Should scientists study art and literature?

Should scientists study art and literature?

According to Chad Orzell, the answer is a resounding “yes!”

Orzell is an associate professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Union College, a small liberal arts institution in Schenectady, New York. He holds an undergraduate degree in physics and a Ph.D. in chemical physics. In addition to teaching science, he also writes about physics and science as a contributor to Forbes.

He penned an article titled “Why Scientists Should Study Art and Literature,” which was posted to Forbes’ website October 28. Orzel notes that many scholars of “the humanities” – a term he hates – have written extensively on the benefits of a well-rounded education. The problem, he says, isn’t that he disagrees with them. It’s just that he doesn’t like the way the frame their arguments.

Orzell writes:

So, what follows is an attempt by someone who is a scientist by training and inclination to give a reasonably specific and concrete argument for why even people who plan to pursue careers in the STEM fields ought to study “the humanities.” I’m trying to emphasize practical benefits here– not the crass 'employers want ‘soft skills’ so taking English will help you get a job” sort, but “this is how these subjects will help you be a better scientist or engineer”– because that’s what I usually find missing from these articles, and I suspect the same is true for many other people of a scientific bent.

It’s an excellent article. Read it here.

Happy Halloween: A nod to Poe

Halloween is upon us. With that in mind, here's a scary thought: Edgar Allan Poe.

Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. He is best known for his poetry and short stories. If you know anything about Poe, you know that his poetry and short stories could be ... well, a little on the creepy side.

In my mind, and in the spirit of frights for Halloween, the scariest thing about Poe is that he was also a literary critic. Now that's scary. Imagine being a writer in that time period and learning that Poe had written a review of your work. In all seriousness, Poe did have a reputation as being a rather harsh literary critic.

His work, scary and creepy as it is often perceived, is no laughing matter. Poe’s contribution to literature in the United States and around the world cannot be overstated. Each year to this day, for example, the Mystery Writers of America give out an annual award (known as the Edgar Award) for distinguished work in mystery writing.

Poe is also regarded as one of the first American writers to attempt to make a living off of writing alone.

His death, like much of his work, is something of a mystery. Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore on October 3, 1849. According to Joseph W. Walker, the man who found him, Poe was discovered “in great distress, and in need of immediate assistance.” Poe died four days later at Washington Medical College, having never recovered enough to explain how he came to be in such a condition. At the time of his death, he was wearing clothes that did not belong to him. The night before he died, Poe reportedly called out the name “Reynolds” throughout the night, but never explained who “Reynolds” was. “Reynolds,” as well as Poe’s exact cause of death, remain a mystery.

When was the ellipsis first used?

I ran across an interesting article from The Guardian and wanted to share it with everyone. The story was posted on the The Guardian’s website under the headline “Unfinished story … how the ellipsis arrived in English literature. According to the story, Dr. Anne Toner “believes she has identified the earliest use of the ellipsis in English drama, pinning it down to a 1588 edition of the Roman dramatist Terence’s play, Andria, which had been translated into English by Maurice Kyffin and printed by Thomas East, and in which hyphens, rather than dots, mark incomplete utterances by the play’s characters.”

The article goes on to list what The Guardian considers to be the “six best ellipsis in literature. The six best, according to the Guardian are from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by TS Elliot, “The Great Gatsby” by F Scott Fitzgerald, “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, “Letters from Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, and a diary entry in which Virginia Woolf images death by a bomb. (The article contains the exact outtakes lauded for their usage of ellipsis.)

Read the full article here.

Happy birthday: Helen Maria Hunt Jackson

A very special “happy birthday” is in order this week to Helen Maria Hunt Jackson. She born as Helen Fiske on October 15, 1830.

She was an American poet and writer. She became an activist for improved treatment of Native Americans, who were mistreated at the hands of the U.S. government. She detailed this mistreatment in “A Century of Dishonor,” which was published in 1881. Three years later, in 1884, she published “Ramona,” a novel which dramatized the mistreatment suffered by Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican-American War. The novel was a commercial success and helped attract attention to her cause.

Though she died on August 12, 1885, the works of Helen Maria Hunt Jackson live on through her books and poetry. Happy birthday, indeed!

Non-fiction writer wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian author, received the 2015 Nobel Prize for Literature on Oct. 8, becoming the 14^th woman to win a prize that has been awarded 107 times. Alexievich received it “for her polyphonic writin
gs, a monument to suffering and courage in our time,” according to Nobel Prize’s official website.

According to an in-depth feature by Ron Charles of washingtonpost.com, “The Nobel committee rarely chooses nonfiction writers for the literature prize. Alexievich, 67, is the author of, among other books, ‘Voices From Chernobyl,’ about survivors of the nuclear plant disaster in Ukraine in 1986. She has also been a forceful critic of Russian military action and of President Vladimir Putin.”

Awarding the prize to Alexievich “is a bold decision,” according to the headline from The Independent. It was also a “brilliant choice that recalibrates the status of ‘non-fiction’ in the literary canon,” Arifa Akbar writes in the op-ed.

Alexievich was born May 31, 1948 in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

The Los Angeles Times has seven reasons why the prize went to a Belarusian you don’t know. The last American to win the award was Toni Morrison in 1993. No. 1 on the Times list? “American literature is ‘too isolated, too insular.” Carolyn Kelley, writing for the Times, explains: “In 2008, then-Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy Horace Engdahl made headlines when he declared American literary culture "too isolated, too insular. They don't translate enough and don't really participate in the big dialogue of literature." That year, the award went to French novelist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, a writer with virtually no public profile in the United States.” 

The Nobel Prize for Literature was first awarded in 1901. Winners from the last 10 years include Patrick Modiano of France (2014), Alice Munro of Canada (2013), Mo Yan of China (2012), Thomas Transtromer of Sweden (2011), Mario Vargas Liosa of Peru/Spain (2010), Romanian-born Herta Muller of Germany (2009), J.M.G Le Clezio of France/Mauritius (2008), Persian-born Doris Lessing of the United Kingdom (2007), Orhan Pamuk of Turkey (2006), and Harold Pinter of the United Kingdom (2005).

Media matters: Milan Mirror-Exchange makes 'historic acquisition'

The Milan (Tenn.) Mirror-Exchange made what it calls a “historic acquisition” with the recent purchase of the Humboldt Chronicle and Tri-City Reporter in Dyer. The Mirror-Exchange announced the deal in this week’s print edition (Tuesday, Oct. 6). According to the report, the purchase was finalized Oct. 2 when Mirror-Exchange owners Scott Elliott and Victor Parkins bought the Humboldt and Dyer papers from Wisconsin-based American Hometown Publishing.

The Milan Mirror-Exchange newspaper announced a "historic acquisition" of the Humboldt Chronicle and Tri-City Reporter in Dyer. All three newspapers are located in Gibson County, Tennessee. Community newspapers in all counties play a vital role in communicating news about our school systems, highlighting our students' accomplishments, and relaying timely and pertinent information to parents and our communities.

The Mirror-Exchange now owns three of Gibson County’s four weekly community newspapers.

“We believe strongly in newspapers and the power of the printed word,” the paper quoted Parkins as saying. “Having all three newspapers under one umbrella gives us a lot of flexibility and opportunities to expand coverage across the entire county. In time, we believe our readers will see a much better value in their hometown newspapers.”

The fourth paper, the Trenton Gazette, is located in the county seat and owned by the Union City Daily Messenger in Obion County. All four of Gibson County’s community newspapers are locally owned, and that’s great news for everyone living in Gibson County. All four newspapers do a remarkable job covering their communities.

 

Media matters:

Community newspapers play a vital role in reporting education news to the communities across the nation. School boards, systems, and administrators should seek good working relationships with their local community newspapers. In addition to objective reporting on policy matters and other hard news items, our community newspapers also give us a platform to highlight our students’ accomplishments, inform parents and the community on pertinent information.

 

'Please excuse our mess ... Renovations under way!'

I often see messages like this posted outside restaurants, inside convenience stores, and other areas where construction crews are making a mess of something or another. Once they’re done, everybody smiles and says, ‘Wow, so glad they did that!” It’s a different story during construction, when crews leave a mess customers must put up with. That’s how this blog feels today, as I continue to upgrade the template for this blog. Hopefully, it will all be worth it in the end. For now, though, all I can say is: Please excuse my mess! Renovations under way.”

All previous posts made on this blog are still here. They’re not going anywhere. However, you may notice some formatting and/or coding issues for the next several days. Thanks for bearing with me.

I’d also like to thank, as well as recommend, DesignRazzi.com for the free template. A google search led me to that website, which has one particular post containing a list of more than 225 free templates to choose from. I started browsing the templates several hours ago. I found several I liked, but ultimately settled on the Sturd Template. DesignRazzi.com describes the Sturd template like this:

Sturd is a lightweight, 2 column, widget ready, SEO optimized, fast loading, easy to customize Blogger theme for blogger blogs. Sturd Blogger Template has top navigation menu, related posts, right sidebar, social and share buttons, Google fonts and more.

Sturd won my affection over several other serious contenders, including (in no particular order) Zenzero, Stock, MineZine, Flato, Flow, and F2. Honorable mention is also in order for Aquarius – I loved the sophisticated simplicity – but figured no self-respecting Gemini should pick a template named for another zodiac creature, air sign or not.

I spent a good 30 minutes pursuing 25 newspaper and magazine themed templates from another website, SpicyTricks.com. I really liked the look and overall feel of The Blogger News Times, but decided it might be a tad too complex given the nature of this blog. (Think of it as the KISS rule: Keep It Simple, Stupid!) I also wanted a template that easily loaded and displayed on mobile devices, and the Sturd seems to fit the bill.

Thanks for stopping by. And, yes, please pardon our mess, broken links, odd-sized and shaped photos, etc.

Burke: Teaching Reading

This week, in another course I am taking at UT Martin, we focused on teaching reading. The other course is focused on teaching English in middle or high school, so the “teaching reading” part is framed specifically for English teachers. However, there were many good points discussed that I believe would be relevant to all middle and high school teachers, not just English teachers.

We reviewed Chapter 5 – titled “Teaching Reading” – from “The English Teacher’s Companion” written by Jim Burke. The chapter was packed full of tried and tested techniques for teaching reading. I highly recommend reading this chapter as a supplement the course material in Reading 633. Chapter 5 of Burke’s book covers pages 136-202. On pages 163-172, Burke lists what he considers to be 10 traits of “excellent reading instruction” that is “supported by major reports focusing on middle and high schools.”

Burke provides plenty of detail for each of the 10 traits, and to you’ll need to pick up a copy of his book to read the full explanations. However, I thought it would be beneficial to list the 10 traits here.

According to Burke, the 10 traits are:

Teachers provide direct instruction throughout the reading process …

Teachers integrate instruction throughout the content of their courses.

Students read interesting or real-world texts for authentic reasons …

Students engage in regular, authentic discussions …

The teacher provides targeted, strategic instruction …

The teacher selects texts that grow progressively more complex …

Teachers have students write intensively and frequently about what they read …

Assess students before, as, and after they read a text …

Provide time in class and outside to support extensive reading ...

Use a variety of instructional strategies …

If you have a chance to get ahold of a copy of “The English Teacher’s Companion” by Jim Burke, you should. I highly recommend Chapter 5. It’s well worth the read!

Click here to visit Burke’s website.

What a week!

Banned Books Weeks is coming to end, and I can think of no better way to end the week-long celebration of freedom than by sharing the following five videos. Please take a moment to watch them. You'll be glad you did.

High school journalism

I completed a professional journal article review earlier this week. I focused my research on the impact high school journalism courses may or may not have on students involved in such courses. As part of my research, I reviewed two professional journal articles touching on this subject, and wanted to share what I found.

 

The first journal article I read was researched by Jack Dvorak and Choi Changhe. They “found statistically higher scores for students who had high school newspaper or yearbook experience compared with non-journalism students.” College freshmen with high school journalism experience also scored high grades in freshmen college English courses than non-journalism students. Students with journalism experience also scored higher on the ACT, averaging a composite score 21.58 compared to 21.4 for non-journalism students.

 

The second journal article was researched by Lee Becker, Jeong Y. Han, Donna Wilcox, and Tudor Vlad. The results of their research were nearly identical to that of Dvorak and Changhe. Becker et al. found that students involved in high school journalism are more likely to perform better as college freshmen than their non-journalism peers. According to Becker et al., “Exposure to journalism at the high school level appears to have a lasting effect on students. The findings from this analysis add to, and update, the existing research on the impact of participation in high school journalism extracurricular activities.”

 

As I mentioned in my professional journal response, these statistics are important because, in short, the print newspaper industry is in a death spiral. Print newspapers, as we all know and (used to) love them, are going away for good. However, as I argued in the my paper, high school administrators and journalism advisors simply need to adapt their ways of teaching journalism so that the focus becomes less on print newspapers (if this hasn’t been done already). The statistics over the last 30 years are pretty clear – high school journalism equals better grades in college. I suspect those statistics will still hold true 30 more years from now, when print newspapers are a thing of the past. It’s the basic journalism skills, though, that make the difference – not so much the medium.