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"The Life Cycle of a Shadow" in The Compendium of Enigmatic Species! There You Are, Creativity CreateNet, Skynet’s Awkard Cousin, is Upon Us Dear students learning to write The March of A.I.

There You Are, Creativity

If my creativity were a creature, it would be that fickle cat that decides to leave and set up a new home somewhere else for a while only to eventually come back home. I caught glimpses of it over the last few years, sauntering down a distant alleyway, but it’s finally come back home. Over […]

Dear students learning to write

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Dear students learning to write, You live in a world full of wonderful technology. Your devices, apps, programs, and entertainments are more useful, more engaging, and more distracting than ever before. Technology is a tool that we can harness to enhance our lives as humans; yet, too often, we let the technology dictate how it […]

Football, National Identity, and Where We Call Home

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Every four years, when the world cup comes around, I find myself thinking more about national identity. It’s one of the few times I feel myself connected closely to my German-ness, brings lots of opportunities to talk with people of other nationalities about a shared passion, and shows interesting patterns for how differently people can […]

Appreciating Film/TV Adaptations

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I love teaching Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express because many students enjoy the departure from texts they’re used to studying and they really get into the mystery genre. Many will have already seen the 2017 Kenneth Branagh film adaptation and ask whether we’ll be watching that in class. I tell them I’ve got […]

A Tricky (But Important) Lesson

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I decided to take a risk in one of my classes a few weeks ago. I’ve taught Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 for many years to my Honors 10 English students and it generally gets a good response. Students appreciate the storytelling, note the patterns with other dystopian stories they’re familiar with, and generally connect quite […]

Hugo Nominee Review: Project Hail Mary – Andy Weir

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This year, I’m reviewing all of the nominees for the Hugo Best Novel award. My hope is to provide a brief overview, an analysis of world-building, characters, and narrative pace/structure, and what I feel its strengths and weaknesses are. I will attempt to avoid any major spoilers but will necessarily be dealing with some specifics. […]