Leave the laptop open one time…
…and your cat becomes a guest blogger.
Citation and the seventh-grader
I’m holding a bibliography that the Boy prepared for a paper he wrote on the Saint Lawrence River. Two things strike me about it: * There isn’t a single book on it. This is because the teacher explicitly told them not to use books. Because… * The bibliography was created with a software program that [...]
Help J!
So I’ve been invited to give a presentation at the Pacific Northwest Library Association’s conference this summer. My topic? “The Past is a Secondary World: Increasing Readership of Historical Fiction Among Children and Young Adults.” Basically, my idea is to nudge young readers toward historical fiction by framing the past in terms more common to [...]
Dispatches from the seventh grade
The Boy’s friend C has come over to hang out. We’re talking about next trimester’s classes, which will start next week. C: Man, I can’t believe we have to take home ec as part of unified arts. Cooking and sewing! What a bunch of girl crap! Me: … (preparing to gently read a version of [...]
A miscellany
* So I have a Facebook fan page now. It makes me feel slightly pretentious. However, if people are inclined to “like” it and I get more fans than I have years in age (32) by next Friday, I’ll post an embarrassing picture of myself at age 13 or so for y’all to gawk at. [...]
History with all its warts
This is one of the best pieces of historical film I’ve seen recently, and possibly ever. It’s a faux documentary about the battle of Culloden and its aftermath, which effectively ended the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 and Bonnie Prince Charlie’s play for the British throne, and ushered in one of the most ugly policies in [...]