tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-314233852024-03-23T10:51:19.902-07:00Thinking in airSara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.comBlogger263125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-6003723913560552082011-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:002011-12-27T21:14:09.540-08:00Getting Ready to Teach Science Writing AgainJust a year ago, I posted here about my new online class in Science Writing. Actually it went fairly well, I taught it on campus this fall, and am now updating everything for winter. That made me think of book reviewing, a new assignment that went well and which I will continue. And that started me looking for resources, which somehow sent me to Blogger, which I discovered is now owned by Google -- and the access to which I had lost when my old computer died. Luckily I remembered which email I had used with it, so I was able to get in again. Science in action!<br /><br />I was telling my students about the bald eagles I see in the mornings, perched in the high bare branches of a locust tree (this is Linn, County, Oregon). Actually not that rare here. They eat lambs. After a long dry spell (which meant that our area was socked in under heavy fog), we are back to a more typical Oregon rain.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-22083717081960860072010-12-22T10:11:00.000-08:002010-12-22T10:16:05.322-08:00Food and Art and maybe Science too<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/TRJATattWgI/AAAAAAAAAJs/MKW5phmXzZk/s1600/Arcimboldo-Rudolf-II-631.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 152px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/TRJATattWgI/AAAAAAAAAJs/MKW5phmXzZk/s320/Arcimboldo-Rudolf-II-631.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5553571992833972738" border="0" /></a><br />Thanks to my brother, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Smithsonian Magazine </span>brings a fascinating variety of articles every month -- science, history, art, travel. Here's an article about the <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/Arcimboldos-Feast-for-the-Eyes.html">Renaissance artist Arcimboldo</a>, a wonderful combination of Food and Art and one could say Science as well.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-13382399802930476722010-12-15T20:15:00.000-08:002010-12-15T20:54:31.112-08:00Science Writing - Communicating Science to the Public<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/TQmbV23OQfI/AAAAAAAAAJk/sPPVMmZkOmI/s1600/terra-fish-150x150.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/TQmbV23OQfI/AAAAAAAAAJk/sPPVMmZkOmI/s400/terra-fish-150x150.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5551138815517540850" border="0" /></a><br /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Sara/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.png" alt="" />Since I last posted, I have been inventing new courses to teach at Oregon State. This fall, I piloted Science Writing -- communicating science to the general public -- and am putting it online through E-Campus distance learning for winter. See the <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/terra/?s=summer+reading">cool image by artist Santiago Uceda from Terra.</a><br /><br />Why is Science Writing so important? Well, for me it's fascinating to learn more. Consider Robin Wall Kimmerer's <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press/g-h/GatheringMoss.html">Gathering Moss</a> from our own OSU Press - It's an amazing group of essays that teach a great deal about the mostly overlooked mosses.<br /><br />For scientists, learning how to explain what they know and do is crucial -- they need to learn to speak clearly. Consider Dean's <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.americanscientist.org/bookshelf/pub/am-i-making-myself-clear">Am I Making Myself Clear: A Scientist's Guide to Talking to the Public</a>, Or Schulz's<span style="font-size:85%;"><span id="btAsinTitle" style=""> <span style="font-style: italic;">Eloquent Science: A Practical Guide to Becoming a Better Writer, Speaker and Scientist.<br /></span><br />So scientists need to learn to communicate - as Randy Olson says<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"> <a href="http://www.dontbesuchascientist.com/">Don't be Such a Scientist</a>, l</span></span>earn how to communicate, not just to share cool ideas, but to help the world.<br /><br />See <a href="http://www.unscientificamerica.com/">Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future.</a> Then think of the climate change debate or the evolution debate.<br /><br />So, part of my class is teaching science students to understand journalism and the rhetoric of the general public. The rest of the class is helping writing minors learn enough science to write an accurate and engaging article.<br /><br />Stay posted!<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></span>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-2182521471669349852010-01-24T10:48:00.000-08:002010-01-24T10:56:44.473-08:00Rainy Sunday Looking at Paintings by Winston Churchill<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/S1yXJEpDUOI/AAAAAAAAAJE/VGG1SrLC_iE/s1600-h/Winstonchurchill+paiting-photo+by+Bettman%2BCorbis.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/S1yXJEpDUOI/AAAAAAAAAJE/VGG1SrLC_iE/s200/Winstonchurchill+paiting-photo+by+Bettman%2BCorbis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430381432822517986" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/S1yWbLfaf0I/AAAAAAAAAI8/lotl-glIwcw/s1600-h/WinstonChurchill-Study+of+Boats-paint_2_zoom.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 168px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/S1yWbLfaf0I/AAAAAAAAAI8/lotl-glIwcw/s200/WinstonChurchill-Study+of+Boats-paint_2_zoom.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5430380644387159874" border="0" /></a><br />My brother was talking about Winston Churchill's painting, so I did a quick search and was delighted to learn more. Apparently Churchill's paintings are not much sold outside Britain, which might explain why fewer people are aware of his strong talent. <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2007/nov/02/paintingbynumber10ourarti">See article. </a> Isn't this a great photo of him painting. When I retire - which of course will never actually happen, a writer always writes (not that you could tell that from the scarcity of posts here in the past year) - I shall paint more. Lovely boats. (photo by Bettman/Corbin)Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-25680793710963729232009-12-19T17:13:00.000-08:002009-12-19T17:33:32.448-08:00Polysyndeton and Parataxis<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/Sy1-xJn2rqI/AAAAAAAAAI0/BWzEtxcCO1U/s1600-h/Joan_Didion.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 160px; height: 143px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/Sy1-xJn2rqI/AAAAAAAAAI0/BWzEtxcCO1U/s200/Joan_Didion.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417125309658345122" border="0" /></a><br />In a brief search to see if I could find a copy of Joan Didion's "Goodbye to all that" online (I didn't, at least not yet), Google offered me a reference to an article about Didion's essay: <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/Didiongoodbye.htm">"<span style="font-size:85%;"><span class="fn">Place and Polysyndeton in Didion's "Goodbye to All That"</span></span>By </a><a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/Didiongoodbye.htm" rel="author">Richard Nordquist</a>,which of course piqued my interest and which turns out not to be an article as far as I can tell so much as just an excerpt (but with links to other excerpts and the tantalizing topic of <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/momadaypartpass.htm">"participial phrases in Momaday"</a> , and so I looked up <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/polysyndterm.htm">polysyndeton</a> itself and found not only a definition but more interestingly, some examples from Hemingway and others, and which, in the way that grammar and sentences have of going on and on, led to <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/parataxisterm.htm">parataxis </a>and some <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/steinparatx07.htm">examples </a>of parataxis in Steinbeck's piece on the American Dream (which I could use for WR 222 Argumentation and WR 323 Writing with Style), and interestingly, it would seem that both styles were popular in the 1930's to 1950's especially, and would be a natural for me, fond as I am of more. However, Noah Lukeman's book <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.lukeman.com/adashofstyle/">A Dash of Style: The Art and Mastery of Punctuation</a> </span>seems not to mention either as far as I can tell and without an index - imagine, no index. So, anyone teaching WR 330 Grammar could have lots of fun with this. What got me to thinking of Didion was reading Zinsser's <span style="font-style: italic;">On Writing Well, </span>in which he calls Richard Burton's sentence about rugby the longest he (Zinsser) had read, at 183 words, but that's nothing compared to the famous "when" sentence in Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail" at 302 words, built in a series of when clauses, or <a href="http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/hypotaxterm.htm">hypotaxis</a>. Well, it's fun, isn't it.<br /><span style="font-family: arial;font-size:78%;" >Didion photo from http://grammar.about.com/od/shortpassagesforanalysis/a/Didiongoodbye.htm</span>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-62620774469745945052009-12-13T18:48:00.000-08:002009-12-13T18:56:39.418-08:00After months of neglect - a post on the death of ToulminIt's just plain been too hectic to think long enough to put something worth reading up here - and thank goodness for Facebook - but today, with grades finished and the break ahead (not exactly a vacation, but working at home) I want to note the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/11/education/11toulmin.html?_r=1&emc=eta1">passing of British philosopher Stephen Toulmin</a>, whose <a href="http://ocw.usu.edu/English/intermediate-writing/english-2010/-2010/toulmins-schema">rhetorical schema</a> I first learned about when I started teaching comp at Rogue Community College in Grants Pass. His claim-support-warrant structure has been widely accepted as a useful lens for understanding arguments in the public realm, though not without some controversy. Pairing his schema with stasis theory helps students think more critically. Prodding them to try to articulate the warrants and assumptions they make about their audiences is challenging. Thanks, Toulmin.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-48162688979500231472009-05-12T14:06:00.000-07:002009-05-12T14:12:34.054-07:00Maps as tools for thinkingIn searching for something else, I found this interesting piece by Atlantic Monthly author James Fallows on maps (which I love - is there such a thing as a cartophile? the little red line under a misspelled word seems to say no) as<a href="http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/05/design_aspects_of_soft.php"> information and design </a>Fallows is looking at maps and map software tools for thinking. And while at first I was disappointed that the maps he was using were "just" maps of cognition - such as maps of debates and of arguments, to show the lines of thinking - quite fascinating, Fallows ended up with a city map of London which is partly meant to show that a map is easier to follow than written directions -- and yet, there is a skill and an art and a talent in reading cartography, which may be why Google is creating street scenes to supplement their maps.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-23330951507765564112009-03-27T15:33:00.001-07:002009-03-27T15:48:26.786-07:00Learning How to ThinkHaving a few spare minutes over break - but only a few - I was reading some New York Times opinion pieces, and found Kristof's essay on "<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html">Learning How to Think"</a><span style="text-decoration: underline;"> </span>about the ways people make decisions. And this reminded me of a recent book review of Jonah Lehrer's book <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/chapters/chapter-how-we-decide.html">How We Decide</a> (</span>chapter courtesy of <span style="font-style: italic;">New York Times</span>) <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/books/review/Johnson-t.html?ref=firstchapters">reviewed by Steven Johnson</a>. All of this musing on cognition relates to trying to help students think more clearly about their research and writing processes. And this brought me back to a book still on my nightstand, <span style="font-style: italic;">Geography of Thought </span>by Richard Nisbett. <a href="http://www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2003/Feb03/r022703a.html">Here</a>. As our population of international students rises at Oregon State, it's helpful for me to understand how students think and why. <br /><br />I need more time to think about this. For now it's a stub, as Wikipedia would call it. <br /><br />Here's a recent puzzle:<br />If the plural of DOG is DOGS, how can the plural of AMERICAN be AMERICAN'S as we so often get in student papers. Any ideas?Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-3962970161167003172009-03-24T09:49:00.000-07:002009-03-24T10:00:18.986-07:00The long (unending) journey with Information LiteracyOK, despite will publicized lists of competencies or proficiencies for Information Literacy - the skills a successful student should have (<a href="http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/instruction/ug_comp.html">OSU</a>, <a href="http://ilago.wordpress.com/">ILAGO</a>) I don't think we can ever say that someone "knows everything" just as no one is ever a finished and perfect writer. What we try to do in our composition classes at Oregon State - from the first term and through second terms etc - is to continue to develop and guide the writing habits and ideas students arrive with, and likewise the information literacy habits and beliefs. This is a huge topic (see my friend <a href="http://info-fetishist.org/">Anne-Marie's blog</a>), of course. Here's a clue into the challenge we face. In the Sunday March 22 Oregonian, Kimberly Melton <a href="http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2009/03/most_portland_schools_dont_hav.html">writes about the lack of librarians</a> (and even libraries) in Portland public schools. When I read this, it helped make sense of why freshmen arrive thinking they don't need any further instruction in how to find and understand information - because they have been managing (sort of, badly) on their own and have little experience with the excitement of the adventure of exploring the continually expanding info lit frontiers. OK, I'm getting a bit carried away, but you see what I mean. And if "life long learning" is a goal that universities endorse (and they should), then lifelong intellectual curiosity (with the tools to keep going) should be nurtured. How to do this, though, is the challenge.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-75955665175812175232009-03-24T09:42:00.000-07:002009-03-24T09:49:08.889-07:00Thank goodness for Facebook (and spring break)If it weren't for Facebook I would never get anything posted at all these days - luckily FB does not expect long thoughtful meditations. Short thought bites is all I can manage and all FB wants. So at least folks know I'm still around. Still, I promise more, and now that it's spring break -- which means I can work more leisurely at home preparing syllabi for spring term - updating and recycling last term's "Writing with Style" and the annual spring practicum for grad students on teaching Business Writing, and creating a whole new (to me) course on Critical Reviewing (books, films, food, fashion, art, architecture, etc). All fun of course and all an excellent excuse to read New Yorker, Atlantic, etc. More coming soon.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-87852922791724314492009-02-07T20:41:00.000-08:002009-02-07T20:49:57.932-08:00New Yorker Covers<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SY5kLPXe2pI/AAAAAAAAAIs/FvyL5foaFFQ/s1600-h/NewYorkerCoverJune9_2008.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SY5kLPXe2pI/AAAAAAAAAIs/FvyL5foaFFQ/s200/NewYorkerCoverJune9_2008.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300283955728013970" border="0" /></a><br />While searching for the McPhee piece I just posted, I found this link to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/covers/2008"><span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker </span>covers</a>. What could be more fun (for me, anyway) than reminiscing about these images. Look at the June 9 & 16 double issue - the owner of the independent bookstore opening for the day looking at the woman next door receiving a delivery from Amazon.com. Isn't it great - and sad! I used to work at an independent bookstore and we could not compete with Amazon's prices, of course.<br /><br />This link is just 2008, but you can easily see nearly any year. You can also search <a href="http://www.cartoonbank.com/">with this link</a> to the Cartoon.Bank and search as far back <a href="http://www.cartoonbank.com/search_results_category.asp?mscssid=U8EC6D9MHJVD8G6ALM4J35CXMS3A2TSE&sitetype=1&pubDateFrom=12/31/1919&pubDateTo=01/01/1930&section=prints&advanced=1&title=1920s">as the 1920'2</a>.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-42024296596256375982009-02-07T20:29:00.000-08:002009-02-07T20:37:33.909-08:00Information Literacy - New Yorker styleGood to be back online - and hope I can keep with it for a while. Just read a great article by John McPhee - everything I've read by McPhee is good - in <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker </span>(Feb 9) on p. 56 called "Checkpoints" about fact-checking. Sorry that<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/02/09/090209fa_fact_mcphee"> the link</a> doesn't give the whole article - just the abstract, but I really encourage you to find it and read it because this is Information Literacy in a whole new light (and by the way, the abstract includes KEYWORDS! Perfect for our first year comp Info Lit assignment this term) McPhee provides several stories of times when the magazine's fact checkers persisted in finding out the truth about the data he includes. He also gives a funny story of when they changed McPhee's story based on comments by an expert on plate tectonics - Eldridge Moores - who actually had a slip of memory, confusing the Adriatic Plate with the Aegean Plate, thus introducing error where none had existed before. The hero of McPhee's story is Sara Lippincott, now retired, who checked facts for years for <span style="font-style: italic;">The New Yorker. </span><br /><br />McPhee also reports on the various fact-checking practices of other magazines (variously rigorous) and book publishers (non-existant - it's up to the author to check facts). <br /><br />All of this is not only fascinating on its own, but especially in connection with the ways we teach information literacy to students at Oregon State. If anyone else reads the article, I would be very interested in reactions.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-39722178633750588642009-01-02T17:46:00.000-08:002009-01-02T17:53:26.145-08:00A new year two-fer -- now Adam GopnikLately, when I read the <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker</span>, I find myself enjoying another of <a href="http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=226">Adam Gopnik's</a> essays. For example, this new one aobut Samuel Johnson "<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/12/08/081208crat_atlarge_gopnik">Man of Fetters</a>" which I liked almost as much as his essay on <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/10/06/081006crat_atlarge_gopnik">John Stuart Mill</a> which was great.<br /><br />Apparently Gopnik is so well known that a<a href="http://wordpress.com/tag/adam-gopnik/"> whole blog about him</a> is available. On the other hand, not everyone is a fan. <a href="http://gawker.com/news/adam-gopnik/james-wolcott-finally-does-the-adam-gopnik-takedown-weve-all-been-waiting-for-234697.php">James Wolcot</a>t is less excited. Maybe he's jealous? Or am I just too swayed by Gopnik's prose. <br /><br />More later.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-34140951134582890792009-01-02T17:33:00.000-08:002009-01-02T17:46:49.450-08:00Welcome 2009 - Books miscellanyWelcome 2009. I was afraid that my blog wouldn't let me back in, after all this time. So here are some items I have been reading this afternoon.<br /><br />My Google news alert for books brings me: <a href="http://www.bdafrica.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12075&Itemid=5843">"Reading Serious Books Challenges Your Thinking."</a><br /><span class="small">by Mwenda wa Micheni </span><span class="small">from the African Business Daily </span>which asks a key question:<br /><span class="nl_content"><blockquote style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">Do our leaders have time to read serious literature; literature that engages the mind and offers direction? What literature do they read if they do at all, empty pulp literature? <br /></blockquote>I think we know the answer regarding Obama, Bush, and Palin. But for myself, I know I'm not reading enough books. Mostly articles and student papers. When invited to join "good reads" I feel very much the fifth wheel, as I have nothing to contribute.<br /><br />On the other hand, from the UK, we have this:</span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/4060267/Poor-teachers-fuelling-loathing-of-books.html">"Poor teachers fuelling 'loathing of books'</a> by </span>Graeme Paton: <br /><span style="font-size:85%;"></span><blockquote><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);font-size:85%;" >The poor teaching of English in schools is leading to a "loathing of books" among children, according to" novelist Susan Hill,</span><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> author of </span><i style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">The Woman in Black, Strange Meeting</i><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> and</span><i style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> I'm the King of the Castle</i><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">. Hill claims to be "flooded with "desperate" emails from pupils struggling to understand her novels because they aretaught "so badly, so dully and so mechanically" that many children were being turned off literature altogether.</span> </blockquote><div class="storyHead"> </div>I'm wondering how applicable this is to the US? Is it always the teacher's fault? What about No Child Left Behind?<br /><span class="nl_content"><br /></span>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-77432948823826781712008-12-04T11:35:00.001-08:002008-12-04T11:36:30.194-08:00How long does it take for Google Reader to update?I was checking my Google reader and it still hasn't shown the post I made a few minutes ago. Does anyone know how long it takes to update?Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-43820377229723019602008-12-04T11:01:00.000-08:002008-12-04T11:34:44.943-08:00Why are keywords so challenging?Sorry for the long absence. What I wanted to write about - still will - is David Aaronovitch's article from the London Times as found by my students in WR 222. But today I'm writing about keywords and why they are so baffling to students. There is a cognitive challenge here. In all our writing classes we have some information literacy activities that require research and students are surprisingly baffled in their attempts. Yesterday a student said she still had not found any scholarly articles for her essay about the benefits of marching bands (benefits to members or the the school team being cheered on). I said, let's look, opened OSU's Academic Search Premier database, typed in "marching band" and the first two articles were quite helpful. It was so easy. I wondered what key words she might have been using that she couldn't find anything.<br /><br />Which brings us to our challenge for our campus-wide Information Literacy in first year comp. We are trying to design some new activities that will help teach this concept.<br /><br />In EBSCO I found an interesting article - <a class="record-index" name="7"> </a><div class="result-list-record" dir="ltr"><span class="title-link-wrapper"><a class="title-link" name="Result_7" id="Result_7" href="http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/viewarticle?data=dGJyMPPp44rp2%2fdV0%2bnjisfk5Ie46bZMrquwTLak63nn5Kx95uXxjL6nsEeypbBIrq6eSbiqtVKzrZ5oy5zyit%2fk8Xnh6ueH7N%2fiVauor0u2r7RQta2vPurX7H%2b72%2bw%2b4ti7ee7epIzf3btZzJzfhrunski1rrdIsJzkh%2fDj34y73POE6urjkPIA&hid=113" onclick="javascript:__doLinkPostBack('','target~~fulltext||args~~7','');return false;" title="The Effect of Search Engine Keyword Choice and Demographic Features on Internet Searching Success.">The Effect of Search Engine <em class="epkwic"><strong>Keyword</strong></em> Choice and Demographic Features on Internet Searching Success.</a><span id="hoverPreview7" class="preview-hover fulltext-hover"><span class="hidden">Preview: </span></span></span> <div class="medium-font">The objective of this project was to determine the effect of keyword choice and demographic features on Internet searching success through empirical research. An experiment was done with 1,109 l...</div><span class="standard-green"><span class="medium-font"> By: Weideman, Melius; Strümpfer, Corrie</span></span><span class="standard-green"><span class="medium-font">. Information Technology & Libraries</span></span><span class="standard-green"><span class="medium-font">, Jun2004, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p58-65, 8p</span></span><span class="medium-font">; (</span><cite><span class="medium-font">AN 14078902</span></cite><span class="medium-font">)<br />which found that while younger and white students tended to be more successful with keyword searching, in fact students are still overconfident of their ability to find articles.<br /><br />But here's a look at the opposite side that might just be a way to help students understand. Let's look at the other side - if you are the author, how can you help people find your essay. </span>Scholars typically list keywords with their article abstracts.<span class="medium-font"> And web designers want desperately for their sites to be found, so they work hard to make a wide range of key words work for them. <a href="http://www.searchengineguide.com/karon-thackston/what-are-keywords-and-what-the-heck-do-you-do-with-them.php"> Karen Thackston </a>devotes a page to "what are keywords and what the heck do you do with them" to help web site owners/designers know how to help search engines find their page. After all Google's algorithms are based - I think - on keywords.<br /><br /><a href="http://lorelle.wordpress.com/2005/11/26/what-are-keywords/">Lorelle's blog on WordPress</a> also addresses the value of using keywords effectively. Her perspective, like Karen's above, is to help bloggers make their sites more easily reached. If I wanted to capture a lot of attention to this post, I need to use the words both as single "keyword" and two words "key words" because people use them both ways. Wikipedia uses the single <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyword_%28Internet_search%29">keyword</a>, though very minimally. In this case, while normally I eagerly refer students to Wikipedia, I don't know if their entry is helpful.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.cyberindian.com/web-marketing/keywords-why-they-are-important.php">Kevin Sinclair</a> of Cyberindian also addresses Keywords (one word) again from the perspective of the customer. What we hope to do in our activity is help students induce (not deduce) what would be effective keywords to find a particular text without the author or title - such as Swift's "Modest Proposal" so that students can then devise keywords/ key words that would effectively help them in their own research when they are not looking for a particular item.<br /><br />What <a href="http://info-fetishist.org/2008/11/24/on-tag-clouds-and-teaching/">Anne-Marie</a> and Dan and I talked about at the library yesterday was the interesting relationship between key words and tag clouds. Just because a word occurs often doesn't make it a keyword, and I don't mean words such as "they". A tag cloud I made of "Modest Proposal" had as one of the most common words "burden" and then "kingdom" - neither of which I would have thought of to find it. Using "burden" and "kingdom" together as search terms in Google did not retrieve "Modest Proposal" on the first two of the Google result pages. However the key words "Ireland poverty children satire" brought up an entry for Swift as the first on a Google search. It would be interesting to experiment with this.<br /><br />I'm hoping that this post will attract some thinking. Wish I had a good image for this.<br /><br />Maybe the real challenge is what DavidWeinberger raises: that <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/">Everything is Miscellaneous.</a><br /><br />ps: my Blogger appears to have lost the auto spell check.<br /><br /><br /></span></span><table style="width: 516px; height: 18px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3"><tbody><tr><td class="bibInfoLabel" valign="top" width="20%"><br /></td><td class="bibInfoData"><a href="http://oasis.oregonstate.edu/search%7ES13/aWeinberger%2C+David%2C+1950-/aweinberger+david+1950/-3,-1,0,B/browse"><br /></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-48983699974674796382008-11-11T09:10:00.000-08:002008-11-11T09:16:25.465-08:00"Let America be America Again"<span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >A number of friends have recently emailed Langston Hughes' wonderful poem, <a href="http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15609">"Let America Be America Again,"</a> which is so inspiring with Barack Obama's election. I just wanted to add to the swelling hearts and share it, too.<br /><br />As Hughes says:<br /></span><pre style="font-family: times new roman;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"></span></span><blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Let it be the dream it used to be.</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Let it be the pioneer on the plain</span><br /><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Seeking a home where he himself is free.<br /></span><span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Let America be America again.</span><br /></span></blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-size:100%;">And while it was sadly too often true for Hughes that:</span> <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">"(America never was America to me.)</span>"</span><br /></span></pre><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Now, I hope, Hughes would find that America could be America for him.</span><br /></span>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-6863712166920799782008-11-09T09:33:00.000-08:002008-11-09T09:54:57.130-08:00Have you renewed your poetic license?I had a delightful laugh yesterday when reading last week's (11/2) Sunday <span style="font-style: italic;">Oregonian</span> with Brian Doyle's <a href="http://blog.oregonlive.com/books/2008/10/essay_a_modest_proposal_for_po.html">"Modest Proposal for Poetry Inspectors."</a> Nice wit and lovely variation of elastic and elongated (but not excruciating) sentences with tiny tasty tidbits. "Wouldn't that be cool?" I agree that Oregon's poet laureate Lawson Inada should be police chief and Ursula LeGuin should "speak directly by Web camera to every child in every school in Oregon." <br /><br />Doyle's essay, does, however leave me with a slight distaste in his parodying of teen girls and their poetic habits. Just as many teen boys suffer with poetic angst. Does Doyle imagine that none of these boys' girlfriends dread their interminable poetry readings? <br /><br />However, I enjoy Doyle's essays, and now I see he has published a book of poems, so I should check it out. Here's<a href="http://www.creativenonfiction.org/brevity/brev10/doyle2.htm"> another</a> of his essays.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-4414786889424214522008-11-07T21:46:00.000-08:002008-11-10T13:18:50.531-08:00Way Cool ToolMy brilliant colleague Anne-Marie <a href="http://info-fetishist.org/">(Info-Fetishist) </a>has updated my class library page with this extremely cool tool called <a href="http://www.marumushi.com/apps/newsmap/newsmap.cfm">Newsmap</a>, which shows a "tree" or collage of all the biggest headlines, whether in the US, UK, China, etc or around the world drawn from Google news. I wanted to get a screen shot but somehow that didn't work. Check it out. <img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Sara/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.jpg" alt="" /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/Sara/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.jpg" alt="" />Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-71340704173256401662008-11-07T21:23:00.000-08:002008-11-07T22:03:31.697-08:00"In the world of ideas, to name something is to own it" says Thomas FriedmanMy writing students have been analyzing essays and book chapters for 2 weeks now. Quite a few were attracted to Thomas Friedman's excerpt "Revolution IS U.S." from his book <span style="font-style: italic;">Lexus and the Olive Tree</span>, and just tonight the current <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker </span>arrived with a <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/11/10/081110fa_fact_parker">profile of Friedman: "</a>The Bright Side: The Relentless Optimism of Thomas Friedman" by Ian Parker. (I'm sorry that the website only gives the abstract unless one is a subscriber.)<br /><br />Parker quotes one of Friedman's friends describing him as tremendous at naming concepts: <blockquote style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"> "He's created a brand for himself. And the Flat World [a reference to Friedman's books <span style="font-style: italic;">The World is Flat </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Hot, Flat and Crowded</span>] is also a brand. He comes up with phrases and hooks that people hang on to, sometimes for dear life. I think that's a unique skill. He writes for the masses. His work is extremely intellectual, but it takes the form of a conversation with a taxi-driver." </blockquote> Students noticed right away Friedman's chatty style and were quite drawn in. Parker says,<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"> "Friedman is not blithe, or without passion, but his career can be seen as one that has redirected left-of-center dismay or unease (about terrorism, globalization, climate change, American political inertia) into a conversation about opportunity and national purpose -- and, to a large degree, has done this through the insistent marshalling of rhetoric. "I don't mind using rhetoric," Friedman said. 'I get criticized for that a lot: It's 'too cute,' too this or that. But I've never had a reader come up to me and say, "that book was <span style="font-style: italic;">too easy</span> to read. That anecdote went down too easily.' To simplify something accurately, you've got to understand it deeply."</blockquote>Later, Parker says <span style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">"In a curious way, this rhetorical challenge [of making metaphors to describe the interplay of forces] has become [Friedman's] subject. As Friedman said, "I've always described my books as books about how to think about a problem. Not necessarily the specific detailed answer."</span><br /><br />Absolutely Friedman's style is perfectly aligned with his message; in fact it is his message. I would like to read more of his work.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-85690677857973908952008-10-14T09:38:00.000-07:002008-10-14T10:22:34.776-07:00Gopnik again!After os much enjoying Gopnik's piece on Babar (see below), I was so happy to find another of his <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/10/06/081006crat_atlarge_gopnik">"Critic at Large"</a> reviews in the <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker, </span>this one on a biography of John Stuart Mill. It was fascinating and well written. I confess to not having known much about Mill before this - just a vague idea that he was a Scottish philosopher. His strong support for the rights of women had not sunk in. Look at what Gopkin says:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Mill believed in complete equality between the sexes, not just women’s colleges and, someday, female suffrage but absolute parity; he believed in equal process for all, the end of slavery, votes for the working classes, and the right to birth control (he was arrested at seventeen for helping poor people obtain contraception), and in the common intelligence of all the races of mankind.<br /></blockquote>And this was written a few years after Mary Wollstonecraft's <span style="font-style: italic;">Vindication of the Rights of Women, </span>which surely Mill had read. (and by the way, I can also recommend Frances Sherwood's fictionalized biography <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0393325385/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link">Vindication</a> </span>about Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelly, author of <span style="font-style: italic;">Frankenstein).</span><br /><br />But as Gopnik points out, the real influence on Mill was Harriet Taylor:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">Of all Mill’s causes, his championing of the rights of women is still the most heroic, and its heroism turns out to be rooted in a passionate love for another person. Mill said that he had always been a feminist, but there isn’t any doubt that the engine of his feminism was his friend, love, collaborator, and eventual wife, Harriet Taylor</blockquote>And listen to this:<br /><p></p><blockquote style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);"><p>Harriet’s own writing of the eighteen-thirties and forties on the oppression of marriage has the urgency of immediate experience. A smart woman who had been obliged to be someone’s idea of a wife, she had been at that table with the dumb little dictator: “The most insignificant of men, the man who can obtain influence or consideration nowhere else, finds one place where he is chief and head. There is one person, often greatly his superior in understanding, who is obliged to consult him, and whom he is not obliged to consult. He is judge, magistrate, ruler, over their joint concerns.” Mill and Taylor, in their later writing, most famously in the 1869 “The Subjection of Women,” aren’t content to show that women would be happier if freer; they go right to the ground and ask what reason we have for thinking that <i>any</i> restraint on women’s freedom is just. The arguments against women’s liberty have to do with what is natural for women to do, or what women are capable of doing, or what some men would be offended by. They take each case and show that its only rationale is our slavery to custom. Women are naturally passive? Go tell Queen Elizabeth. They are happy in their lot? All slaves say as much to the slave master. They are “designed” to have children? No argument from nature can ever alter an argument from ethics: if women want to raise children, excellent; if they don’t, there is no natural reason to think they must any more than there is a reason to think that male philosophers should all put down their pens and go out hunting for mammoths.</p><p>Mill makes the point again and again that no one can possibly know what women are or are not “naturally” good at, since their opportunities have been so vanishingly small compared with the length of their oppression. Arguing against the notion that women have no talent for the fine arts, Mill makes the shrewd point that in the one liberal art where women <i>are</i> encouraged as much as men, acting on the stage, everyone admits that they’re just as good or better. In any case, nature has nothing to do with what should be done. In his essay on “Nature,” he writes, “Nature cannot be a proper model for us to imitate. Either it is right that we should kill because nature kills; torture because nature tortures; ruin and devastate because nature does the like; or we ought not to consider what nature does, but what it is good to do.” Mill’s rejection of a natural case isn’t that anything goes; it’s that nobody can really know what goes until someone goes farther. He doesn’t believe in a blank slate on which anything can be inscribed; he believes in the power of the chalk-holding hand to change the sum on the blackboard.</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Well - really, I urge you to read the actual article. My own copy (in print at home with marginalia) is already marked up. Enjoy! Meanwhile, having enjoyed two of Gopnik's pieces, I shall hunt down more.<br /></p>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-56228695088436624732008-09-28T10:39:00.001-07:002008-09-28T11:02:50.653-07:00Babar<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SN_GH2GUbEI/AAAAAAAAAIc/djoVDtix3I0/s1600-h/Babar+and+the+photographer+1934+1980+copy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SN_GH2GUbEI/AAAAAAAAAIc/djoVDtix3I0/s200/Babar+and+the+photographer+1934+1980+copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251133528620690498" border="0" /></a><br />As a child, I enjoyed the Babar books by Jean de Brunhoff and probably still have some in a box somewhere. I found the drawings charming; the story a bit more disturbing. How could the author open with the mother being killed! I almost had a chance to find out more because in college, I dated someone related to the de Brunhoff family, and almost had a chance to meet the son Laurent de Brunhoff who carried on the family tradition with the stories and drawings.<br /><br />So, it was great to get the Sept 22 <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker, </span>and read a thoughtful article by Adam Gropnik "Freeing the Elephants: What are the Babar Stories Really About" which interrogates the questions of French colonialism and the fascination we have with the "wild" and "nature" versus civilization and "order." I especially liked the way that Gropnik positioned French stories with British and American. He says, <blockquote style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">"In London, in children's books, life is too orderly and one logns fo the vitality of the wild; in Paris, order is an achievement, hard won against the natural chaos an cruelty of adult life; in New York, we begin most stories in an indefferent city and the child has to create a kind of order within it."(50)</blockquote><br />(sorry, I haven't found the article online, but <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/22/slideshow_080922_babar?xrail">here's a slide show of images. </a><br />And <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/09/22/080922on_audio_gopnik?xrail">here's an audio interview with Gropnik </a>about the controversy of the elephants.<br /><br />(Note: On a train across Scotland in 1968, I got in a huge controversy with a friend who claimed that the title was really <span style="font-style: italic;">Barbar.</span> We had no way to check who was right. Very frustrating! Of course I should have entirely let it go.)<br /><br />Photo copyright by de Brunhoff, print for sale from <a href="http://www.russellrareprints.com/images/Babar%2520and%2520the%2520photographer%25201934%25201980%2520copy.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.russellrareprints.com/product_info.php%3Fproducts_id%3D198&h=500&w=364&sz=34&hl=en&start=6&sig2=yJ4vvvfb8vBtvFweUR_zgw&usg=__qbA2R5JXJC8pOQ1_J4S0NToP2aA=&tbnid=iGLNDJ82EsTJnM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=95&ei=vsTfSJuZA6qkpASr79HhDQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbabar%2Belephant%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26newwindow%3D1%26sa%3DG">Russell Rare Prints.</a>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-27474146103683060392008-09-28T10:20:00.000-07:002008-09-28T10:38:30.755-07:00The Time Eater indeed<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SN--x1quNmI/AAAAAAAAAIU/jB2rEPxc6QI/s1600-h/CorpusChristiClock_TimeEater_HK-IB_imes.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SN--x1quNmI/AAAAAAAAAIU/jB2rEPxc6QI/s200/CorpusChristiClock_TimeEater_HK-IB_imes.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5251125453966423650" border="0" /></a><br />Tomorrow is the first day of classes, and I'm excited to be back with my students - WR 222 - Argument as Public Discourse. Lots to talk about this election season. But up til now, with orienting the new graduate teaching assistants, my time has been eaten up. <br /><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">T</span></span>hus, I was fascinated to read about a <a href="http://hk.ibtimes.com/articles/20080920/cambridge-clock.htm">new clock at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge, England, called, aptly "The Time Eater."</a> The grasshopper on top of the clock's "dial"well portrays the way time seems to disappear. According to the article, <span style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);">"The masterpiece, introduced by famed cosmologist Stephen Hawking, challenges all preconceptions about telling time. It has no hands or digital numbers and it is specially designed to run in erratic fashion, slowing down and speeding up from time to time."</span><br /><br />That is so true. This morning, for example, I thought I would get early to my desk to take care of projects,reports on my conference in Denver, planning for the TA practicum on Tuesday, etc. And now, it's 10:30, and very little progress. Maybe I should refer to my dial-up internet service as a Time Eater too. I guess I am just being stubborn and stingy (my Scottish inheritance?) to not fork out for faster internet service, but usually I do all my internet at work.<br /><br />I have always been interested in clocks and often prefer an analog for the wall - so I can see how close we are to the next thing, but a digital for my wrist watch.<br /><br />Digression --do you know how hard it is to find a petite digital watch - my old Timex keeps on ticking - do digitals tick? - but I fear that when it's time is done, I will have a hard time finding a replacement - most digitals are big honking sports watches for people with big wrists. It's not that I'm vain but my wrists are small.<br /><br />My brother has always collected clocks and watches, and has a great many very interesting ones. I grew up in a house with a tall grandfather type clock, the chime turned off. It had been a gift to my grandfather (so it really was grandfather's clock) from his students at U Chicago. Now owned by my nephew who has a house with tall enough ceilings to accommodate it. <br /><br />You might like the book <span style="font-style: italic;">Latitude</span> about John Harrison who in 1725 invented the first clock that could tell time at sea. Without a pendulum, it relied on a grasshopper escapement. In fact the clock was invented by John Taylor "as a tribute to Harrison"<br /><br />With this clock, sailors could compare the sun time of their current position with Greenwich Mean Time, as recorded on the clock, they could know where they were East-West, which is why before this early maps show America as very narrow, because there was no accurate estimate. Which is also why latitude is measured as/shown as hours and minutes. Very interesting to imagine how we try to make linear and logical sense of "time."<br /><br />Photo, with Stephen Hawking, from same article.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-92074063788289631362008-09-05T09:27:00.001-07:002008-09-05T10:00:18.690-07:00Copy of my article, finally<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SMFd9TkXauI/AAAAAAAAAGM/-DHqRq18lSc/s1600-h/whistler-Girl_in_White.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_V6LISaTWBeY/SMFd9TkXauI/AAAAAAAAAGM/-DHqRq18lSc/s200/whistler-Girl_in_White.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242574749042174690" border="0" /></a><br />I'm very happy to have at last a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">College and Undergraduate Libraries, </span>vol 15, 1-2, summer 2008, (with this wonderful cover of Whistler's painting!) and the article on Information Literacy that <a href="http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/staff/deiteringa/">Anne-Marie Deitering</a> (and <a href="http://olympus_mons.typepad.com/infofetishist/2008/01/moving.html">here</a>) and I wrote (p.57-79) <a href="http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/handle/1957/7926">"Step by step through the scholarly conversation : a collaborative library/writing faculty project to embed information literacy and promote critical thinking in first year composition at Oregon State University" </a>.<br />And what's great is to find the other articles in the journal, all on a similar theme of IL in FYC. Great reading for the weekend.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">Whistler painting from <a href="http://jerryandmartha.com/yourdailyart/2006_10_01_archive.html">Your Daily Art, October 11, 2006</a></span>Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31423385.post-73896373915917659882008-08-28T10:13:00.000-07:002008-08-28T10:28:56.757-07:00Greek Rhetoric does Matter, even if Cahill omits it.Having enjoyed Thomas Cahill's <span style="font-style: italic;">How the Irish Saved Civilization, </span>I eagerly bought his <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/sailing_excerpt.html">Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter</a>, </span>when I saw it on remainder. It is part of Cahill's series <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/home.html">"The Hinges of History."</a> <a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/features/cahill/bio.html">Cahill's web page</a> describes the book as showing<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(153, 0, 0);">"the birth of a new cultural outlook that permeates the West to this day"<br />and "a magnificent new perspective on the evolution of the Western world. "<br /></blockquote>I am nearly finished reading, and on the whole, I have enjoyed it and learned. <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E07EFDB1430F93AA35752C1A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2">Joy Connolly's review</a> from the New York Times, November, 2003, is generally favorable and in depth, whereas <a href="http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/greeceancientgreece/gr/winedarksea.htm">an anonymous citizen reviewer</a> is a bit more critical (and less in depth). Perhaps my favorite parts are the first two chapters, on fighting in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Illiad</span> and homecoming in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Odyssey</span>. The book is divided into chapters about what western culture has learned from the Greeks, such as "how to fight" and "how to think." <br /><br />I was surprised not to find "rhetoric" in the index, but I figured that the chapter on philosphy and Aristotle would surely mention rhetoric among the cognitive advances made by the Greeks. However, rhetoric is not there - neither with philosophy nor with politics and how to rule. It's an astonishing oversight on Cahill's part. I would love to ask him about his decision to omit rhetoric. In my opinion - OK biased - the ability to persuade (which is what rhetoric is) is fundamental to western culture and an understanding of psychology and philosophy (what counts as evidence, what does the audience value, how do we know what we know). And if you are going to discuss Aristotle's contribution to taxonomies, then his categorizing of appeals and topoi would be logical to mention.Sara Jamesonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07372941211487136063noreply@blogger.com0