Heidi Skurat Harris: Recent Episodes
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Uncertain mother-daughter relationships exist in many families and households. Snapshots of these relationships help readers connect to their own experiences. When my mother died at age 58 in 1992, I was seventeen years old, and my world was set off balance by her loss. Thus, when I read narratives of mother-loss, I can help to … Continue reading Time and Space in “Holes” and “Mexican Americans and American Mexicans”
Monday, January 20, 2014 The Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock allowed free access on MLK Day, January 20, 2014. My husband, my just-turned-5-year-old daughter, and my five-months-pregnant-with-our-son me decided to make our first trip to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum–our first time to visit since we returned to Arkansas the previous … Continue reading Death Day
A friend emailed a week ago with a challenge. Pick a word and sent an intention to focus on that word in 2017. Two words immediately sprung to mind: play & forgive. Educators know that play…well…plays a significant role in human development and in human social endeavors. As an educator, I try (or rather USED … Continue reading Why Simplify and not Forgive
Last night, I spend an hour and a half playing a game called Jelly Splash on my cell phone. I played from when the kids went to bed until my phone battery died. And, for an hour and a half, I cursed that game for clearly cheating me by not acting in the ways I … Continue reading Why I Have(n’t) the Time to Blog
So, as is custom, I am posting my once-yearly blog on the first day of the fall term in hopes that I will, you know, blog more than once a year. I am certain that, had I a magic 8-ball, it would read “Outlook not so good.” But still. Here it is. So, this fall, … Continue reading Introducing Online Writing Instruction
My M.A. in Writing and Ph.D. in Comp/Rhet required six rhetoric classes (classical rhetoric, history of rhetoric, medieval rhetoric, 19th century rhetoric, modern rhetoric, contemporary rhetoric). Because I assumed I would always teach at an institution that was primarily undergraduate as more of a composition scholar than a rhetorician, the study of rhetoric for me … Continue reading Reconstructing Rhetoric
This morning, I read the NY Times article The Year of the MOOC. The title is interesting. One year. “I like to call this the year of disruption,” says Anant Agarwal, president of edX, “and the year is not over yet.” The discussion about MOOCs, of course, has gone on for much longer than a year … Continue reading MOOCs: Menace or Magic? Both?
“Ideologies exist in language, but they are worked out in practices.” — Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students In our Writing 222: Introduction to Rhetoric class this fall, we started out by playing with the terms “ideology,” “commonplace,” and “truth/Truth” (through the lenses of the Platonists and Sophists). For those not familiar with these terms, Plato … Continue reading Some Thoughts on Opinion and Individuality
Summer is the only time that I really get to do two things that I year to do muchly all year: grow food and turn that food into more elaborate other foods. Sure, I cook in the winter, but my school schedule leaves much to be desired in the “leisurely home cooking department.” A unique … Continue reading The Tomato Jungle
Last week, I had the amazing opportunity to work in a collaborative partnership with NOAA, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla, and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to do some filming for a grant project sponsored by NOAA. One of my students, whose blog is here, did the actual filming, and I did … Continue reading Sinuosity