Category Archives: teaching and pedagogy

Last fall semester, I experimented with using an iPad (courtesy of TLT @ CofC) to read and mark up some of my students’ writing in a graduate course in a late 19th century American literature and some of the literary … Continue reading →

Bret Harte, “The Luck of Roaring Camp” —, “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” Constance Fenimore Woolson, “Solomon” —, “The Lady of Little Fishing” Mark Twain, Old Times on the Mississippi Hamlin Garland, “Up the Cooly” Charles Egbert Craddock, “The Dancin’ … Continue reading →

I am taking time out from my research for a bit to plan my first year seminar on Mark Twain for this fall.  I am excited about the course–about the opportunity to learn more about Twain myself and the opportunity … Continue reading →

via The Benefits of Making It Harder to Learn – Do Your Job Better – The Chronicle of Higher Education. A suggestive article by James M. Lang on the positive effects of a little difficulty.  Barriers between a learner and material … Continue reading →

The Neuroscience of Your Brain On Fiction – NYTimes.com. A nice, compact, tantalizing run-down of contemporary thinking about what neuroscience has discovered about what goes on in our brains when we read fiction.  Worth the read.

Reinvigorating education by thinking about it through the principles of design.  There are great insights here — from reconfiguring classrooms to thinking about instruction as designed, prototyped, and so forth.  I find the whole thing compelling — and much of … Continue reading →

Twain once wrote, “I am not an American. I am the American.” It’s classic Twain: a statement palpably untrue–Twain’s life was clearly not representative of that lived by all Americans (what one life could be?)–but also it’s dead on the … Continue reading →

The Novels of English 349

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo. Part 3 of 4 videos by Kirby Ferguson on the idea of remixing, copying, creativity, innovation, etc. I will be using this video tomorrow in a discussion group with … Continue reading →

You probably have questions or, if not questions, curiosities about the course: what are we reading?, what are the writing assignments?, things like that.  Maybe the syllabus (opens in new window) will answer some of the these.  Maybe perusing the OAKS course … Continue reading →