Get Your Ghoul On!

Happy Halloween, everyone! 

Since no real celebration of this frighteningly fun holiday is complete without tales of terror, I thought I'd compile a list of some of my favorite classic stories and films. These are great any time of year but are ideal right now--especially to to share with others or to simply shock yourself... Have fun getting your ghoul on!

Classic Stories:

1. Dracula by Bram Stoker

2. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

3. "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allen Poe (actually, anything by Edgar Allen Poe)

4. "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

5. "The Specter Bridegroom" by Washington Irving

Classic Films:

1. The Exorcist

2. Rosemary's Baby

3. The Pit and the Pendulum

4. The Shining

5. Interview with a Vampire

Classic TV:

1. Night Gallery

2. The Twilight Zone

3. The Outer Limits

4. The X Files

5.  Dark Shadows

 What are your favorites? Share them with us...

Critical Thinking + The X Factor: The Real Tao of Steve

The passing of Steve Jobs last week impacted me in more ways than I imagined. I think that we’ve all come to expect his innovation and gadgetry and take for granted the many tools he’s provided that have become essential to our daily lives. But reading the columns from his friends and admirers, and watching his 2005 Stanford commencement speech, I realized how much of a maverick and revolutionary he was, and how much of a nonconformist! In his own words (paraphrasing Robert Frost), he took the road less traveled by and that made all the difference.

Why this hits me so hard is that Jobs was not only a critical thinker on the deepest of levels but he believed firmly in pushing boundaries and turning commonly held beliefs on their ear. He literally thought outside the box and created computers that reflected that aesthetic. He was always thinking “what if?” and then working with his dynamic team to make it possible. He wasn’t afraid to fail, or to be well-ahead of the curve, and because of that he fell on his face more than a few times. But he succeeded far more than he failed, and, as he said himself, his failures or seeming mis-steps were key to his future triumphs.

The lessons from Steve Jobs’ life are those that we should be teaching our students today. We should be teaching them to be creative, to push the boundaries, and to think outside the box. We should be emphasizing critical thinking above all else and teaching students to follow their instincts. While I’m all for logic and reason, there is something that we’re losing when we emphasize those to the detriment of that unnamed factor that separates “genius” from “average.” All the logic and reason in the world would not lead to the invention of something like the iPhone or iPod. That took something else; and thank goodness Steve Jobs listened to it (as he put it, ‘your gut, heart, karma, destiny, or whatever you want to call it’).

In our small way, we are trying to do that with Gleeditions. We are pushing the boundaries of what’s possible with digital texts, and we are promoting critical thinking skills by always returning students’ focus to the text itself so that students can deeply consider what is being said and why, and then apply that to the bigger picture. While we don’t claim to be in the same realm as Steve Jobs, we are proud to be on the same wavelength.

So, here’s to Steve Jobs and his amazing life and legacy. And here’s to all of the educators out there striving to provide more for their students to think about than rote memorization. And, finally, here’s to the hope that we become a nation of critical thinkers who will follow our hearts, rewrite current rules, and create the next wave of incredible literature and inventions.

Celebrate Free Speech; Read a Banned Book!

So, here we are, smack dab in the middle of the 30^th annual Banned Books Week, and that makes me wanna shout: “Long live free speech! Hail the enduring power of the pen!”

Well, actually, today it may not be the power of the pen exactly, but it is the power of words and ideas that we celebrate during Banned Books Week. We celebrate the writers who have had the courage to challenge the status quo and offer fresh perspectives for all to consider. We celebrate their innovation, creativity, and fearlessness. We also celebrate those who stood up for these writers, living and dead, and continue to champion the cause of a vibrant, uncensored society in which all are free to express themselves, and all are free to make their own decisions.

As I look over the banned books list, I am always amazed by what’s on it. You have everything from A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen to Ulysses by James Joyce—works that, today, one might think are completely innocuous. However, many books and authors are still being “challenged” today and, in some cases, banned for many of the same reasons Adventures of Huckleberry Finn once was. That is why it is so important to stay vigilant in our support of freedom of expression and the press, and to strongly support the budding crop of writers who are picking up the torch of their fierce predecessors and pushing new boundaries.

Huck and Jim on the
Mississippi River

Begun in 1982 by librarian and director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom Judith Krug, Banned Books Week was designed to not only promote free speech but to encourage everyone to read previously banned and challenged books. In that spirit, Gleeditions is proud to offer many of these progressive works, including

§        A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

§        Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (original, first edition) by Mark Twain

§        “Candide” by F. M. A. de Voltaire

§        The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

§        Tartuffe by Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière

Now, doesn't this make you want to pick up or download a banned book today and share it with your friends, kids, students, or even a stranger at Starbucks? Celebrate the courage and conviction of these incredible authors, and continue to promote and defend freedom of speech in America, and everywhere!

The Power of the Pen: Remembering Female Authors Who Freed Us All

The power of the pen never ceases to amaze me. It can liberate those who are even bound by physical means, and its force and impact can reach across time and space.

I am reminded of this today because 339 years ago, Anne Bradstreet, the first published colonial poet, left this world. Though she had already published a book of poetry in England, it was her work in the 'New World' that reflected her pioneering spirit and readiness to challenge the status quo--especially that of women in this newly-forming American society.  She writes

I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, Who sayes, my hand a needle better fits, A Poets Pen, all scorne, I should thus wrong; For such despighte they cast on female wits: If what i doe prove well, it wo'nt advance, They'l say its stolen, or else, it was by chance. 

She also adds, "Let Greeks be Greeks, and women what they are."

Bradstreet may have been understated, but her message is clear. And it had an impact that extended to the next poet to be published during the colonial era, Phillis Wheatley.

A century after Bradstreet, Wheatley became not only the second published poet but the first African American published author--all while remaining enslaved.

Wheatley was taken to America from Gambia, West Africa when she was seven, and sold into slavery.  She not only mastered English by age 14 (she published her first poem at that age), but shortly thereafter educated herself in Latin and the Classics and produced a widely-lauded translation of the niobe episode from Book VI of Ovid's Metamorphoses. In 1772, her first volume of poetry was published in London, where she went 'on tour' and received accolades from such luminaries as Benjamin Franklin and Voltaire. After achieving international acclaim, Wheatley writes, her owner, John Wheatley, finally saw fit to "give me my freedom.” Therefore, Phillis Wheatley was the first African American to free herself by means of her own writing ability.

Tragically, due to myriad factors, including racial discrimination, Wheatley died forgotten and impoverished in 1884 from complications after child birth.

Despite her tragic ending, as widely noted by scholars throughout the world, Phillis Wheatley represents a number of firsts in American culture. She is the first published African American author and also the first woman who published her work largely through the efforts of a community of women: her mistress, Susanna, seems always to have encouraged her to write, and her daughter, Mary, may have served as the poet's first tutor; Obour Tanner, her black soulmate, evidently gave Wheatley encouragement and spiritual counsel, but it was probably through the efforts of Selina Hastings, the Countess of Huntingdon, that she saw one of her volumes come into print. Wheatley also enjoys the distinction of being America's first woman writer who tried to make a living by the use of her pen, and she is certainly one of America's first authors, whether man or woman, to do so. In addition, Wheatley is one of America's first writers to cultivate for publication the epistolary style. According to Henry Louis Gates Jr.,  she is “the progenitor of the black literary tradition.”

So, today, and every day, we salute these remarkable women and the power of the pen, for it freed them both and continues to offer light and inspiration to us all.

Become a Contributor!

Hello everyone!

The Guardian's first book award goes to Down the Rabbit Hole, a Vancouver B.C. theatre company stages an innovative production of Merchant of Venice, and we uncover the link between Nasa and novelists--all of these scintillating snippets are featured in the new edition of our September Literary News.

In addition, we have an updated listing of university and local theatre productions throughout the country and English-speaking world, as well as details on an exciting poetry contest hosted by Ohio State University Press and open to all!

We encourage all English teachers, students, librarians, publicists, and bookworms to contribute to our news page (Much Ado About Some Things) and to share with us your news and events. Please contact me with any announcements or article ideas for our next edition (October 2011). Cheers!

No Funds? Get Creative!

With all of the funding cuts to education we have to ask ourselves how we can maximize student learning outcomes with the limited resources available. Increasingly, I think that means we turn to digital texts and material and try to utilize them to their fullest potential, thus actually adding value for our students.

This year I am taking that idea to a new level in my classes—and especially in my composition and critical thinking course. I am not just using Moodle as an interactive platform, but will be creating a student-content-based online blog/newspaper. The idea is to show students how writing is a real world activity, how it impacts society, and how all of us can learn to express ourselves clearly and forcefully in order to make the changes we want to see in the world.

While I will be using some traditional books, I am also planning to use free online texts from the Gleeditions Common Core selection. Because they are scholarly editions, nicely formatted, searchable, and free, I can assign a variety of short stories, essays, speeches, poetry, and drama that I have either already planned to use or that, because of the way the course develops naturally, suddenly fit into the content and our discussions. By going digital in this way I can be extremely flexible while saving students money on textbooks. A win-win!

These are challenging times for educators and students alike but we need turn this dilemma into an opportunity to think outside the box and get creative. We have this amazing tool, the Internet, at our disposal and we can utilize it in so many dynamic ways. We now have the potential to not only “go with the flow” of our classes and add reading or supplemental material as the tide shifts, but also to engage students in a setting they are already extremely comfortable in.

I hope that traditional books never disappear, and I hope that education will one day—very soon—get the full funding it deserves. But because of the outrageous cost of textbooks and the uncertainty about funding at present, I am gladly plunging into cyber space head first. I am excited about the possibilities and would love to hear how others are tapping into this tremendous potential.

Please share your ideas here and help all of us turn those blank checks into real money for our students!

Bond Inspired the Booker--Who Knew?!

With the 2011 long list just announced, I wanted to discover what or who inspired the Man Booker Prize. And this is what I found--who knew?!

The Booker Prize can trace its origin, through quirks of history and the imaginativeness of one individual, to James Bond and the attainment of political freedom in Guyana.

The imaginative individual was a Scotsman called Jock Campbell (later Lord Campbell of Eskan) who in 1945 became Managing Director of the Booker company, which then had most of its business in Guyana. A man of enormous energy, intelligence and human understanding, Campbell was deeply conscious of the wrongs and hurts of slavery and the complex relationships of the African and East Indian populations in Guyana.

Jock Campbell, who was an active supporter of independence movements, soon transformed Booker from a typical colonial business into a thriving enterprise esteemed by employees, shareholders and customers. At the same time, realising that an expatriate-owned business producing around 35% of Guyana’s gross domestic product had a limited future, Campbell turned his attention to the UK, where he extended Booker’s business into rum marketing, food distribution, engineering, shipping and other activities.

One day, Jock learned that Ian Fleming, an old friend and golfing partner, had been given not much more than a year to live. Over a drink at the ‘nineteenth hole’, Fleming sought Campbell’s advice about securing his estate for his family by selling his interest in the James Bond novels.
Income tax at that time, at Fleming’s level of income, was almost equivalent to confiscation. Jock recommended a merchant bank, but in his bath next morning thought to himself: ‘Wait a moment. I know a knowledgeable tax accountant and a tax lawyer. Couldn’t Booker make something of this?’ The consequent deal was to the substantial advantage of both Ian Fleming and Booker plc and to the substantial disadvantage of The Exchequer.

This was the beginning of Booker’s ‘Authors’ Division’ which, taking advantage of a loophole in the UK Finance Act, soon added to its portfolio the copyrights of a galaxy of writers, including Agatha Christie, Dennis Wheatley, Georgette Heyer, Robert Bolt and Harold Pinter.

As Tom Maschler relates elsewhere, The Booker Prize took its inspiration from France’s Prix Goncourt. Seventeen years later, Le Figaro referred to the Goncourt as the ‘French Booker’. The wheel had turned full circle. Admittedly, our motives were somewhat different from those of the Prix Goncourt. Jock Campbell had gathered around him a number of young executives who combined their business ambitions with intellectual interest. Jock himself had read widely and voraciously. As a young man, his prowess in solving Torquemada’s crossword puzzles in The Observer led to his being asked by Torquemada’s widow to edit a book of his 112 best puzzles. But the main reasoning was commercial. The investments in the Author’s Division were making very high returns. Also, the further publicity might contribute to publicising Booker’s growing investments in the UK as they withdrew from the developing world.

From: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1014