In-Class Assignment: Rethinking Failure

When I told my students that we were going to spend the class period talking about failure, they immediately started responding with tried and true platitudes. "Failure is not an option!" Their enthusiasm for college success is bolstered by such claims.

The truth though? Failure is not only an option, but often a likelihood.

Reading: J.K. Rowling's Secret Identity Teaches Us About Voice

Recently, famed author J. K. Rowling was revealed to be the truth author behind the mystery novel The Cuckoo's Calling, which she penned under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith.

A post from Time allows a linguistic analyst the opportunity to explain how researchers uncovered Rowling's true identity, and it gives us an opportunity to talk about voice and style.

Writing News Links

Lots of reading here in an archive on The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/debates/education

The link above will take you to a series of articles about teaching writing, published on The Atlantic Online in September and October 2012. Some of the entries include:

A High Tech Solution to the Writing Crisis

What Poetry Teaches Us About the Power of Persuasion

What Aristotle and Stephen Colbert Have in Common

The Best Writing Teachers are Writers Themselves