We have discussed that column writers can challenge and provoke readers. This is the case with a recent column by Deborah Hill Cone which discusses the death of Charlotte Dawson. Her column, ‘It wasn’t just depression that claimed Charlotte’ has upset a number of readers as you will see if you read the comments. You can read the column and the comments here.
I will add regular bog posts to keep you up-to-date with what is happening in the classroom and these posts will be tweeted. If you are not familiar with Twitter it is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read “tweets”, which are text messages limited to 140 characters. You can follow me on Twitter to get updates.
As you can see by the screenshot I have now sent 666 tweets … yikes!
In this column Joe Bennett reflects on the death of an old friend and then moves to a wider issue. Bennett makes us consider whether present laws regarding assisted suicide for the terminally ill are right. Read the whole column here.
I was going to write about the arrest of Justin Bieber. But I’ve just learned how a friend and former teacher died, and Bieber has shrunk from view.
Valerie taught me at university 35 years ago. I was studying English, though studying may be overstating it. In my first week I went to five lectures, but in the next three years I went to none. So my only appointment in any given week was an hour with my academic supervisor.
I had several of these in my first two terms. There was a nervous medievalist in slip-on shoes; a renaissance scholar who burned incense in her room; an idle modernist who purported to teach critical theory but who rarely read a book and never read my essays. I didn’t get on with any of them, and they, perhaps more pertinently, did not get on with me.
In my third term I was farmed out to Valerie. We got on so well that she remained my supervisor for the next two years and a friend for the next 30.
Last week we talked about a number of topics for columns and one that we discussed in some depth could come under the general heading of women’s rights. Over at Caitlin Moran’s, “How to be a woman” website there are several guest posts that you may like to read that focus on women.
We have kicked off the year with a bit of writing. I have had a look at your first attempts at writing a column and I thought you might like a few ideas from a regular column writer to get a few tips. Let Lucy Mangan at Stylist tell you how to be a columnist:
What makes a good column? I feel I should warn you before we set out that if I actually had a foolproof, definitive answer to this question, I would not be writing this article. I would be kicking back with a margarita, served by a lightly-bronzed Jon Hamm lookalike somewhere deep in the Cayman Islands, while my minions bottled, sold and collected the vast streams of profits generated by the international sale of my precious, precious secret.
Nevertheless, there are certain suggestions I can offer, painstakingly gleaned from the six years I have spent as a columnist on the Guardian newspaper, though I again must undermine myself by saying that although I try and adhere to them at all times, I frequently fail and frequently dismally so.
Read the rest here.
scholarship@cc 