Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 52

• How does the Washington Post know what you’re going to read and at what age you’ll read it?

  By ljd42 on February 9, 2020

  

  Interesting post by one of my favorite novelists, Lev Raphael: “The Washington Post Claims To Know What You Read And When.” In case you decide not to read either Raphael’s post or the Washington Post column he describes, here is… Read More ›

• Iowa and Ireland: election math

  By ljd42 on February 8, 2020

  

  What happened in Iowa? Well, we don’t really know for sure how Mayor Pete managed to astonish everyone, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. And what does it have to do with Ireland anyway? The issue is one… Read More ›

• The sister of English

  By ljd42 on February 7, 2020

  No, not Paul English or Todd English —  I mean the sister of English, as in the English language. Languages, like people, have family trees. If you’re French, you might be able to trace your family tree back to an ancient Roman… Read More ›

• Which American dialect do you speak?

  By ljd42 on February 6, 2020

  

  You and I don’t speak exactly the same version of American English. Our vocabulary, pronunciation, and maybe even syntax will vary, depending on geography (producing different dialects), socio-economic class (sociolects), and individual characteristics (idiolects). Many Americans are skilled at identifying… Read More ›

• Map workshop at the BPL

  By ljd42 on February 4, 2020

  

  Interactive historical local maps! Interactive historical local maps! Yesterday I attended a fascinating workshop at the Boston Public Library (JP branch), where we explored their new home-brewed web-based software for dynamically viewing historical changes in local maps and used it to… Read More ›

• We need a respite from xenophobia.

  By ljd42 on February 2, 2020

  Our xenophobic president is about to be acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanors that he committed. His “alleged” actions have been proved, even according to Mitch McConnell’s good friend Senator Lamar Alexander (R, TN), who voted against additional witnesses… Read More ›

• “There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”

  By ljd42 on February 1, 2020

  

  Leonard Cohen, Louise Penny, and Michael Connelly have nothing to do with each other. Nothing obvious, at any rate. But there’s an important connection that all these artists share, embodied by the quotation in the title to this post, which… Read More ›

• Our War

  By ljd42 on January 30, 2020

  

  This novel is strictly fictional. It’s just fiction, I tell you. It’s purely coincidental that Craig DiLouie’s Our War is about a Republican president who is impeached by the House, and then is convicted by the Senate (!), and then…  wait for it…… Read More ›

• What is the most popular surname in your country of origin?

  By ljd42 on January 28, 2020

  

  Thanks to Lisetta Shah, my former colleague and former student, for this link to maps and explanations of the most popular last name in every country. Check it out! Some of it will come as a surprise to you, some of… Read More ›

• The huge Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show

  By ljd42 on January 26, 2020

  

  This year’s Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show was different from previous years’ — not because the exhibits were significantly different (they weren’t) nor because it was held in West Springfield rather than Amherst (that’s been true for years). It… Read More ›

• To be in Irish and Spanish

  By ljd42 on January 25, 2020

  

  Or should that title be ‘“To be” in Irish and Spanish‘? The issue is just use versus mention, you know. (If you don’t know, check out this Wikipedia entry.) Let’s start with Spanish, since I am guessing that most —… Read More ›

• “Angry white guy unloads on new city councilor in voice mail”

  By ljd42 on January 24, 2020

  As posted by Adam Gaffin: My new city councilor, Julia Mejia (whom I wrote about on December 11 because she won by a single vote) received an angry voicemail message from a Trump supporter and gave a masterful response in… Read More ›

• Library Shelfie Day!

  By ljd42 on January 22, 2020

  

  This is an addendum to this morning’s post. I wish I had known at the time that today is Library Shelfie Day! Read the article in the second link, but note that it includes several inappropriate ways to organize your… Read More ›

• Which books are checked out from libraries most often? Can you guess?

  By ljd42 on January 22, 2020

  Forget the best-sellers lists. I don’t want to know what’s popular — I want to know what’s happening in libraries, the center of American culture. For its 125th anniversary the New York Public Library has calculated its most checked-out books of… Read More ›

• Why do so many girls and women leave STEM?

  By ljd42 on January 21, 2020

  

  No, I’m not going to mansplain the situation. I just want to draw your attention to a pair of essays about it, one by Karen Morenz, embedded within another by Scott Aaronson. My expectation is that nobody will disagree with… Read More ›

• Purple and green

  By ljd42 on January 19, 2020

  

  A present my sister Ellen made for Barbara and me: These four beautiful handcrafted quilted pot-holders in purple and green, to match the colors of the walls of our kitchen:

• Against My Better Judgment: An Intimate Memoir of an Eminent Gay Psychologist

  By ljd42 on January 17, 2020

  

  Would this headline be clickbait? “Eminent Harvard Psychologist Admits That He’s Gay!” Ho hum, it wouldn’t work as clickbait today. Nobody today would be shocked (except perhaps by the choice of verb in this made-up headline). But back in the… Read More ›

• Catch and Kill

  By ljd42 on January 15, 2020

  

  Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose… What do these three have in common? If you’ve been under a rock for the past five years, you might not know. So read Ronan Farrow’s exposé, Catch and Kill. If, as is more likely, you… Read More ›

• How about a nice, relaxing cross-country bus ride from NYC to LA?

  By ljd42 on January 13, 2020

  

  “Miles on the MBTA.” That was the clever (but unobtrusive) title of Miles Taylor’s original blog, written for years while he was a high-school student in Cambridge. His goal was to visit and review every station on the Red, Blue,… Read More ›

• Call me by my name.

  By ljd42 on January 11, 2020

  

  “Call me either one. I don’t care.” It always surprises me when a student gives that sort of reply in response to my asking “Do you want to be called Liz or Elizabeth?” (or the equivalent, of course, depending on… Read More ›

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