Books and Literature, Education and Literacy, fandom

A Year in Forums: People Don’t Know Anything About Stuff They Like

I spent some time in a lot of new pop media forums this year. This is what I observed I have this pet peeve that shows up the most in my more text-based book forums, and science fiction book readers are the worst offenders. Someone will come into a science fiction reading forum and make… Continue reading A Year in Forums: People Don’t Know Anything About Stuff They Like

Education and Literacy, Media Literacy and Analysis, Queerness

Cultural Conservatism and the Collapse of Media Critique

Last week, the next installment in the Dragon Age franchise released, Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I'm a huge fan of the series and the studio that makes the franchise. Now the video game community, as a whole, has a really high capacity for what really comes down to just…idiocy, honestly. It's been a problem pretty… Continue reading Cultural Conservatism and the Collapse of Media Critique

Books and Literature, Childhood, Education and Literacy

The Adults at the Base of the Literacy Crisis

We did foster care respite for a short while. For the uninitiated, this is basically extended babysitting for foster kids. Now something you run unto a lot with foster agencies is that they're faith-based and ours was no exception. It was pretty common that any child entering the foster system, through this agency, that came… Continue reading The Adults at the Base of the Literacy Crisis

Books and Literature, Childhood, Education and Literacy, On Reading

That’s My Secret, Cap, I Didn’t Read the Book

In talking about school books on TikTok, someone mentioned in a comment that one of the current strategies around teaching books is returning to a previously read novel years later and reevaluating it from an older perspective. That might be why some summer reading I was discussing for local high schoolers looked more like middle-grade… Continue reading That’s My Secret, Cap, I Didn’t Read the Book

Books and Literature, Childhood, Education and Literacy

How House of Seven Gables Almost Ruined Jr. High English Class

In fourth grade one of the whole class (not pull-out group) required readings books was a novel called Finders Keepers by Emily Rodda. This is one of those books that sort of fundamentally changed me as a person, but I’ve not met anyone else who remembers reading it. Even people I went to elementary school… Continue reading How House of Seven Gables Almost Ruined Jr. High English Class

Books and Literature, Childhood, Education and Literacy, Personal

An English Class Case Study

 In honor of the new school year, I made a cheeky little video on TikTok about required summer reading, what my local school district required of its high schoolers, and how it compared to my own summer reading back during my school years. It opened this very interesting little conversation in the comments about other… Continue reading An English Class Case Study