On the Jersey Shore

The skies were bright blue and the sun blazing, but there was a steady breeze off the water – at times you almost felt you needed a sweater.  We walked on the boardwalk in Asbury Park and Ocean Grove, lay on the sand until someone told us we needed a pass, drank coffee in an […]

At the 9/11 Memorial

Yesterday we toured the  9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan.  The crowds were immense – with endless, snaking lines, a constant babel of tongues, and the uncomfortable press of flesh while we waited to enter.  And yet once inside, the crowds suddenly thinned, and you found yourself among trees and water and marble, with space to […]

Re-designing English 350

One of my goals this summer is to redesign English 350 for fall 2013.  The course is Intermediate Expository Writing, subtitled Rhetorics of Place.  It’s taken mainly by junior and senior English majors at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  I want to better incorporate multimedia and digital composing in the course projects and thus better […]