Group items tagged

Another find from Doug Belshaw is this absolutely fascinating Book of Life. It's organized into Capitalism, Work, Relationships, and Self, each one with a number of subtopics. I did not have nearly enough time to read it all, but I sampled quite a number of the topics (especially 'Capitalism') to get a sense that this is worth reading, even if you don't agree with everything it it. And I really like the approach: "The Book of Life is being written by many people over a long time; it keeps changing and evolving. It is filled with images and films as well as texts. By floating online, it can grow a bit every day or so, as new things come along and it can be equally accessible all around the world, at any time, for free."

" Tuesday, 4 August 2015 "There are three things in this post. The first is a link to Jay Cross's new book: "The book offers insight into learning, and more specifically increasing learning efficiency to a point of a long-lasting AHA-moment, hence the title: "AHA! 75 ways to work smarter". The second is the concept of 'plog' - "writing daily. Short passages (15 min is enough), reflecting on your day, but on a daily basis (something my mom has been doing for over 20 years or more, talking about a role model!). A proven action to increase your mental health, while also adding to your focus, patience, planning and personal growth (research by Teresa Amabile , nice name). Jay calls it: writing a Plog." I've been doing it for years, but I can't guarantee the claims about mental health. And finally, the grit score. I still question the concept of grit. But my grit score, for the record, was 4.63, which makes me pretty gritty - some would say abrasive. --OLDaily

Book cover designs for movies -- clever design project

""It's interesting that all the folks that are buying it don't know they are reading a children's book," said Flannery O'Connor, who had no patience for moral simplification."

Against close reading Alex Reid, Digital Digs, 2015/04/15 Icon There are some really good observations in this post. The practise of 'close reading' as it is widely taught involves "the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text." A common criticism of social media and online reading is that students "find nuance, complexity, or just plain length of literary texts less to their liking than we did." I don't think they ever found it to their liking, but let's assume they do. Alex Reid asks, "What does it mean to read your Facebook status feed closely when what is being offered to you has been produced by algorithmic procedures that take account of your own activities in ways that you are not consciously aware?" It's not so much that close reading is irrelevant, but rather, that close reading has changed, and while students may be aware of the new nuances, the same is not clear of instructors still embedded in critical theory (and still bent with noses in books). As Reid says, "we should pay closer attention to the ways in which the operation of text is shifting." Image: Sheron Brown, found here.

"I'd rather be a big letter in a small book"

Explanation of which books are on our Printz Reading Lists

"In his book Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close To What Is Sacred, Nepo, a poet and philosopher, describes listening as "the doorway to everything that matters. It enlivens the heart the way breathing enlivens the lungs. We listen to awaken our heart. We do this to stay vital and alive." Listening is how we relate to others and ourselves. It's the building block to meaningful, sincere relationships, and the building block to a meaningful, sincere life."

The real Atticus? Harper Lee's prequel to TKAM