An Engaged Professor

I often say that students should be "engaged" in their learning. So should I! Learning should be fun. We should all remember that absolute joy we felt as toddlers as we began to explore the world around us. Let's capture that spirit of WOW in what we have to learn now as well. To that end, this blog is a mixed bag of grammar and writing advice, constitutional news, urban history, political news, and whatever else comes to mind for my students. Tell me below which topics will help you most.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

History research needs to be checked and double-checked!

Here's a link to a NY Times story about a new book on the Hiroshima bombing which has some of its facts quite messed up. Read the story. It's a great lesson to all of us who write history that facts need to be checked with at least two sources (or if that's not possible, at least reported to the reader as unverifiable). As you'll see when you read the story, the author took one person's word for what happened and apparently did not check any other sources for verification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/books/21hiroshima.html?emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Memoir of a death penalty lawyer

This review, from today's New York Times, talks about a new memoir written by a death penalty lawyer. For anyone interested in the death penalty today, this would be a good place to start.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/review/Lithwick-t.htmlhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/books/review/Lithwick-t.html