have critical thinking skills. They can re...

Joseph Campbell, the author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces , described the hero's journey and how it can be found in virtually all the great myths of the myriad cultures on this planet. Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers sat down and worked on five episodes of  The Power of Myth  where they discuss, among other things, the virtues of the epic space fantasy film, Star Wars . George Lucas has often credited Campbell for helping inspire the Star Wars  franchise, saying Campbell "exposed me to cosmic questions and mysteries" and those questions led to the creation of one of the most successful film franchises in history. The Hero's Journey in Star Wars is outlined at Star Wars ' Origins : I. Departure The Call to Adventure - Princess Leia's message Refusal of the Call - Luke has to help with the harvest Supernatural Aid - Obi-Wan rescues Luke from the sandpeople Crossing the first Threshold - Escaping Tatooine The Belly of the Whale - trash compa...

Roberto Bolaño offers "12 Tips on the Art of Writing Short Stories," but good writing is just good writing. Let's take a look at his advice: (1) Never approach short stories one at a time. If one approaches short stories one at a time, one can quite honestly be writing the same short story until the day one dies.           This works just as well for college essays. If you write the same essay over and over again, you will get bored and never grow as a thinker (or writer). (2) It is best to write short stories three or five at a time. If one has the energy, write them nine or fifteen at a time.           Maybe you won't sit down and write three or five essays at a time, but do write when you feel ENERGIZED, don't write that essay at 3:00 a.m. (4) One must read Horacio Quiroga, Felisberto Hernández, and Jorge Luis Borges. One must read Juan Rulfo and Augusto Monterroso. Any short-story writer who has some appreciation for thes...

  Erik Wernquist created a short film entitled "Wanderers" narrated by Carl Sagan (from 1994's  Pale Blue Dot ) that shows what future explorers may be in for. According to Wernquist , "The locations depicted in the film are digital recreations of actual places in the Solar System, built from real photos and map data where available. Without any apparent story, other than what you may fill in by yourself, the idea with the film is primarily to show a glimpse of the fantastic and beautiful nature that surrounds us on our neighboring worlds - and above all, how it might appear to us if we were there."  It's a beautiful film, a look at what man can hope for. But then there is the other side of man's race for technology as seen in Danny Cooke's "Postcards from Pripyat, Chernobyl," a film made using a drone to fly over the city that suffered a nuclear catastrophe on April 26, 1986. A nuclear disaster that exposed the area to 400 ti...

http://www.grammarly.com/ At least that's what 3,000 writers said when they were polled by Grammarly, the world's best grammar checker. But why are women better? According to those polled, women are better writers because they spend more time developing characters, women like to write more about people rather than things. Women are even better writers because they like to write purple prose -- "long, descriptive sentences." Or maybe this is just all a bunch of stereotyping? I would really like to know what the internals of this poll are. How many men were polled? How many women? What were the ages of those polled? If you look at the results of this poll (and it doesn't claim to be scientific), what would you guess about the internals? Do you agree with the results? Do you believe women are better writers than men? Who are some of the greatest writers of all time? Ouch, those are men, but is this the result of the male-dominated culture of the pas...

What if someone only got to know who you were based on your internet search history? What do you think he or she would think of you as a person? What kind of an analysis could be performed based on your search history? How about whole states? Estately , a website that claims to be "an addictive easy way to shop for homes" did just that.  "The results ranged from mildly amusing to completely disturbing. No doubt this information will come in handy for anyone trying to decide which state they want to buy a home in, especially for those curious how their potential neighbors spend their time online." Here's a sampling of the first four states in the Union (listed alphabetically): ALABAMA:  FOX News / God / Impeach Obama / Jesus / Jessica Simpson / Obama Is The Antichrist / Polka  / Satan           Analysis:  It’s a fire and brimstone kind of state, but with a soft spot for pretty blondes. ALASKA:   Adult Friend Finder / AR-15 /...

The Marrkkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley held a contest asking students to develop an Ethical Decision making app that incorporated values presented in the "Framework for Ethical Decision Making": "Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to ethical issues and a  practiced method for exploring the ethical aspects  of a decision … The more novel and difficult the ethical choice we face, the more we need to rely on discussion and dialogue with others about the dilemma. Only by  careful exploration of the problem,  aided by the insights and different perspectives of others, can we make good ethical choices in such situations. We have found [this] framework for ethical decision making a useful method for exploring ethical dilemmas and  identifying ethical courses of action. " See any problems with this brand of moral decision making? What discussion and dialogue or insights of different perspective...

Rewriting is the essence of writing well—where the game is won or lost. —William Zinsser This is very true - instructors don't expect everything in the first draft and, in fact, expect what Anne Lammott would call a "shitty first draft." Here is some basic advice when it comes to revising drafts: 1) Revision is NOT just about fixing grammar and spelling.  2) Revision is NOT just about moving some words around or finding every synonym Word has to offer.  3) REREAD the prompt.  Are you answering the question being proffered, or have you gone off on some tangent? Get back on track and revise towards the prompt. 4) Check in with your thesis.  Is this the paper you just wrote, or did you discover a new approach towards the topic as you wrote your exploratory draft?  Make necessary adjustments.  5)  When revising the next draft "think big"....what kind of evidence (stats, facts, quotes, examples) do you need to support ALL of your points? ...

This is a great infographic entitled Psychology of Color - Analysis of Brands Color over at uFunk.net. Remember advertisers are experts at the use of rhetoric and color is just one aspect.  What do you find most surprising to learn about your favorite color?

You go about your life unaware of the Digital Shadow you cast_   Your life is measured in gigabytes. Data comes at a cost_ Algorithms can predict your interests, your desires, even your fantasies_ These are some of the ominous calculations Digital Shadow performs using your digital footprint. Want to know who is secretly stalking you? Want to know who your pawns are? Don't think you have a very large digital footprint? Well, guess again.  Among other things Digital Shadow will tell you about your "Liabilities" or people that consistently post about you making you vulnerable to attack. It also lists your "Obsessions" and "Scapegoats" -- people you would sacrifice if you had too. Digital Shadow looks at your online Facebook data and provides a psychological profile of the digital you.  Perhaps the digital you is "Neurotic and exhibits high levels of self-absorption and insecurity"...

When writing an argument you cannot ignore the arguments against your position.  You should seek out to identify the most obvious counterarguments and then address those objections in order to convince your readers that your position is valid. In addition, addressing counterarguments adds ethos to your argument by showing that you have thought about other positions and aren't attempting to ignore them.  According to Delmar.edu, "one can acknowledge and even concede a point in counterargument without directly refuting it. For example, in an argument that girls should play competitive sports you might concede a point to an alternative perspective by saying Of course, participation in sports is not the answer for all young women. Competitive sports can be cruel -- the losing, jealousy, raw competition, and intense personal criticism of one's performance. All athletes must learn to deal with these issues.  There are some basic rules when constr...

Are you special? Over at Huffpo "Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy" hit the blogosphere claiming that Generation Y GYPSYs (Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies) think they are "the main character of a very special story" and since they are the protagonist of their own story they are easily disappointed when everything doesn't go their way. Ouch! That's gotta hurt. Let's back up a minute here.  Who are these GYPSYs?  GYPSYs are "the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s . . [who are] also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y." So I guess that's most of today's traditional age college students. GYPSY parents are part-Hippie, part-Yuppie.  Their grandparents are part of the Greatest Generation who grew up during the depression and then fought and won World War II - hence the "Pussies" comment from Gramps (btw, gramps says that about every succeeding generation). GYP...

Mark Twain the author of such literary greats as Puddn'head Wilson and Huckleberry Finn was also a humorist and essayist.  His avid reading took him across disciplines as was common in 19th century America and some of his annotations have been featured in an article on "Twain's Viciously Funny Marginalia" . Heaven help John Dryden, the translator of Plutarch's Lives , which, is "Translated from the Greek" into, as Twain annotates, "rotten English . . . the whole carefully revised and corrected by an ass."  As you can see, Twain had some strong feelings about the English language and did not hesitate to talk back to his texts. On the title page of Saratoga in 1901, Twain renames the volume Saratoga in 1891, or The Droolings of an Idiot. What do you look for when annotating a text?  Are you summarizing paragraphs in the margin? Are you talking back to the text the way Twain does? When you talk back to a text you are engaging in criti...

That is the question.  Well, apparently not for one high school senior attending an informational seminar for Bowdoin College, the school to which she had applied. "Throughout the presentation, she apparently posted disparaging comments on Twitter about her fellow attendees, repeatedly using a common expletive. "Perhaps she hadn’t realized that colleges keep track of their social media mentions," reported Dean Meikeljohn in "They Loved Your GPA Then They Saw Your Tweets." And you thought only employers would track such things? Think about it, if you owned a company or were the Dean of a college wouldn't you want to know what people are saying about your product, company, or college?  Of course, you would.  Would-be employers or colleges don't just Google perspective employees or students, they keep track of their web reputation as well.  "'We would have wondered about the judgment of someone who spends ...

In April 2012, The UK Guardian ran a story entitled "How to Download Your Data From Google and Facebook" and offers the following step-by-step instructions into your digital life. Google The Google user data which you're able to access through the site's transparency services are split across three places. Dashboard: The dashboard is the principal place to get information on all your Google services – and includes data from Picasa, Gmail, YouTube, search histories and more. You can get to it at www.google.com/dashboard/ – expect to have to re-enter your password, even if logged in. Account Activity: The dashboard has been going for three years now, but Google have added a new monthly monitoring feature with a few extra bits of information in the last month. Called Account Activity , it gives info on how much you've used different services, from which computers and browsers, and some extra bits of information. It's delivered to your inbox after si...

that I wish I could do, but I can't because my best drawing involves stick figures. Lynda Barry, author of 100! Demons is teaching a course called the "Unthinkable Mind" at the University of Wisconsin during the Spring 2013 semester. Keep in mind this is not a graphic novel, comic, or "how to" art class, it is a class about how the different parts of our brain function. According to Open Culture Barry wants to appeal to both Humanities and Science majors by creating A writing and picture-making class with focus on the basic physical structure of the brain with emphasis on hemispheric differences and a particular sort of insight and creative concentration that seems to come about when we are using our hands (the original digital devices) —to help us figure out a problem. You can audit this course from home as Barry will be posting assignments to her Tumblr page. Look at the first page of Barry's syllabus posted above, and other than drawings, ...

Have you read Lord of the Rings ? How about The Great Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye ? If you have then you are reading banned books. In honor of Banned Books Week (Sept. 30) here are the top twenty banned "classic" books according to the American Library Association (ALA) . 1. The Great Gatsby , by F. Scott Fitzgerald 2. The Catcher in the Rye , by J.D. Salinger 3. The Grapes of Wrath , by John Steinbeck 4. To Kill a Mockingbird , by Harper Lee 5. The Color Purple , by Alice Walker 6. Ulysses , by James Joyce 7. Beloved , by Toni Morrison 8. The Lord of the Flies , by William Golding 9. 1984 , by George Orwell 11. Lolita , by Vladmir Nabokov 12. Of Mice and Men , by John Steinbeck 15. Catch-22 , by Joseph Heller 16. Brave New World , by Aldous Huxley 17. Animal Farm , by George Orwell 18. The Sun Also Rises , by Ernest Hemingway 19. As I Lay Dying , by William Faulkner 20. A Farewell to Arms , by Ernest Hemingway Why are books b...

15 Books That Take American Eduction to Task is a post that at first glance is a bit depressing. For you education majors, some of these books may help with research into K-12 practices. Let's take a look at the books devoted to college, they have some useful things to say about what you are doing right now! No. 5 Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses by Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa: Even with ever-higher tuition, more students are heading to college than ever before, but are they really getting the education they’re paying for? Sociology professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roska don’t think so. They have research that points to some disturbing trends in higher ed, including a study which found that 45% of students showed no improvement in key skills, including critical thinking and writing, between their first semester and the end of their second year. They believe that the current culture at most colleges doesn’t adequately value education, preferr...