Men’s Book Club Summer Reading List

This post is mostly for my readers who are men in the Twin Cities, but if you’re having fun with a book club where you live, dear reader, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section. For the last three months, I’ve been leading a new men’s book club at my local church … Read more

And the winner of the “Dead of Winter” contest is…

Ryan, a.k.a. frombytherivertrash! Congratulations to Ryan for winning our “Dead of Winter” contest. You can read his winning entry here. Ryan will receive a copy of the movie tie-in cover edition of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and fits-right-in-your-backpocket edition of To Build a Fire and Other Stories by Jack London. Thanks to everyone … Read more

Our “Dead of Winter” contest is almost over

Just a mid-week reminder of our latest contest… If you haven’t been entering the Scrawlers “Dead of Winter” contest this week, you still have a few days to post your stories and comments before the 11:59pm deadline this Friday night. We’re giving away a copy of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer and To Build … Read more

Choosing a novel to teach II.

I’ve solved my dilemma from last week, mostly due to a deadline. Book orders were due last Friday, and I’ve decided to go with Into the Wild. The parallels between the researched, journalistic approach Krakauer takes is simply too similar to the explanatory synthesis the students will be writing earlier in the semester to pass … Read more

Choosing a novel to teach.

I plan to teach a novel in my Introduction to Composition section next semester as the basis for a literary analysis essay. My plan is to read and discuss a novel as a class to the point that students should have so much information at their fingertips, writing a literary analysis essay should be a … Read more