this is how she fight start

Monday, 18 November 2013

The Shadowed Sun

N. K. Jemisin, 2012
(November 2013)

The second book in the Dreamblood duology, and I think it might be better than the first.

This is where we got to last time. The key thing to remember is that we’re trying to place as few constraints on the students as possible. Everything we give them ourselves is something they don’t have to work out for themselves and real communication can't be atomised like that. There is no such thing as ‘context-free’; if it looks like something really doesn’t have context, than you just need to work harder at finding it.

Conversation Contest 2

Part Two - Planning Considerations

So finally we come to the meat of it. Once more, this is tailored to my specific situation; your mileage will definitely vary, and that is as it should be.

Conversation Contest

Wherein I riff gratefully and unashamedly on Chris’ outstanding concept of a Conversation Contest. This is the first iteration. It will not be perfect and there will be flaws, but given the source of the idea going through the process out loud and in public seems like the right thing to do; it might be useful, or at least interesting (or at least amusing), for people to see exactly what kind of considerations can go into a lesson before its actual execution. Putting my money where my mouth is, that kind of thing...

Because money talks etc etc and other cliches.

How The Dead Dream

Lydia Millet, 2008

(November 2013)

Obviously metaphorical, and satirical bordering on the polemical. Also quite strange.

Very Short Introductions

Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction

Catherine Belsey, 2002

Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction

Christopher Butler, 2002

(November 2013)

Derrida, Barthes, Foucault, oh my!

Desperate Measures

So I joined twitter. I was going to write a blog post about joining twitter, but then I remembered that I still have some pride. Not much, admittedly, but I’m better than that. So this isn’t about twitter; it’s about choices.

The Fifty Year Sword

Mark Z. Danielewski, 2012

(October 2013)

Did you ever read

The House of Leaves?

A story strange,

of drunks and thieves.

Verbal Hygiene

Deborah Cameron, 2012 [1995]

(October 2013)

…grammar drills present pupils with an apparently trivial and pointless task which must nevertheless be performed precisely on command. The point is not to teach the task in and for itself, but to teach discipline – obedience and punctiliousness – in all tasks.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…