I had a great time at this year's Lit Bash down at Stockton. It was nice to come home for an afternoon and, especially, for the first time, get to see some former students of mine down there. I spent time with a handful of those, attended The Bash, where I caught up with a lot of former professors, and then headed to dinner with my parents down the shore before going home late in the evening. This is always one of my favorite days of the year.
This summer, I was down at Stockton to have lunch with Tom Kinsella. On my way in, I stopped at the library to donate some books I had read in classes while a student from 2001-2006. I thought it was a neat idea and Stockton's librarians were very interested. I would like to do the same at Monmouth someday too when I am back up in that area.
Here is a list of the books I donated:
The first Electronic Literature Organization collection CD
Kindred by Octavia Butler (African American Literature)
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean (From Books To Movies)
Sexing The Cherry by Jeanette Winterson (Senior Seminar: Postmodernism)
Acid Free Bits by Nick Montfort
The Aspern Papers by Henry James (Readers, Writers, and Books)
The Life Of Pi by Yan Martel (Readers, Writers, and Books)
City Of Glass by Paul Auster (Senior Seminar: Postmodernism)
The Nietzsche Anthology (Moral Theories)
The Iliad (Homer)
New York Trilogy by Paul Auster (Senior Seminiar: Postmodernism)
Beloved by Toni Morrison (African American Literature)
The Odyssey (Homer)
Another Country by James Baldwin (African American Literature)
Last summer, I was thrilled to be asked to return to Stockton for the #RThink (Rethinking Thoughts) conference. The afternoon was spent among old friends and some very interesting and eager students. The Literature program at Stockton is in great hands.
Here are my notes from the day:
Twitter hashtag=#rthink
Creating a New Media certificate
Students would create a portfolio that could be shown to employers/schools/etc
New Media assignments should be memorable
Allowing students to make up their project (see Kinsella senior seminar in the spring) gives students agency over their work and which projects they worked on)
I allow my students to have a say over their paper topics. We brew them in class during discussions. This gives them ownership over their writing.
I also mentioned the “Peer Review Speed Dating” that I do
Giving students options for New Media assignments is important
Could do a podcast or book signing or calendar or newsletter
There was some discussion of the good ole pop-up projects
I have thought about using those in my classes.
What is the role of service learning in all of this?
Something Tom said gave me a great idea for an assignment for my Composition II classes
About half way through short story period (which is first 6-7 weeks) have students pick a YouTube song that relates to a story we have read.
Write a 500 word essay about the song and story.
For example, if we read The Yellow Wallpaper, I would pick Systematic Death by Crass
Live experience of tweeting shared reading of a chapter/scene/etc
I think this would work best in an online class
Create an “exhibition” of it via Storify
An idea I loved was putting together an epub of the best work of a class
Students could be involved in the curation and editing process
General consensus in the room of “what good is one more essay?”
When I was at Stockton one day over the summer to meet Tom Kinsella for lunch, and ran into Ken Tompkins and his wife Nancy as well, I spent a little bit of time in the morning after leaving home in the stacks at my favorite desk. I spent a lot of time at this desk over my years at Stockton. It was nice to be back.
I walked by this stack countless times over the years.
The Stockton family ran a number of sessions at ThatCamp Philadelphia, including Deb Gussman’s session on small scale publications and digital editions.
Deb leading the discussion.
Adeline Koh, John Thebault, and Rebecca Goldman listen to the discussion.
Some general links you might want to check out
The long awaited essay on Macedonio Fernandez, Borges’ mentor, in The Quarterly Conversation does not disappoint. I am looking forward to the publication of one of his novels in English next year from Open Letter.
Also, from The Quarterly Conversation, Grant Bailie’s new novel looks interesting, Bolano receives a lukewarm review for Nazi Literature In The Americas, and Daniel Green covers Donald Barthelme, an author I have wanted to check out for a number of years.
The New Yorker profiled Hugo Chavez a few weeks ago. I am really not sure what to think of this guy. They also covered former Doctor Who companion Billie Piper’s new show Secret Diary Of A Call Girl.
Reproductive Rights Blog on vasectomies.
The New Yorker on itching and the brain.
Meanwhile…
I am happy to report that Newspaper Blackout Poems (previously discussed) is going to have a full length book published. Very cool.
StateControl recently devoted an entire podcast to the band Harvey Milk. I have been hearing about this band for a few years, but this was the first time I really checked them out. Pretty good stuff.
On Twitter….
WordPress 2.6 came out this week. Everyone should upgrade their blogs as soon as possible. The best way I have found is to install this plugin, which takes care of the upgrade rather seamlessly.
Dr. Kinsella has finished uploading his student’s readings of Paradise Lost from this past semester. I am going to give these a listen soon.
I am really impressed with the new version of last.fm that was opened up for the public a few days ago. Add me on there. The “neighbors” stream is quite impressive; it gave me artists as varied as Devo, Eric Dolphy, Negative Approach, and The Birthday Party the other night.
