Group items tagged

AwesomeStories is a gathering place of primary-source information. Its purpose - since the site was first launched in 1999 - is to help educators and individuals find original sources, located at national archives, libraries, universities, museums, historical societies and government-created web sites. Sources held in archives, which document so much important first-hand information, are often not searchable by popular search engines. One needs to search within those institutional sites directly, using specific search phrases not readily discernible to non-scholars. The experience can be frustrating, resulting in researchers leaving key sites without finding needed information. AwesomeStories is about primary sources. The stories exist as a way to place original materials in context and to hold those links together in an interesting, cohesive way (thereby encouraging people to look at them). It is a totally different kind of web site in that its purpose is to place primary sources at the forefront - not the opinions of a writer. Its objective is to take the site's users to places where those primary sources are located. The author of each story is listed on the preface page of the story. A link to the author provides more detailed information. This educational teaching/learning tool is also designed to support state and national standards. Each story on the site links to online primary-source materials which are positioned in context to enhance reading comprehension, understanding and enjoyment.

Jane Austen's fiction manuscripts are the first significant body of holograph evidence surviving for any British novelist. They represent every stage of her writing career and a variety of physical states: working drafts, fair copies, and handwritten publications for private circulation. Digitization enables their virtual reunification and will provides scholars with the first opportunity to make simultaneous ocular comparison of their different physical and conceptual states; it will facilitate intimate and systematic study of Austen's working practices across her career, a remarkably neglected area of scholarship within the huge, world-wide Austen critical industry. Many of the Austen manuscripts are frail; open and sustained access has long been impossible for conservation and location reasons. Digitization at this stage in their lives not only offers the opportunity for the virtual reunification of a key manuscript resource, it will also be accompanied by a record in as complete a form as possible of the conservation history and current material state of these manuscripts to assist their future conservation.

A spreadsheet with many first day activities from teachers at all grade levels. Also has websites and twitter names for contacts.

"Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language brings together historical and contemporary works of art that treat language not merely as a system of communication governed by grammatical rules and assigned meanings, but as a material that can be manipulated with creative freedom, like paint, clay, or any other artistic medium. The exhibition is divided into two sections. The first is a historical overview of 20th-century art that experiments with the graphic, sonic, and kinetic possibilities of letters and words. With a few notable exceptions, these works are confined to the two-dimensional parameters of a page. The second section presents an installation of contemporary works, most of which do away with the page; some do away with writing altogether. The artist and poet Emmett Williams observed that "the poem as picture is as old as the hills," citing its beginnings in hieroglyphics,"

The Morgan Library & Museum is pleased to present the only surviving manuscript of Paradise Lost, Book 1. This epic poem is considered Milton's greatest artistic achievement and one of the finest works of the human imagination. Acquired by Pierpont Morgan in 1904, it is the most important British literary manuscript in the collection. The 33-page manuscript has been temporarily disbound, providing an opportunity to see more of its pages than ever before. Also in this presentation are first editions of Paradise Lost printed in England and the United States during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and a rarely seen miniature portrait of the poet.

This digital facsimile presents every page of a small, delicate maquette that Jean de Brunhoff created in 1930 or 1931 as he drafted the first book in the Babar series. The maquette, an extraordinary handmade booklet complete with cover and endpapers, text and illustrations, is the prototype for Histoire de Babar, le petit éléphant.

A classic painting from English Romantic artist that has been used for many book covers. Most recently encountered on cover and as guiding metaphor in Gaddis's "The Landscape of History" (very interesting book). Plan to use this first day of class to generate discussion in AP Lit about painting, literature, art, and their lives.

more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.

Brilliant essay.

NPR documentary on the first battle in the war over textbooks--70s style. Texas is implementing round two in 2010, and we have not even attempted to deal with the advent of eBooks yet!

Just another person's opinion on the future of reading and the future of books, but I found it interesting!

This is a great book for any writing teacher. I bought my copy in 86 when it first came out. Here it is on Google books. Support Natalie Goldberg's work. Buy a copy!

I'm all for using pop culture references in teaching, and I did read what Shmoop had to say on this particular video, but would you really feel comfortable sharing this video in class and having a discourse on it? I'm a Jay-Z fan and a hip hop lover from its earliest days, but this video and song are reprehensible on so many levels. With so much else that we can "source" for instruction, why this? Please help me understand. And don't say it's a gangsta thang.

To answer your first question about showing the music video: absolutely not. Why this? I'm still struggling with it. We're in an age where we are entertained by self destruction. Kanye (unfortunately, because I was a fan of his earlier work) is definitely becoming one of the monster / Charlie Sheen / Jersey Shore / reality TV burnouts. And yet, there is an audience for it... When I first skimmed the analysis, I thought I'd go back to see if Schmoop was established enough to have a worthy application of Freud to Kanye. Alas, I was mistaken. I haven't become a fan of Schmoop; they've got some work to do. I'm sorry I misplaced my "under investigation" tag in ECN's collection.

Looks like a fun way to spark journal writing.  Fit's Natalie Goldberg's great advice about first draft writing: Just keep your hand moving!

Automatic citation creator. Paste in the website, prompts for the authors first & last name, then creates a pasteable citation for you.

Robbing the Bard: The story of how a stolen Shakespeare First Folio appeared in the Folger Shakespeare Library. Narrated by David Tennant.