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Shade for Sale. (We Wish.)
August 29, 2010
During turbid late summer months, you could sell shade in the Delta, provided you could figure out a way to deliver and collect. In populated areas, shady spots in parking lots are prized and sometimes bitterly contested, particularly those which offer a respite from scorching late afternoon rays. Scurrying for shade, however, is nothing new in the South. It started long ago.
Teaching with the Song Chorus
and Thesis Statement Connection.
August 28, 2010
Many pop tunes have a chorus — and every academic writing paper is anchored to a thesis statement. Connecting these two fundamental building blocks of effective writing is the focus of Kelly Riley's  challenging unit of five lessons, designed to teach conceptual frameworks, critical thinking, and academic writing skills to high school English students. The unit includes handouts of song lyrics, a homework assignment, guidelines for writing a thesis statement, a primer on how to teach with a Socratic Circle, and an indepth set of "Notes for the Teacher." It's a winner for the teacher in search of a rewarding challenge.
Choctaw Nation Offers New Course
In Language and Culture at UA.
August 24, 2010
University of Arkansas students have a unique opportunity to expand their knowledge of one of our neighboring nations this fall. Just across the border, the southwestern Arkansas border, you’ll find one of the many sovereign nations within the United States — the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. The opportunity? One of the nation’s leading educators, Professor Curtis Billy, is teaching a Choctaw language course for UA credit — and you still have time to enroll.
Shock of the Strange and the New:
The Story of the Age of Exploration.
August 24, 2010
To the people of the fifteenth century, the Planet Earth consisted of three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. The lineages of all humans were laid out in the book of Genesis in the Bible. All people were seen as descendants of Adam and Noah. But Christopher Columbus shattered this long-held worldview by revealing the existence of two unknown continents, which were inhabited by humans who did not fit into the Biblical narrative. And the task of absorbing the knowledge of new worlds and new peoples was a monumental task for Europeans. It was a shock.
William Dietrich's Ethan Gage:
Mysteries Set in History No. 4
August 17, 2010
Ron Fritze's fourth installment of his Mysteries Set in History series introduces us to the likeable young American Ethan Gage, hero of four novels by William Dietrich set at the turn of the nineteenth century. A powerful Templar medallion, the thirst for esoteric knowledge and treasure, Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, and Ethan's love affair with the beautiful Astiza infuse Napoleon's Pyramids with high adventure and ongoing mystery. Ron also touches on the other three novels in the series. He give it a thumbs up!
Mantis Nymph on Rays of Susan.
July 27, 2010
Do you see menace or divine inspiration? The merciless predator or the mysterious prophet? Friend, foe, or just another bug in the garden? The popular image of the praying mantis raises an interesting set of contradictions. It can summon up the dark side, a violent realm of bloodthirsty predators and ravenous cannibals. It can inspire flights of fancy into a magical wonderland of soothsayers, pathfinders, and shapeshifters. It can be the ruthless killer lying in wait for the ambush, or a kindred believer facing a holy shrine to pray to the almighty.
Nature Teaches a Nurturer.
May 5, 2010
Audrey Madyun of Maumee, Ohio, writes about a life lesson gleaned from her observation of two robins on a warehouse parking lot — the kind of lesson available to any of us if we only take the time to pause amid the bustle of the day and open our eyes to the world around us. Thanks, Audrey!
Dreaming Dirt Music
and the Hope for Grace.
May 5, 2010
In Christian Goering's latest for LitTunes, the song "Dear Oklahoma Rain"  becomes the object of a study about the creative process, demonstrating again how John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath continues to inspire songwriters and musicians a half-century after its publication. "I wanted to produce a record of original music to, as Neil Young sings, 'leave tracks in the sound,' " Christian writes. His tune takes us to southern Kansas for the saga of a farmer mired in the drought of the Great Depression, a widower with seven kids who decides to hold his ground after the death of his beloved wife.
The Dance of Time:
Hungarian Culture in Transylvania.
April 23, 2010
Zoltán Boldizsár Zeyk lives in a Hungarian village in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, where he teaches his native Hungarian and also English as a foreign language. Although his village is a part of Romania, the people who live there hold dear to their Hungarian traditions in a struggle for cultural identity that is woven into language, folk music, and dance. An Easter folk dance performance by the youngsters of the village inspired Zoltán's guest essay for Planet Gnosis, which features photographs by his daughter and a link to video of the performance.
Turks and Talent:
Meritocracy in the Ottoman Empire.
April 23, 2010
The Ottoman Turks are near the top of the list of obscure subjects taught in history class. But they were a threat to Christian Europe for centuries and became a bogie man to Europeans. These "bad guys" of Western history instituted a system of meritocracy that promoted social mobility and helped populate the military with capable, non-Turkish commanders. Ron Fritze discusses several of these legendary figures in his latest contribution to Age of the Reformation.
Whose Teeth Sow the Foot Soldiers?
April 1, 2010
Let us travel, then, you and I, into some distant woven shade, and hide there among the ashes and the oaks, sip pale green nectar from the limestone springs, eat our berries and our nuts, and wait, wait for the binding to be lifted and flung into hot stars, burning, burning.
May Day. The Good Comrades
Are Vanquished. What Next?
March 24, 2010
After twenty-five months of silence, Dylan FitzDylan returns to CornDancer with the publication of a  lyrical narrative he claims to have written while imprisoned in a Soviet socialist satellite state. What are we to think of Marko's oracle, the androgynous, raven-haired creature whose last dance outside the Youth House in Györ, Hungary, leaves her feet bloody and her prophetic voice mute? What role does Imre Washington play in the first May Day celebration after the fall of the Iron Curtain? And how successful is sweet Ildie in her search for new isms?
I Remember Mother.
March 6, 2010
Yesterday — Friday, March 5, 2010 — marked the thirty-ninth year of my mother’s death. Two years ago, while attending a writing seminar, I turned a long story about my mother and me into a poem. My mother’s name was Joy Kathelene Hinson, so in her honor, this is how the poem came to be.
Three Aussies: Pile of Puppies.
January 25, 2010
I'm sixty years and they're eleven weeks. It's a good balance. Crow's Cottage rocks with new life and awesome bursts of animal energy.
Three puppies! It's hard to imagine, easier to accept. Compassion got the best of me at the moment of acquisition.
Language, Reality
And the Murder of John Locke.
September 2, 2000
It has got to be maddening to be murdered, to know in the fast fleeting now that the bullets are flying at you and into you, to struggle toward your slayer, to fall in a screaming air of violence onto the floor of your last breath.
When he fell, I don't think John fell at the feet of the killer. I think that John, resolving the last powerful gasp of his chi into a lunge, took the gunman down to the floor with him. I think John died triumphant, face-to-face with the coward who shot him dead.
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