Exciting! Secret! Thoughts!

Because things went very wrong in the formatting of this blog entry, I’m redoing it in a tardy attempt to preserve the dignity of my blog.

I found various pieces of info about movies, books, music and fashion, but sadly, I looked up very little about politics or larger events in society.

I gather, the best way to sum up the information that I did find and/or had enough background to understand is stated in the two movie titles I originally provided: One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Monty Python and the Holy Grail, an ambivalence between the serious and the silly.

This connection is perhaps further supported by the Khmer Rouge Period in Cambodia and the permed hair of current fashion trends.  Perhaps, the silliness is an attempt to ignore the unpleasantness of contemporary society?

This is probably true with every year though and I conclude that I am making trivial connections where if I had more time, I’m sure better things would have resulted…

Where I go: http://www.daveysuptown.com/

What I listen to/what’s tattooed on me: http://www.thecure.com/default.asp

What I’m interested in: http://www.jahsonic.com/Monk.html

What I wear: http://www.everythingenglish.com/

Where I eat: http://www.westportkc.com/places/jerusalemcafe.html

Previous experiences: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGdpkitDOJ0

Where I go and what I eat: both down town KC. Davey’s is an alternative/occasionally goth bar where anything goes. The Jerusalem cafe has outstanding vegetarian fare.

The Monk: a marginalized book in the academy. Gothic novel.

Everything English: subculture gear…the cure, my fav. band, my tattoo. Piercings: the holes that were in my face.

I am! Therefore: I will try to avoid all complaining in this blog post and resign myself to only positive comments (insert cliché: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything). As I usually don’t have anything nice to say, but keeping my mouth shut just gets me into trouble too, I will take advantage of the fact that I find two nice things I would like to ruminate upon.

I am tempted to take out ‘ruminate’ and replace it with a more optimistic word, one that does not sound like it implies a thunderstorm (reflect might have served ‘nice’ly).

I will leave it as linguistic evidence of the truth of my assertion. The predictable pessimist will fight, but no, she will not prevail (Does it count if I complain about myself? I’m going to say no, otherwise the whole premise for this post is flawed, and by now, about a hundred and fifty words in, I am committed to the project of joy and optimism at the expense of myself. The critique stands).

Okay.

Nice thing to say number 1.

Allyson’s post about wiki’s and links to Sarah’s wiki were very helpful and interesting. Thank you Allyson for the brilliant idea of using the wiki in personal research! If I can figure out how to upload the program onto my flash drive and connect my hopelessly isolated laptop to this facet of splendid technological innovation I will do it (I came very close to complaining here about the woes of not being able to seamlessly connect etc. but stopped myself, drunk on the resolution to avoid such things, and with the recollection that I’ve only myself and lack of a phone line to blame for not being able to do so).

Nice thing to say Number 2:

Good reading (I would add ‘this week’ but that implies that I didn’t think that the other readings were good, and that is contrary to my opinion and current goal). How about, instead, I say helpful readings?

I like it.

The assignments sections were wonderfully concrete ways in which to incorporate new media into the classroom. Even for a potentially non-dinosauric, but still backward and out-of-touch person like myself. I cite, for example, Cynthia L. Selfe and her fourth activity: “text redesign and revision”. Again, I have two nice things to say about this.

Subtopic Nice thing 1:

It gives a list of links to web-design instructional sites to assist the uninitiated in the strange and beautiful language of web site construction.

Subtopic Nice thing 2: The idea of revising a previously written text to fit into web-format seems a brilliant way to make students explore the ways in which different mediums provide different options for the same text.

Return to primary topic, Nice thing 2:

In class last week, as we designed three assignments based on the text, I announced my interest not only in studying identity formation, but also focusing on revision. I have plans to appropriate Selfe’s idea to accommodate the developing understanding of music choice that I hope to get at in the lamenting ipod assignment(is the ipod, in this case, a projection of my own pessimistic self, which will too probably be annoyed to tears by a good deal of the music choices of my potential students? New optimistic outlook says: no).

Anyway, revising this essay into a web-site seems an excellent way to begin the ‘gathering’ of facts around music to come to a ‘gathering’ of more sophisticated understanding of self.

I look forward to looking at these links to see how user-friendly they are, so I might prepare myself for whatever… (cannot say doom)… challenge lies ahead.

Considering the reading for next week, I thought I would report on a brief conversation that I had with Allyson a bit ago:

We were discussing delicious accounts and I was admiring her lengthy lists and expressing the difficulty that I was having determining on what to post.

She gave me a good piece of advice: while she reads, she finds opportunities to look things up online that relate, and thus is able to create a variety of useful links. Unfortunately, (as previously mentioned) my lack of internet prohibits me from doing this.

Thus, we began talking about the ways in which technological savvy and/or access might influence students who are working with new media in composition classes.

Though this is an interesting way to approach teaching/assignment production, it does put those who are dinosaurs (like myself) in a position of needing to spend extended time in comp. labs in order to fulfill these requirements (I recall the chapter on technology in our pedagogy book that offered interesting insights into the differences between the ways in which reading and composition take place if the student is in a crowded lab, without coffee at hand nor the formatting of personal preference on the computer).

Luckily for me, the lab at Tate, because of its constant availability, in conjunction with my laptop and flash drive, lessens this inconvenience quite a bit for me. But, for students who don’t have this luxury, I think it is important to consider the challenges such approaches might present to those who have limited access to computers/internet.

My only point being (yes, I am getting at a point) that I find the potential to request computer classrooms to be very important for those who are going to teach in this way next semester, as it could put the students (who, as we discussed last time, will already be on necessarily un-even ground) in a more equal position to succeed.

Beyond Words: Reading and Writing in a Visual Age: John Ruszkiewicz, Daniel Anderson, Christy Friend

Beyond Words is making an unabashed effort to be engaging to young adults and does so by rearticulating the discussion of academic analysis in a language and format that may be appealing to a college freshman.

Chapter one focuses on teaching the students to read texts critically, but does so by posing a series of informal questions in an attempt to make the process of critical reading appear in more a familiar aspect to students. The questions for critical reading are: “What do you see?”, “What is it about?”, “To what does it relate?”, “How is it composed?” and “What details matter?”(19, 26, 29, 33, 40). These questions are followed by explanations about how to answer in ways that will be fruitful for facilitating the student’s participation in a serious examination of a text. The student is then made to practice answering these questions in the ways that the book proscribes to familiarize them to this recurring mode of analysis, continually reprised in the subsequent chapters of the book, except for chapter two.

As chapter one was concerned with teaching students to read critically, chapter two focuses on how the student can write effectively. This, too, is explained in the context of a series of repeating questions, each of which is explained in detail after. These questions are: “What’s it to you?”, “What do you want to say about it?”, “Who will listen?”, “What do you need to know?”, “How will you do it?”, and “How well does it work?” (51, 54, 57, 60, 64, 71). Similar to the critical reading questions, these are repeated throughout the text as the students are assigned writing projects. However, because of its emphasis on students composing based on a series of question, this text seems less interested in the organic nature of composition.

The remaining chapters are separated by writing functions: “Expressing Identity”,” Writing to Describe Landscapes and Environments”, “Writing to Tell Stories”, “Writing to Inform and Explain”, “Writing to Analyze” and “Writing to Advocate and Persuade”. The diversity of these topics allows the focus to shift between pedagogical agendas and allows students the possibility of writing in a variety of genres in one book.

In addition to the assortment of writing topics, each chapter presents an assortment of texts to read, from film, photographs, web pages, bumper stickers etc. to traditional written texts. In the reading of these various texts the student is prompted with the questions for critical reading established in Chapter One. However, instead of taking the student through the whole series of reading questions with one text, usually each text is discussed in conjunction with a single question. As the selections viewed within each chapter are related to meta-issues of writing, this variety may be helpful for creating a more holistic view of analysis, however could prevent in-depth thinking about each one.

The assignments at the end of Chapters 3-8 are generally of two types. The first type of assignment asks the students to create a text based on the characteristics that they have discovered in each chapter, in this case only the writing question series is utilized. The second asks for a more full-scale analysis of one or more texts within the context of the chapter topic incorporating both reading and writing questions. These assignments explore various degrees of unconventional media, for example, in Chapter Three, Writing to Express Identity, the student is assigned to make a collage exploring their identity.

In addition to the fuller assignments at the end of each chapter, simpler, more class-period acceptable assignments are interspersed throughout. These small assignments range from Consider, which asks students additional questions about a specific text; Compose, in which the students are given brief writing prompts; and Challenge, which requires more in-depth thinking about a topic/outside research.

At the end of the chapters, the text cuts to an ‘interlude’ showing lengthier examples of the topic discussed in the chapter, usually presented in a way to appeal to college freshman age group followed by Challenge prompts.

Instead of containing lists of writing tips on style and construction, this book has them interspersed throughout at what it considers opportune moments. However if one is not assigning the entire textbook, or if students have writing assignments before certain tips are covered, valuable information is sometimes hidden.

The text attempts to situate the student in a cultural/personal perspective to the texts and offers a constructivist method of compiling information and composing writing. Because of the various styles of writing that it portrays, it avoids a solely argument-based (war-like) approach, instead, inviting students to try to synthesize understandings.

The numerous illustrations break up the text on the pages, as not to seem intimidating to new academics. Though this initially makes the book look a bit incoherent, the comprehensively repeated questions and assignment prompts provide a structured way of viewing each section. The language is, likewise, probably trying to appeal to the student with phrases like “playing it cool” and off-handed references to the OC (17). However, because students may see this as a gimmicky attempt to gain ‘street cred’, it may ultimately hinder its relatability.

Because of the large extent of separation between writing topics /styles into different chapters, this textbook doesn’t offer extended assignments or seem conducive to a semester- long class theme. However the first two chapters, in introducing a student-accessible way of reading and writing texts, in conjunction with a specific chapter topic may be very relatable to a larger, semester-sustain discussion, especially as these are neither clichéd in topic or text selection.

Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments: Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer

This book, as the preface indicates, is primarily concerned with giving students the skills necessary to become successful college writers. It does so by emphasizing the rhetorical nature of the argument, the staple of composition, and focuses on analyzing pathos/logos/ethos. To make it clear how to go from analyzing someone else’s argument to the formulation and presentation of one’s own, the book is divided into four parts: 1. “What do We Mean by Argument” 2. “Options for Arguments” 3. “Designing, Presenting, Documenting”, and 4.”Rhetorical Analysis”.

Part One begins by orienting students to pathos/logos/ethos with a scholarly reading selection. It requires students to consider the rhetorical tactics that the author used and discusses what it means to be a ‘critical reader’ (followed by a checklist of how to determine an argument’s validity in 5 steps).

After showing students how to read in terms of the rhetorical mechanics, they are instructed as to what an argument is. By defining an argument as something that makes a claim and must be supported with evidence, Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments positions itself within an oppositional framework of criticism.

At this point, the text becomes process-oriented towards composition but, all the while, has guidelines about how a text can organically be composed. In conjunction, the student is instructed as to how to think about audience and writing a thesis. How to find and support good reasons is discussed in terms of logos and the student is introduced to different types of arguments and expands to include audience and evidence. As previously established, a checklist of how to analyze rhetorically and logical fallacies follows. Types of evidence are divided into categories, each representing a different rhetorical approach.

Having covered all the basics, the text moves from the discussion of rhetoric and expands the notion of the text by a chapter on visual arguments in which the student is taught to analyze claims made by photos, graphs, etc., ending with a check-off list.

The chapters in Part Two, “Putting Good Reasons into Action: Options for Arguments”, develop each of the evidence-based arguments that were listed briefly in Part One. These include: definition, causal, narrative, rebuttal, and proposal. Each chapter emphasizes the unique functions of its specific argumentation approach in realizing different communication goals. Thus by focusing on a single type, each argument is defined extensively and students are instructed in the nuts and bolts of how to accomplish it, with examples given of student and professional work in this argumentation style. Interestingly, Part Two ends by renewing a discussion of revision and reemphasizing the process aspect.

Now that the student knows how to do rhetorical analysis, find evidence and revise their papers, Part Three, “Making Effective Arguments: Designing, Presenting, and Documenting”, is focused on different presentation methods. Instead of presuming that all composition projects will be papers, this section also explores visual presentations and oral reports. Chapter 13 details basic visual design from font choice to web layout while Chapter 14 covers how to give a speech, field questions, and use visual aids in oral presentation. Chapter 15-17, more conventionally, give instruction as to MLA and APA style as well as research and citation tips. These chapters renew discussions about what makes evidence ‘good’, and expands traditional notions of sources to include web info and independent research while cautioning students as to how to determine validity.

Part Four, “Contemporary Arguments”, shifts its focus from rhetorical concerns to cultural studies/ critical pedagogy investigations and could be pertinent for any one of several agendas. Each chapter contains multiple readings on a chosen topic, topics include: the environment, sexuality, globalization, science, privacy, regulation, and media. These chapters consistently begin with brief overviews of the topic and a list of questions for students to think about when reading and/or places to go for additional information. After the essays, the student if given another list of questions designed to help them begin writing projects about the issue they’ve just read. However, the listing of additional information, writing projects and introductory questions is not consistent from topic to topic, some have all and some have only one or two.

The main focus, after instructing how to find and write good arguments (by good: rhetorically sound with appeals to logos, ethos and pathos), is to introduce students to a variety of culturally relevant topics in various styles. This is organized in two ways: according to topic and according to style. Thus, the book becomes adaptable to teaching style, whether focus be rhetoric or cultural/critical studies, an instructor is provided with a diverse number of readings.

However, the topics are the kind one would expect to find in a composition textbook and many of the assignments seem likely to produce clichéd or uninteresting results. Unless the focus of the course is a specific issue like the environment or evidence based arguments, it may be difficult to use this book over the course of the semester because of its emphasis on categorization and separation.

Though the book contains photographs and illustrations, they are all in grey-scale and not eye-catching. The usually uninterrupted writing may be disagreeable to students, nor do the step-by-step charts do much to break up the visual monotony. It does attempt to appeal to students with some pop culture references; these instances are scarce. The book makes no exciting pretenses, but rather presents itself as it is: a serious look at the serious nature of rhetorical composition with an emphasis on following rules, the pleasure of writing given very little room.

As I prepare my textbook reviews, I find myself yearning for a book I had in my second-year writing class as an undergrad (which I stupidly sold back to the bookstore in favor of having money to eat with).

As Brian mentioned, I am also thinking about potential ways to approach teaching next year and find I am interested in the ipod assignment that Dr. Rice shared with us. It seems that the analysis that Hebdige prompts, in conjunction with an assignment that asks students to consider something as style-based as music choice, might be an auspicious starting point…

Notes for class:

feel free to follow along!

Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern: Latour

1.The Beauty of Criticism: “You are always right! When naïve believers are clinging forcefully to their objects, claiming that they are made to do things because of their gods, their poetry, their cherished objects, you can turn all of those attachments into so many fetishes and humiliate all the believers by showing that it is all nothing but their own projection, that you, yes you alone, can see. But as soon as naïve believers are thus inflated by some belief of their own importance in their own projective capacity, you strike them by a second uppercut and humiliate them again, this time by showing that, whatever they think, their behavior is entirely determined by the action of powerful causalities coming from objective reality they don’t see, but that you, yes you, the never sleeping critic alone can see. Isn’t this fabulous? Isn’t it really worth going to graduate school to study critique?” (239)

…or—why people hate critics.

He calls the critic:

“conspiracy theorist” (228)

“mad mixtures of knee-jerk disbelief, punctilious demands for proofs and the free use of powerful explanations form the social neverland” 230.

Deconstructive

Are these things something we can avoid as critics or are they a ‘necessary evil’? All criticism isn’t this way, though right? Or is it?

2. Latour has a fairly extended metaphor of war and weapons. Considering his analysis of critics/criticism, how appropriate is this analogy? What are we fighting against/for anyway? What has criticism created in its current state?

– distrust of facts, belief in (illusive) prejudices, a fallacy of logic to reduce the power of objects and simultaneously make them control people…(227) (Except for the critic’s prized concerns/facts, then we are ‘hyper-realists’).

– distrust of the humanities, students, community?

3. How should we define this ideology? Is it in opposition to the ideologies proposed by Berlin?

It seems that Latour is lamenting the very rhetoric that Berlin champions and that Trimbur reinforces in microscopic view… Should we assign a fourth category to Berlin’s triple-threat, or should we like, Vitanza suggests, destroy these categories as they are unnecessary in themselves?

Does Latour’s discussion of objects/things, matters of facts/matters of concern risk contradicting his argument?

4. So, if Latour is proposing that the reformed critic not focus on matters of fact, which cannot exist in all of the positions we created for them, but matters of concern instead….what now?

New Critic: “not the one who debunks, but the one who assembles. The critic is not the one who lifts the rugs from under the feet of the naïve believers, but the one who offers the participants arenas in which to gather. The critic is not the one who alternates haphazardly between anti-fetishism and positivism like the drunk iconoclast drawn by Goya, but the one for whom, if something is constructed, then it means it is fragile and thus in great need and caution” 246

“not away but towards the gathering, the Thing” 246

What could this translate to on a practical level? Would one create ideas around this new philosophy, or would it need to be the underlying motivation in our work (as hopeful critics), our choice of texts and are assignments?

Archimedes example: place to start? Show how things relate together and why they must fit the way the do.

“give me one matter of concern and I will show you the whole earth and heavens that have to gathered to hold it firmly in one place” (246)

5. How do we see Latour’s position interacting with others? What do we think he would say of Trimbur? Is Trimbur a wolf or a nice guy in Latour’s reasoning…or better yet, should Trimbur care what Latour would think of him? Is Trimbur concerned with more practical issues?

Rhetoric and Ideology in the Writing Class—James Berlin

“Ideology is always pluralistic, a given historical moment displaying a variety of competing ideologies and a given individual reflecting one or another permutation of these conflicts, although the overall effects of these permutations tends to support the hegemony of the dominant class” (479)

Is this really the definition, or is it the definition of social-epistemic rhetoric?

Despite the more ‘renegade’ ideas of V., it seems that he is still interested in doing the work of the ‘critic’ and tearing things apart. Berlin of the other hand is describing and classifying what is already there.

Is this a good thing, or a limitation involved in the new kind of ‘criticism’?

What are characteristics of ideology?

-not stable, “discursive interpretations”, NOT transcriptions, false consciousness vs. objective truth, web of relationships (478)

–“ideology provides the language to define the subject (the self) other subjects, the material world, and the relation of all of these to each other. Ideology is thus inscribed in language practices, entering all features of our experience” (479)

“What exists?” Determines what is experienced or not

“What is good?” Standards for ethical/ aesthetic judgments

“What is possible?” Defines limits (478)

How could we see this manifest within differing pedagogies? Are we satisfied with this list of ideology’s functions?

How could something deny that it has ideology, then? Relationship of ideology to power?

3 Rhetorics in Classrooms: “a rhetoric can never be innocent, can never be a disinterested arbiter of the ideological claims of others because it is always already serving certain ideological claims” (477)

1. Cognitive Psychology= claims not to have ideology

Berlin states that because this rhetoric has no ideological claims, that it is vulnerable to appropriation by outside (capitalist) interests. How could ideology keep this from happening? Since this rhetoric is ‘goal-oriented’ and suitable to capitalist dynamics, there seems to be a contradiction in the fact that it could be used by the university as a scientific, manufacturing notion of education to produce the most results, but also for the student turn into a very individual-based revenue-generating machine: “the pursuit of self-evident and unquestionable goals in the composing process parallels the pursuit of self-evident and unquestioned profit making goals in the corporate market place” 483

If goal is to make individual commodity of text which belongs to a specific author, does this contradict notion of work place mentality? Is this a surprising point of departure from expected pragmatic approaches like community-service, collaborative? Did any one else expect that?

Why is problem-solving (“problem solving is finally the act of an individual performing in isolation, solitary and alone” 482) allowed to be individual if the other components are universal facts of brain function?

Berlin identifies the main flaw of cognitive-psychological rhetoric to be: “the existent, the good, and the possible are inscribed in the very nature of things as indisputable scientific fact, rather than being seen as humanly devised social constructions always remaining open to discussion” (484)

What do we think about this statement in light of Latour?

If ideology is about power, who or what has the power in this rhetoric?

2. Expressionism= claims oppositional to current-traditional/scientific

Berlin states that this pedagogy fails to take the social into account, is that true?

Assignments are: “random and irrational acts in the classroom” designed to “resist the ‘interpretations of experience embodied in the language of others” 485

Berlin states that this ideology of the individual, with a ‘don’t sell out to the man’ mentality is inherently flawed because: isolation prevents organization, necessary to fight and we can’t escape capitalism anyway.

Is this opinion fair? Is individualism futile?

He claims in this ideology that the power is personal, but the previous claims would make us understand that this power is actually ‘false consciousness’. Does this mean that Berlin’s definition is flawed/biased?

3. Social-epistemic=aware and continually questioning own ideology as focus** Berlin’s favorite

“the social, political act involving a dialectic interaction engaging the material, the social, and the individual writer with language as the agency of mediation” 488 Knowledge is a product of this dialogue.

Goal: “extraordinarily reexperience the ordinary” (Shor qtd 491)

Power is shared between the student and teacher: How is this accomplished truly? Is this the classroom of Ira Shor? Does this explanation of power distribution truncate our understanding of what specific pedagogies could be found in social-epistemic rhetoric?

“arguments based on the permanent rational structures of the universe or on the evidence of the deepest and most profound personal intuition should not be accepted without question” (489) What kind of critics does this make?

Interdisciplinary Assignments: Is Trimbur a social-epistemic? Is his definition of writing a change focus, but not a change of type from this rhetoric? If the assignments become interdisciplinary with pragmatic goals (community service?) how wide or narrow a range does that leave for us when creating courses/ assignments?

Should we see these as the only three rhetorics? If so, can we locate all of the pedagogies we have studied within them? If not, which ones do they fail to encapsulate and shall we create a fourth category for that purpose?

Here’s the situation. I was tutoring, as I have been known to do, and, finished with one appointment, am waiting for the next. The in-between-appointment time, as we all know, is a very special time, a time to get whatever shred of work that can be done in ten minutes done in five so one has time to get a cup of joe.

Having done this, and waiting comfortably at the table (with a somewhat relaxed demeanor), in stalks my next appointment and I am accosted out of my reverie of caffeine a full five minutes early.

He grunts: ’You ready?’ I, with as friendly and courteous an air as I am in possession of, politely ignore the fact that he is encroaching on my time, that I don’t have to meet with him yet and that he smells like a day old beer.

He slaps down upon the desk a crumpled, marked-up paper and begins to silently destroy an eraser.

I ask about the assignment. He is unwilling to share. I inquire into what he would like to discuss. He has no thoughts. I ask if he’d like us to read through the paper together. He would rather not.

Alright.

I proceed to read the paper silently while said student is busy in other affairs, getting water and fiddling with his cell phone. I pause after the introduction to let him know there isn’t one and would he like to change that? No.

I proceed to body paragraphs that are unrelated. He feels transitions are not a worthwhile or necessary improvement and tells me so with an implied ‘stupid’ dangling invisibly in the air between us. I set my teeth and read on.

After receiving a curt response that it actually is okay for a topic sentence to appear in the middle of the paragraph, and a, ‘my teacher thought it was fine’, he tells me: ‘I’m going to get a drink. Why don’t you just read it and mark the places that I need to fix.’

I am unwilling to do so.

He returns from his field trip and I find that I have completely lost all control of the situation and that the student does not have enough respect for me to behave like a human being. I stare at him in silence for a while.

‘You seem to be pretty happy with it as is,’ I say, ‘what exactly can I do for you?’

He doesn’t know. I hand over the proof of his visit (the only reason he came) and thus am free to lament over the situation in peace, with my hands shaking.

Almost immediately prior to this disaster, I was reading through Derek’s blog on clothes, and the responses that it elicited, pondering the importance of clothing in establishing respect amongst the youngsters. I wondered if some may take my baggy Dickies and band tee shirt to be an admission of inferiority in some way. But, I concluded that I had not felt any disrespect stemming from my attire (that I could remember) and would thus proceed in a similar fashion (!) as before.

However, as I seethed, I reconsidered my position. I find it atrocious that it may be necessary to adorn oneself with a sullen kid’s stereotypical notion of a teacher, but acknowledge that this might be the unfortunate case.

Having not the resources to buy a new wardrobe, and it being probable that I would just buy newer reversions of the same clothes had I the means, I happened upon a solution.

I recalled an instance when I not only had the respect, but also the admiration of some children without having even to open my mouth: when I was mistaken for Violet Incredible in my days as a waitress while serving a family with some small children. Their wide-eyed stares and requests for autographs were enough to make me feel rather like a superhero, even though at the time I had not the foggiest idea who this Violet was.

So, if clothes are necessary for demonstrating one’s power, I’ll show you, student-who-was-annoying-to-tutor. My clothes won’t just convey ordinary power. Oh no, but super power! And thus I shall command my class with a magnanimity that only the noblest of hearts and most daring of heroes can attain. Also, then I would only have to buy one new suit of clothes.

A brief defense of my delicious links for the edification and enlightenment of all involved:

1. public domain achieve: watch out Google, you’ve got competition. In a library class/workshop, this website was introduced as a valuable way to search for texts and illustrations. I agreed.

2. pitchfork media: this is a snobby indie music review site that I posted because Eric yelled at me for not having posted it.

3. English short title catalogue: a complete record of all of the titles in the 18th c. If one cannot understand how great this is, I don’t know how to convince them.

4. ECCO: in conjunction with the estc, this site has full text from the 18th c., but not all of them. A pretty good percentage though, I have been told about 3/4ths.

5. Shelley Jackson’s skin project: please see blog entry “Paradox or Attribute-Modality Mismatch” for an in-depth explanation of this one. ***Good luck Allyson!

6. Library Databases: I added this one because there was no reason that I should not add it. We all like the library, right?

7. 8010 Blog: I put this one up because I kept forgetting our class website and this way I didn’t have to remember it (these are now out of order and I apologize, I would have cut and pasted them around, but the format in the blog-write-post-thing lacks the ability, I trust you are all able to follow the list anyway…actually, no one probably noticed that it was out of order because I doubt anyone has the time to look at my delicious account simultaneously with reading this post to verify. If you do, you are a better time-manager than I).

8. Everyone else’s links: because I like you guys.

Stayed tuned for future installments!!

–Editor