Sutton Who? No, Sutton HOO.

Check out this link for the Sutton Hoo Society!

Wait, Miss Fitz, what is Sutton Hoo and why should I care about it?

Okay, well we will be starting very soon Beowulf. No, it's not like the Angelina Jolie movie!  It is way cooler.  

Trust me on this.

::hides Beowulf costume:: Okay, I am a bit of a Beowulf fan girl, but I promise to do my best to make our reading interactive and interesting.

***
The link I've provided for you at the top of this blog will take you to The Sutton Hoo Society.  Don't click it yet.  I have a few instructions for you first.  Read them all, ask me questions, and then get started.

1. I will put you in pairs.  Take five minutes to acquaint yourselves with the webpage.

2. After these five minutes, come up and get a list of questions from me.  There are different sets of questions, so not everyone will be answering the same questions.  This should take you no more than ten minutes.

3. Great, you're finished!  Go to the bottom of this page and leave a comment.  These comments go straight to my email, so after you submit them, I can approve them and they will show up.  As your username, please put your names followed by your class period.  If you are a name duplicate, add the first initial of your last name.  Otherwise, your first name will suffice.

So, one username might look like this: SarahBrent2

But, if there were two people named Sarah in the class it would look like this: SarahFBrent2

4.  Great, this part should take you no more than five minutes.  After all, you have the answers already!

5.  After all the questions are submitted, we'll discuss Sutton Hoo as a group.  This means YOU are responsible for answering questions.

6. Alright, by this point we should have a pretty good notion of what Sutton Hoo is and isn't.  We'll end this portion of the lesson as we embark on our journey to Beowulf and all its glory.

One day, Thomas Edison was like, 'Oh hey, Mark...'

The only footage of Mark Twain, taken by Thomas Edison

Plagiarism Part 1: Fabrication in Journalism

Check out this article about the perils of poor (and fabricated) research.

Shattered Glass (2003) is a movie based upon a similar situation involving journalist Stephen Glass. Here, watch the trailer for it.  Netflix it, grab some popcorn, and enjoy.

After reading up on both the article and movie, here are a few questions for you to mull over while you chow down on that popcorn.

• Consider punishments for plagiarizing in the classroom.  Oftentimes these punishments might include earning a failing grade on the assignment or disciplinary actions as extreme as expulsion.  While Lehrer and Glass eventually lost their positions as staff writers, they both were caught fabricating and plagiarizing earlier in their career, but they were spared any major punishment. Should magazines, newspapers, and online blog sources hold the same standard schools should with reference to plagiarism?  How can newspapers, magazines, etc, decrease the likelihood of plagiarism?
• Think of how plagiarism is dealt with in your school.  What are the typical consequences for plagiarism?  Do you feel it helps stop plagiarism?  Evaluate the system.  How can your teachers and school system better stop plagiarism and promote individuals who research and write ethically? 
• What would your response be as a reader after realizing a journalist fabricated information for their article or book?  

You have T minus 60 days to read this book.

Check out this advertisement for a book with disappearing ink.

What are your thoughts about it?  Would a book with an expiration date motivate you to finish reading it?  What implications could this have on the reading process?  Is this just a sales tactic, or does it address greater problems?  What sort of problems could it address?  

NPR's Summer Books, 2012

I have spent most of the summer reading about Irish theater and working on my thesis, but I hope to read some of these over the year.  Check out the list!