Writing and literature podcasts

The world is too much with us

[12 mins] William Wordsworth's sonnet, romanticism, anaphora, and pathos. 

Alex+Ada introduction

[20 mins] Alex+Ada (Volume 1) - I discuss the plot of this graphic novel, some of the visuals, and topics that are relevant to us, including loneliness, connection, romance, and sentience.

How to find sources - newspaper articles and subject guides

For Seneca COM students - How to find sources - newspaper articles and subject guides [10 mins]

What is a good source? What is the reliability of a source?

Have you ever had to select sources for a research project? How do you evaluate a source? Use the CRAP test... [15 mins]

Who gets the milk in your household?

[5 mins] Who gets the milk in your household? In this podcast I talk about gender issues and the preview process in reading. When we preview an article, we look at the title and anything else obvious, and then stop to think about what the article might be about. This can be a pretty time consuming approach. I like to actually look at the first few sentences of the article and then pause and consider what it will be about.

Alex + Ada - Essay topic outline

[2 mins] Questions to consider for the essay topics - sample approaches - The characters in Alex + Ada  help us better understand what it means to be a compassionate human.

Empathy - essay outline - EAC 234

[3 mins] - EAC 234 Essay topic 1 - Here are is one approach that is possible for this essay topic, The characters in Do androids dream of electric sheep help us better understand the definition of empathy. I outline one approach to the body paragraphs you might use.

Alex + Ada - 1

[3 mins] The cover of the book Alex + Ada shows Ada in a white dress and a white veil. Her veil has a robot insignia on it, and we cannot see her face. In this podcast I'll briefly discuss this image and some of the other representations of her in the graphic novel.

A window onto the world - analyzing fiction

[5 mins] What is literary analysis? This podcast is a bit of a review because, judging from some of the first essays, many of you are new to the idea of analyzing fiction in an essay.

What does it mean to analyze literature? What are we doing when we write an essay about a graphic novel, a poem, or a piece of music? What's the point and what do you want to try to say in such an essay?

Pathos in an image of Bag End (from The Hobbit!)

(3 mins) What do you think of when you imagine the fantasy world of Bag End, created by J R R Tolkien in his world of Middle Earth?  The emotions of pathos are the topic of this lecture.
Pathos is evoked in the reader by mental images that are created by words. Pathos is also evoked by seeing actual images. Therefore you are often looking for pathos in a reading by looking for language that describes an image. Then you need to say what emotion the reader feels when reading this language of imagery. [...Transcript in course materials.]