Category Archives: Community of English Practice

English Alumna Bianca Brown Wins National Video Competition

Potter Gray Pic

Bianca Brown with students at Potter Gray Elementary (previously published in the Spirit of Engagement of WKU magazine)

Bianca Brown (pictured to the left) is a WKU alumna with a BA in Professional Writing and Philosophy, and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in Social Responsibility and Sustainable Communities. Bianca is also one of two Public Achievement Coordinators for the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility (ICSR), which is currently housed in Garrett Conference Center.

If you’ve ever wondered how to successfully integrate an English degree with other seemingly unrelated interests, there’s no better example than Bianca Brown. Bianca has recently earned a prestigious and rare honor from the American Democracy Project.  By way of a creative video submission, combining her knowledge of professional writing and rhetoric with her passion for civic engagement, she has been selected as a keynote speaker at this year’s conference.  Through her role as Public Achievement Coordinator for the ICSR, she has proven herself an excellent example of collegial and community involvement. I was fortunate enough to meet with Bianca outside Java City, enjoying the warmth of spring while we discussed her video, her passions, and her professional goals.

Bianca during her winning video submission

Bianca during her winning video submission

The theme of Bianca’s video is civic engagement, which she defines as “more than just being involved in school— it’s being involved in your community and your country and its politics. It’s being an active participant in public life  and being knowledgeable about issues, even looking for information so that you can be better informed about things that are going on.” Her video answers three questions centered on the obstacles of campus and community involvement. Though most schools now have campus activities centers, Bianca believes there is still a shortage of available “civic engagement hubs that have become the beacon for this kind of work.” Fortunately WKU has the ICSR, which houses civic participation and encourages involvement. Through her video, Bianca also explains that colleges and universities can better prepare students to be informed, engaged citizens by making civic participation a part of every day life. “Students must be encouraged to identify the many ways they can live informed and engaged lives within their chosen career path,” Bianca said. “This will prepare students to seek out information and civic engagement opportunities post graduation.” If you haven’t already, you can view Bianca’s video here.

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Bianca teaching at Potter Gray Elementary in Bowling Green

Bianca’s passion for civic engagement is driven by her teaching goals. Through teaching English, she hopes to reach students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds that may otherwise be overlooked. “What really drives me is my goal to teach English. I want to teach students who will really benefit from it,” Bianca said. “It’s fine to have your own vernacular when you’re with your friends and family, but you have to be able to switch into a professional mindset. People don’t always grasp that about English sometimes, especially in certain economical situations. Part of what we’re learning in this [master’s] program is understanding the dynamics of how people find themselves in these situations in the first place. The better informed you are the better teacher you can be. I want to continue helping people help themselves.”

Bianca is motivated by her mother, who was consistently involved in her community. “She was always involved in different types of activism and even took me to protests,” Bianca said. “She always pushed me to be involved and take an active role in community building efforts. She’s a big part of why I’m driven to do this work.” Bianca is also grateful for the aid of Dr. Paul Markham, who originally introduced her to the ICSR.Dr. Markham’s own diverse academic background, I feel, enables him to direct students across the curriculum to ignite their passions for campus and community involvement.  And the ICSR is the perfect venue for that, as has certainly been the case in my own experience,” Brown said. “We encourage students from every discipline to consider how they can apply what they learn in the classroom to the betterment of public life.”

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Bianca pictured with Harry Boyte, the creator of Public Achievement program

So, how can you get involved? Bianca works specifically through an ICSR program called Public Achievement— a national youth initiative developed on the idea that societal issues are everyone’s responsibility. This program educates youth on becoming effective civic participants, and helps them learn to think and act as citizens. If you’d like to learn more about the program and how you can become involved, the ICSR is hosting a recruitment informational session this Thursday at 6 PM in Garrett Conference Room 109. They would love to see you there!

-Rachel

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Filed under Careers, Community of English Practice, Connect, Main Campus, Student Successes, WKU, WKU Alumni

Watch a novel being written ‘live’ | Books | guardian.co.uk

Watch a novel being written 'live' | Books | guardian.co.uk.

Fantasy writer Silvia Hartmann is writing her latest novel on Google Docs and you can watch live. But hers is not just a spectator sport. You can comment and suggest away all you want, too.

English majors live in Bizzaro World sometimes, but would you have it any other way? Below is a message to her viewers giving directions for how and when to watch her live.

Google Novel in Progress

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Vialogues : What Can You Do with an English Major?

Vialogues : What Can You Do with an English Major?.

This is a unique way to view and connect with a video that allows you to stop and comment.  Dr. Corey Olsen took his love of Tolkien to new levels through the digital ‘hobbit hole’ of the the internet. How could you take your passion to a similar place as an English major.  There’s gold in what Chris Anderson calls “the long tail”.

 

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Soylent: A Word Processor Made of People – Daily Crowdsource

Soylent: A Word Processor Made of People – Daily Crowdsource.

Soylent People are People

 Soylent workers are people. I am astonished and appalled simultaneously.  Not an easy match.  This add-on for Word mashes up with Amazon Turk to get real folk to edit your work.  Any English major want to work for Amazon Turk?

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2012 English Department Undergraduate Conference

Colleagues,

The 12th Annual Undergraduate Conference on Literature, Language and Culture will be held on Friday, November 16, at 1:00 in Cherry Hall 125.

The deadline for student submissions will be October 29. You might consider adding these dates to the syllabi of appropriate classes.

This conference invites our undergraduate students to submit short analytical essays that they have written for WKU English classes within the past year. A group of our graduate students will evaluate the submissions and form panels for the conference. This is an opportunity for our undergraduates to experience a model academic conference and to share their writing beyond the classroom.

Thanks, as always, for your support of this event.

Ted

via Dr. Ted Hovet

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PCAL Intro for New English Faculty

Drs. Elizabeth Alsop and Jarod Hollyfield are introduced by Interim Department Head, Andrew McMichael.

 

(Please don’t shoot the videographer.)

 

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Filed under Careers, Community of English Practice, English Department Head, Events, Uncategorized, WKU Events

Amazing English Majors for the Class of 2016

Here is a short video during the Potter College welcome for its majors.  Check out how many students want to major in English.  The greatest interest was in Creative Writing, but there was a sizeable minority in other concentrations.  Best of luck to all.

If you have trouble with this video, check out the link below.

English Majors at the Potter College Welcome

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[Creativewriting-list] New Lit Minor

Dear English majors,

Good news—the Board of Regents approved the new minor in literature this summer.This minor is ONLY for English majors in the creative/professional writing tracks and for those majoring in English for Secondary Teachers. Non-English majors still need to minor in “English.” I’ve attached the corresponding worksheet (see “lit minor pdf” link below). Just like the professional and creative writing minors, six hours can be duplicated between the English major and the lit minor.Thanks and see you soon!

 

Molly McCaffrey, Ph.D.

Undergraduate Creative and Professional Writing Advisor

lit minor pdf

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Social media is more than simply a marketing tool for academic research | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional

Social media is more than simply a marketing tool for academic research | Higher Education Network | Guardian Professional.

There are many useful places for social media tools that are valuable to the process of becoming an English major.  This website is based in part on that assertion.  Twitter, Pinterest, Scoop.it, and their compadres can all be used for seeking, sharing, and making sense of English.  Perhaps we should be showing English majors how to do this?  Or perhaps (and I speak as a faculty contributor to this blog) they should be showing us.

Take a look at this introductory article and comment below.  Thanks.

 

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Semicolons: A Love Story – NYTimes.com

Semicolons: A Love Story – NYTimes.com

 

Two quotes from an article about a love/hate relationship with semicolons, the first being the Vonnegut argument and the second, the William James argument.  I quote below from the article.

 

By now I’d come across Isaac Babel’s famous description of periods as irons capable of stabbing the heart. And I knew, of course, that commas were indispensable. The semicolon sat there in my literary utensil drawer like a cherry pitter, theoretically functional, but fussy and unloved and probably destined for the yard-sale table.

I blame my grammatical fall on an unlikely corrupter: William James. For the past year or two I’ve had on my nightstand a fat Library of America collection of his writing, and it took me a while to realize that one of the things I was loving about it — one of the things that made me feel as if I was sitting beside a particularly intelligent, humane and excitable friend on a long trip in a horse-drawn carriage — was his use of semicolons. James’s paragraphs, as lucid and unpretentious as can be, are divided and subdivided, as intricately structured as the anatomical diagrams he includes in “Psychology: Briefer Course.” Semicolons, along with exclamation points and dashes and whole sackfuls of commas, are, for him, vital tools in keeping what he called the “stream of thought” from appearing to the reader as a wild torrent.

And here is Ben Dolnick’s final advice on semicolons:

So yes, Kurt Vonnegut: simplicity, in grammar as in all things, is a virtue, not to be sneezed at. But I can’t agree that semicolons represent absolutely nothing; they represent, for me anyway, the pleasure in discovering that no piece of writing advice, however stark, however beloved its deliverer, should ever be adopted mindlessly.

 

 

 

 

 

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