Sunday, April 13, 2003
Another beautiful morning on the farm. It's cool but supposed to get to a whopping 85 today. I've already walked Shadow in the early morning "mist" and "surveyed" the land. A great way to get myself moving. Also going to get my swim in earlier this morning. I think the day will slip away before I know it. I did get the main windows washed on the outside yesterday. Today I will run the vacuum upstairs and downstairs and work on the kitchen floor. It will be great not to spend time on the phone with Starband today. . .
Am thinking more about the reading assignments for the summer social history course. I think I'm leaning away from Updike's Rabbit series - some will really like it, but others may totally not...........and if they're taking all three segments (50s/60s/70s), I'll really lose them. Besides, I'm really attracted to The Paper Chase as the 70s novel - sort of a pre-Grisham and Turow view of the legal profession - or at least entering it.
I finished Wineburg's book and although it had some excellent food for thought, some of it still strikes me as the typical education paradigm - I'll take this one special select group and make this approach work. It's assuming a lot of givens - the same ones they associate with the students - that they actually know the content being covered or at least have a background in it in the first place. It will still be a good reference as I try to do some research on this and hopefully present/write some papers (since part of this blog is supposed to provide some of the raw material for this sort of thing - I am finally realizing that other professors are writing articles having done much less to actually report on themselves). See - another tangent.
So, I'm going to review the bestsellers lists and go from there. Maybe still use one of the Rabbit books. Having students read Peyton Place in one of my Modern America courses really works but I hope to have some of the same folks and don't want to "redo" for them.
This week will go fast, too. I did get good news on my taxes yesterday - 1) they're ready even though I was late and 2) I get money back. Although I generally think it's stupid to let the government keep your money, since the stock market crash (the most recent one), this was the better scenario. I will go adjust my withholding tomorrow however. In early May, I go to see my favorite cousin and his family while they're still in Rome - we hope to get in a cooking class. Time to get the swim in.
Am thinking more about the reading assignments for the summer social history course. I think I'm leaning away from Updike's Rabbit series - some will really like it, but others may totally not...........and if they're taking all three segments (50s/60s/70s), I'll really lose them. Besides, I'm really attracted to The Paper Chase as the 70s novel - sort of a pre-Grisham and Turow view of the legal profession - or at least entering it.
I finished Wineburg's book and although it had some excellent food for thought, some of it still strikes me as the typical education paradigm - I'll take this one special select group and make this approach work. It's assuming a lot of givens - the same ones they associate with the students - that they actually know the content being covered or at least have a background in it in the first place. It will still be a good reference as I try to do some research on this and hopefully present/write some papers (since part of this blog is supposed to provide some of the raw material for this sort of thing - I am finally realizing that other professors are writing articles having done much less to actually report on themselves). See - another tangent.
So, I'm going to review the bestsellers lists and go from there. Maybe still use one of the Rabbit books. Having students read Peyton Place in one of my Modern America courses really works but I hope to have some of the same folks and don't want to "redo" for them.
This week will go fast, too. I did get good news on my taxes yesterday - 1) they're ready even though I was late and 2) I get money back. Although I generally think it's stupid to let the government keep your money, since the stock market crash (the most recent one), this was the better scenario. I will go adjust my withholding tomorrow however. In early May, I go to see my favorite cousin and his family while they're still in Rome - we hope to get in a cooking class. Time to get the swim in.
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