Six Degrees of Separation
Collaboration, History, Mathematics, probability, slavery
Comments Off
May 182013
Well Kept Secrets in Plain View
History, slavery, Visualization
Comments Off
Mar 252013
Mar 242013
This school year was the second in which I invited students at Rust College (Holly Springs, Mississippi) to participate in the Eaton-Bailey-Williams Freedpeople's Transcription Project. Last year's participants, two in particular, feel like professional, rather than novice, researchers now, and their enthusiasm for the work has been rewarded through the granting of a UNCF Mellon Mays Fellowship. The generous award will provide further training and a stipend that will allow them to spend time on project research that might have been spent on other activities like workstudy.
To Threat the Slaves as Kindly as Their Conduct Will Allow
21st century literacies, culture, History, slavery
Comments Off
Oct 152012
I've just returned to Mississippi from an undergraduate research conference at Southern Arkansas University. I took there two sophomore students enrolled last spring in my Composition and Research course. Both students prepared papers on research that they did for the course and which they have continued to work on long after receiving their grades. Both students made me proud; they were so poised and articulate about their work, meaningful and useful contributions to the Eaton-Bailey-Williams Transcription Project.
Jim Downs’s Sick from Freedom: My Response So Far
History
Comments Off
Jul 122012
Let me say up front that this is not a formal review of Jim Downs's Sick from Freedom, because I am not yet done with the book. I am only in fact on Chapter Five. I should wait to respond until I have completed the book, but I have some thoughts floating around in my head that need to be expressed. But first a quick description of this text, the first third of it anyway.
Eaton-Bailey-Williams Freedpeople’s Transcription Project: an Update
african american, History, slavery
Comments Off
Jun 222012
The initiative known formerly as The Freedpeople's Transcription Project is now the Eaton-Bailey-Williams Freedpeople's Transcription Project. Through the process of transcribing Civil War records related to contraband or refugee camps, these three names of individuals involved in the camps and in reconstructing Memphis and Tennessee following the war emerged. The three represent well the best of what the cruel war accomplished.
May 152012
Who Will Decode Aunt Martha’s Hand: a Crisis of Writing and Reading?
Uncategorized
Comments Off
Apr 272012
Yesterday, I wrote a final exam essay question on the board in three parts: a quote from our course reader, the actual essay question, and instructions for responding. Given the brevity of the essays turned in, I might guess that the students had difficulty generating ideas for writing in an exam situation--even after three good discussions of the material--but what I didn't expect was that the students might have had difficulty reading my handwriting.
Who Will Decode Aunt Martha’s Hand: a Crisis of Writing and Reading?
Uncategorized
Comments Off
Apr 272012
Yesterday, I wrote a final exam essay question on the board in three parts: a quote from our course reader, the actual essay question, and instructions for responding. Given the brevity of the essays turned in, I might guess that the students had difficulty generating ideas for writing in an exam situation--even after three good discussions of the material--but what I didn't expect was that the students might have had difficulty reading my handwriting.
Moving and Maybe Hoarding History
Uncategorized
Comments Off
Feb 202012
