Media and culture

Journal of Media and Culture is an interesting online journal of cultural studies, very broadly defined. Every issue has a single word as the theme. The current issue is on the theme “bad.” I was especially interested in finding this, because the theme I chose for last year’s NCTE conference was a single word, “significance.” Actually, this journal’s words are a little more provocative, with the current calls for manuscripts including the words “print,” “copy,” “scan,” and “affect.” Check it out, maybe send something in!

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Elizabeth Moje

Elizabeth Moje will speak on Monday, May 2 in in the Dean’s Lounge, SZB 238, 4:45 P.M.

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Social Bookmarking

There are two cool sites to do social bookmarking. One is del.icio.us., which Randy told me about. You can list all your links there for public browsing and you can read the related links of other people with similiar interests. Here’s my del.icio.us site If you click register you can start your own social bookmarking.

Another site related to social bookmarking is 43 things, where you can list your goals on-line. Click here to see mine for an example. You can get ideas for new goals and add those. You can even do a common goal with friends and then cheer each other on on-line.

Also, since we were reading Moje last night, people will be interested in Angela Thomas’ blog. She is an Australian scholar who writes about adolescent and new literacies (among other things). Here’s the link to i-Anya., her new (relocated!) blog.

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Peer review gone wrong

Check out this link. It’s pretty funny!
http://theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4116&n=3

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Utah Snubs No Child Left Behind Law (from Yahoo News)

Utah Snubs No Child Left Behind Law

 U.S. National – AP

By JENNIFER DOBNER, Associated Press Writer

SALT LAKE CITY – Snubbing President Bush’s education changes, the Utah Legislature on Tuesday passed a measure giving state education standards priority over federal ones imposed by the No Child Left Behind Act.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has said the state bill could cost Utah $76 million in federal funding. But Utah officials bristle at the federal act’s requirements, arguing they amount to unfunded mandates.

The bill is seen by many as the strongest objection to the federal law among 15 states considering anti-No Child Left Behind legislation this year.

The bill passed the House during the regular session that ended in February, but Gov. Jon Huntsman persuaded state lawmakers to put off voting on the bill while his administration negotiated a settlement with the Department of Education.

Despite those efforts, the bill passed comfortably in both the House and Senate Tuesday.

Huntsman could sign the bill as early as Wednesday, his spokeswoman Tammy Kikuchi said.

Utah educators and lawmakers agree with the bottom-line objective of No Child Left Behind — that all students should be proficient in reading and math. But the state disagrees with the way the law measures student outcomes and wants greater flexibility than the law provides.

Utah’s preferred way of measuring student achievement is called U-PASS, or the Utah Performance Assessment System for Students, which compares achievement as students progress from grade to grade. No Child Left Behind compares the grade-level test scores of students to the students in the same grade level from previous years.

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Emily Dickinson

From bartleby.com

Emily Dickinson (1830–86).  Complete Poems.  1924.

Part One: Life

XXI

He ate and drank the precious words,
His spirit grew robust;
He knew no more that he was poor,
Nor that his frame was dust.
He danced along the dingy days,
And this bequest of wings
Was but a book. What liberty
A loosened spirit brings!

Part One: Life

XCIX

There is no frigate like a book

  To take us lands away,

Nor any coursers like a page

  Of prancing poetry.

  

This traverse may the poorest take

  Without oppress of toll;

How frugal is the chariot

  That bears a human soul!

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Funny Comment

Overheard at Barnes and Noble last night. A nine-year-old (approximately) said to his mother:

“Mama, this is just like a big library!”

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Quiz–Which Fantasy/Sci Character Are You?

Click on Yoda to take the quiz.

A venerated sage with vast power and knowledge, you gently guide forces around you while serving as a champion of the light.

Judge me by my size, do you? And well you should not – for my ally is the Force. And a powerful ally it is. Life greets it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us, and binds us. Luminescent beings are we, not this crude matter! You must feel the Force around you, everywhere.

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Quiz–Which Pooh character are you?

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

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April–National Poetry Month

From the San Francisco Chronicle
Read more about:
Kids need poetry in school

Also:

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world,and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” –Percy Bysshe Shelley

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.–Rainer Maria Rilke

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. –Langston Hughes

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

–Emily Dickinson

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