Melissa Wantz: Notes from West Egg

Okay, so which of these assignments would you pick if you could choose:

Write a 1,500-word essay explaining the theme in Animal Farm, using literary elements such as character motives, symbolism and imagery.
Give a 5-minute presentation that relates the theme in Animal Farm to some aspect of society today, making sure to draw clear connections to [...]

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One of the blogs I read is “Reflections from the Trenches“ by a high school English teacher named Julia Osteen from Georgia. The other day she posted a reaction to the widespread practice of students copying and pasting information, remixing it basically, and calling the product their own. She said:
My initial reaction to this article [...]

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Tomorrow’s New York Times will publish an article titled “Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?“ by Motoko Rich (posted online a day early– another in a long list of reasons why I love online news!). Apparently this is the first in a series of articles that the Times will publish in an attempt to [...]

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Well, that may be going too far, but he’s certainly someone whose premise I hope and pray is right! According to his excellent book A Whole New Mind, the U.S. economy is transitioning from the Age of Information to what he calls the Conceptual Age, an era that will be kind to creators and empathizers. [...]

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