some things I have been reading
Mar. 5th, 2022 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee341. I got a gorgeous card from elfin! <3
2.
Charles Dickens Supernatural Short Stories by Charles Dickens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I somehow managed to make it this far without reading any of the short stories outside of A Christmas Carol. These are all wonderful; Dickens has such a wry humor and such a gift for deftly drawn characters. Excellent reading.
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Selected Poems by Robert Lowell
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Goodbye, Selected Poems of Robert Lowell. The space you left behind on the bookshelf was instantly subsumed by other volumes.
May another reader find your mythologizing of New England, your riffs on classical antiquity, and your disquisitions on the dissolution of your marriage as riveting as I find them tedious.
Also, for the love of all that is holy, who greenlighted that cover pose? *full body shudder*
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The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. Palmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
(This is the 20th anniversary edition that contains a new afterword and not the original edition FYI)
This is a really powerful book. I have reached a point in my career where I am reevaluating a lot of my practices, and this book has been very helpful to me in that work.
I'm not on board with all of this. I'm not going to sit around in a Quaker circle and be therapized by my colleagues for three hours. I also think that teaching technique has more of a role/place in transforming my own personal pedagogy and pedagogy at large than Palmer concedes.
But I also think that what I feel changing in me is not about technique and is difficult to put into words and is not quantifiable in ways that I want it to be (do this differently, check this box, adapt assignments in this way) or would want it to be as a beginning teacher studying pedagogy to improve. And that's a bit frustrating.
I do know that teaching methods I was highly resistant to in the beginning of my career as "touchy feely" have become my mainstays the longer I do this work and that the evidence backs up their efficacy. This book provides more of that evidence.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a quick and breezy read; the premise is fun, and I like the characters. The Wild West with hippos, non-binary characters, and queer romance is an excellent place to spend some time.
View all my reviews
elfin! <32.
Charles Dickens Supernatural Short Stories by Charles DickensMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I somehow managed to make it this far without reading any of the short stories outside of A Christmas Carol. These are all wonderful; Dickens has such a wry humor and such a gift for deftly drawn characters. Excellent reading.
View all my reviews
Selected Poems by Robert LowellMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Goodbye, Selected Poems of Robert Lowell. The space you left behind on the bookshelf was instantly subsumed by other volumes.
May another reader find your mythologizing of New England, your riffs on classical antiquity, and your disquisitions on the dissolution of your marriage as riveting as I find them tedious.
Also, for the love of all that is holy, who greenlighted that cover pose? *full body shudder*
View all my reviews
The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. PalmerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
(This is the 20th anniversary edition that contains a new afterword and not the original edition FYI)
This is a really powerful book. I have reached a point in my career where I am reevaluating a lot of my practices, and this book has been very helpful to me in that work.
I'm not on board with all of this. I'm not going to sit around in a Quaker circle and be therapized by my colleagues for three hours. I also think that teaching technique has more of a role/place in transforming my own personal pedagogy and pedagogy at large than Palmer concedes.
But I also think that what I feel changing in me is not about technique and is difficult to put into words and is not quantifiable in ways that I want it to be (do this differently, check this box, adapt assignments in this way) or would want it to be as a beginning teacher studying pedagogy to improve. And that's a bit frustrating.
I do know that teaching methods I was highly resistant to in the beginning of my career as "touchy feely" have become my mainstays the longer I do this work and that the evidence backs up their efficacy. This book provides more of that evidence.
Highly recommended.
View all my reviews
River of Teeth by Sarah GaileyMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a quick and breezy read; the premise is fun, and I like the characters. The Wild West with hippos, non-binary characters, and queer romance is an excellent place to spend some time.
View all my reviews
no subject
Date: 2022-03-05 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-05 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-05 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 11:48 am (UTC)Mine was "I might teach this someday. Better hold on to it."
no subject
Date: 2022-03-06 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-05 08:26 pm (UTC)(And I remember loving Lowell's "Skunk Hour" after the class did a very close reading, but otherwise, I'm just not into him.)
eta I'm always here for your reflections on pedagogy! I'm really interested in how much your point -- teaching methods I was highly resistant to in the beginning of my career as "touchy feely" have become my mainstays the longer I do this work and that the evidence backs up their efficacy -- resonates with that Cheney essay I read a few weeks back. Our society's resistance to "touchy-feeliness" is SO strong and prevalent and yet such an obstacle...
no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 02:48 pm (UTC)I know for me that resistance came/comes from a lot of different places: worries that standards are eroding, worries about losing authority/control, worries that my classes won't be rigorous, worries about taking on more work. Some of the worries are real; it is a lot of labor to teach well and a lot of this touchy feely pedagogy is extra work and it's devalued extra work and it's coded feminine. The worries about rigor and authority I can see now are 100% not a problem.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-07 02:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-08 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-15 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-15 11:15 am (UTC)