Lets liven up with literature

Ok, I saw these lists on another blog (blog browsing again) and I thought the list was terrible. Sorry to the person who created the list, but they were trying too hard to pick controversial characters they had to defend or that made them look literary cool. So, I give you my list and reasoning.
Top Ten Picks: Favorite Female Literary Character

1. Elizabeth Bennet – contemplates ideas of marriage and love in a time where women had no power, control, they weren’t even considered human, and she wanted love to dictate her life choices. That’s pretty progressive, and she was written by a woman. A classic example of culture affecting literature, and standing the test of time.

2. Kit Tyler – I know, I’ve written about her before, but she’s just so fun to read about. Completely out of her element in clothing, understanding, culture, weather, you name it she does it different. But she makes it work, teaches people reading, is tried as a witch. Classic American literature.

3. Anne of Green Gables – she’s a spirited, adopted red head who causes childhood problems, and drama. Just SO fun to read.

4. lyra belacqua – another children’s book. Through the trilogy you get to watch lyra grow up and figure out the world. It’s quite a journey, and the ending is so bitter-sweet it’s hard not to love lyra.

5. Margaret Hale – sent away from her family to be raised by an aunt in London, then upon her return she’s uprooted to a whole different life in the north, Margaret works through the culture shock and forces other characters to confront ideas of class and religion. She also rejects a lot of marriage proposals.

6. hermoine grainger – she makes being a nerd cool again!

7. Anne Elliot – forced to give up her beloved, she is the anchor of her family, and the most walked upon. Then she is forced to watch her love flirt with another woman while he’s still in love with her.

8. Elphaba – born to crazy parents, she struggles with water, rain, and fights for the rights of Animals. The loss of love that causes her ultimate break is so touching. You really can love the wicked witch.

9. Elinor Dashwood – the quietest of the dashwood sisters, elinor suffers heart break privately while working to keep her sister in one piece, and her family safe and comfortable.

10. Scarlett O’Hara – she’s tough, always pining for what she really doesn’t want, but when taxes are levied and need to be paid, Scarlett steps in and gets the bills paid, delivers babies, kills ravaging soldiers, and makes a dress out of curtains.



Top Ten Picks: Favorite Male Literary Character

1. Fitzwilliam Darcy – he may not be in book that much, but anyone who antagonizes a woman because he loves her is amazing. It really helps that he puts aside all pride and helps her family, and still wants her to accept him because of love, not what he can offer.

2. the dad from The Road – ok the world is shambles and he works hard through the whole novel to protect his son, provide him with necessary skills, and teach him to read as they have time.

3. Rhett Butler – another character who just doesn’t quite understand how to woo his woman. Eventually he catches her, and delivers one of the most poignant lines “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn” ahhhhhhhh.

4. Will Parry – another children’s book. Will is in 2 and 3 of His Dark Materials trilogy. He comes from a difficult home, but he manages to find his path, and love. He works so hard to help lyra on her journey.

5. Mr. John Thornton – he seems all standoffish, and firm, but he’s really a big softie. His father tragically destroyed the family, and he dedicated his life to restoring the family name.

6. Quoyle – a large awkward man who suffers when his children’s mother dies tragically. He uproots his family to Newfoundland and discovers dark family secrets, shipping news, new culture, love and squid pie.

7. Holden Caulfied – teenage angst at its finest with culture critique thrown in for good measure. Holden embodies the outsider in his quest to protect purity.

8. harry potter – its just hard not to love the boy wizard who stumbled into awesomeness.

9. Pi – he survived a boat crash, and then the ocean while living on a life boat with a tiger.

10. Beowulf – after spending a semester translating Old English you develop a real bond for Beowulf of the Geats.

another goodreads

  Hunting Ground by Patricia Briggs

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


a bit cheezy, and i figured out the big mystery about halfway through, so that was disappointing.  but its really hard not to love the messed-up but healing omega, and the hit-man alpha who is really a big softie.  reading their love story makes it all worth it!

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Book review from goodreads

Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars


the authors defend their position of giving rough reviews to romance novels, grading most at a D or C level with only a handful making it to the A or B level.  given their criteria i want my 5 to be measured on that, i don't like everything i read.

the authors strive to defend the genre to those who also enjoy the genre. their witty banter is enjoyable, and their breaking down of the romance genre useful when looking at the ways cultural times affect the stories. its a cross between a for fun book and an academic book, so beware. most importantly they discuss at length how romance is written "by women for women" so it's always already subversive, subversive to the tune of 65 million books sold to mostly college educated readers. go feminism! :)



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academic integrity

With the increasing popularity of the sparkly vampire, YouTube (www.youtube.com) has a plethora of videos devoted to sparkly vampire slaying. Black and white albums are combined to create controversial grey albums. Information is available in encyclopedia form at our finger tips. In the age of blogs, mashups, smashups and Wikipedia how do students learn academic integrity when real life internet use doesn’t require it?

blog browsing brings new post

The Introverted Reader (http://theintrovertedreader.blogspot.com/) has a series she posts on her favorite characters.  Since i've been blog browsing a bunch lately i think i'll join her character connection weekly posting.  so, once a week we're tasked with posting a blog about our favorite literary characters.  this first one should be no surprise . . . .

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare was an absolute FAVORITE book while i was growing up.  my brother and sister both fell in love with it after i did, so my first character is Kit Tyler, the main character. 

Kit Tyler was raised in Barbados by her grandfather before the book begins.  upon the death of her grandfather and her refusal of a marriage offer, kit sails to Connecticut to live with her aunt.  moving from the tropical paradise of barbados to the puritanical new england is a HUGE culture shift for kit, and she struggles.  eventually she begins to find her place in the society, making friends with a quaker widow, children she is teaching, and of course the love interest Nat. 

Kit Tyler is one of my favorite literary characters.  she's a strong female lead who sees the need for female education when early american settlers refused female education.  she struggles with religious differences, with making friends with outcasts, and with being courted by the wrong men.  her position within the community is tenuous, as she learns the ways of early american puritans, the reader learns about life, struggles, and how easy it was to be convinced women were witches.  kit's witch trial has a much more positive ending than most of the trials of her day, but her character brings the struggles of women to light.  speare does an amazing job describing everyday life.  although this is considered a children's book, it describes the politics of civilization in ways that even adults will find fascinating.  most of the book focuses on the life of women in the town, their struggles based on gender, and their role in town life.  eventually kit decides to leave new england to return to barbados after never finding her place in society.  while thinking of returning to a barbados without her grandfather she realizes the same thing, she has no home in barbados without him.  through this final pondering of 'home' speare illuminates the plight of women, and their tie to the men in their lives.  without a grandfather in barbados kit had nothing to go to, with her cousins getting married in conecticut and her lack of fitting in she is ostrasized.  she is homeless because she no longer has a protector.  the novel finishes with Nat returning to port with a vessel of his own to provide the home for Kit that is not just a home, but a male protector too.  modern feminists may balk at the tie between a man and the idea of home, but speare writes such an endearing character in kit that her struggles with this tie between home and a man are realistic struggles for women.  developing a character who grew up in a culture where the tie between home and man was looser than the tie within puritanical society illuminates the tie and the cultural struggle kit must go through.  this book is a must read for readers of all ages!

communities of practice

Communities of practice is a way of looking at learning as inherently embedded in the social. We can’t learn stuff, language, ideas, practices, behavior, identity, rules, etc out of context, we’re always learning these things as they specifically apply to a given situation. We’re learning what words mean, and how to use them in context. It’s most notable in the lingo we use, especially surrounding the work environment. If I describe QBU actions as app engine programs that take specified action to a group identified in a query, I’m speaking a specific techy language as it applies to a specific schools implementation of a student information management system. If I talk about how useful fuel is because I click fewer squares while harvesting crops, I’m talking about how I function and understand tools provided to me in Farmville. If I reference JAFF I’m speaking about a specific group of people and demonstrating my identity with them by knowing the acronym. So the idea of communities of practice functions as a way of looking at the learning that individuals go through as new members, existing members, outside members, leading members, etc of the various groups they participate in on a daily basis. These practices seem inherently social, verbal, and real life. To apply to internet environments we (as educators) would need to identify ways of encouraging group participation and group knowledge discovery in an online class environment. So, how do we structure an online classroom, given all the preconceived ideas students have about them, in ways to foster true social learning? To being, for English/Composition 101 we would need to decide what our main goals are. Besides exposure to college based writing, what else are we teaching students? To read assignment sheets? To be college students? To think critically? What else is important and how do we make those important values in our classroom community so the students will learn them through participation in the class as they learn the practices of the community?

check out this book for more information Wenger, Etienne. (1998). Communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge university press.

what influences common word usage?

DailyKos is a liberal blog community devoted and acclaimed for speaking about liberal issues and opening conversation to those who choose to join. In recent books, Geoffrey Nunberg has articulated how the rhetoric of the right has taken hold of common discourse about politics. This paper looks at a liberal political blog community to show how their discourse coincides with Nunberg’s thesis, DailyKos members use common political terms created by Conservatives to begin their liberal conversation in the political blog community. Administrators of DailyKos also use common Conservative terminology to build a community of liberals within the DailyKos site. This paper will analyze the discourse of the site to show how these terms are used unconsciously, but how they function to build group identity within the space, while reifying the Conservative meanings of terms like “health reform” and “values.”