June 2004
Friday 25 June 2004
- Disciplinary Lying - I had an old teacher who, when you said something you thought was very smart, would say, "That's an exaggeration in the direction of truth." I have always thought that was the best definition I have ever heard of the academic enterprise.-- Jonathan Z. Smith In "The Necessary Lie: Duplicity... (20:12 | 0 Trackbacks | 2 Comments)
Wednesday 16 June 2004
- Everything's Fine? - Just learned of a new "Pedablogue" site by Harvest Bird with the marvelous subtitle, "Teaching Beyond Tips and Techniques." I like its approach a lot. In fact, I like that other pedagogy-oriented blogs are calling themselves "pedablogs" but I get a little twinge of identity crisis when I come across... (14:31 | 0 Trackbacks | 0 Comments)
Tuesday 15 June 2004
- Tips for Office Hours - Take, for example, the student who wants to use the office hour as a time to unpack all kinds of excuses for missed classes and/or late work. Most of these melodramatic performances are as boring as they are, well, dubious. So, I tell such students that I'm willing to listen... (10:25 | 0 Trackbacks | 7 Comments)
Saturday 12 June 2004
- Waggoner on Teaching Creative Writing - I guess I can brag a little: last weekend, I won the Bram Stoker award for my newsletter, The Goreletter, at the Horror Writers Association conference in NYC. Although my newsletter has very little to do with teaching -- besides, perhaps, the creative writing prompts I include in each issue... (11:25 | 0 Trackbacks | 3 Comments)