McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview.

All semester I've been chairing a committee to review and revise our first-year curriculum. One big part of most universities' first-year curricula is, of course, some kind of expository writing course. Maybe this one?

ENG 371WR:
Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era
M-W-F: 11:00 a.m.–12:15 p.m.
Instructor: Robert Lanham

Course Description

As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.

truly, read the rest. I find myself guilty of several days on the syllabus...

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Internet-Age Writing Syllabus and Course Overview.

Posted using ShareThis and first seen, of course, at The Miss Rumphius Effect
(I'm sending you to her main page rather than to this specific link because I want you to see all the fabulous poetry-makers she's featuring this month. It's a treasure trove over there, really!)

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Classic Nursery Rhymes, Updated and Revamped for the Recession, as Told to Me by My Father.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Classic Nursery Rhymes, Updated and Revamped for the Recession, as Told to Me by My Father.

Try this one, for starters:

Humpty Dumpty

Sure, in a perfect world, we'd all help put Humpty Dumpty back together, whether we were on the king's payroll or not. There's no question about that. But the world isn't lilacs and lollipops anymore, kid. I can barely afford all your mother's pill ... pillows, all the pillows she insists on sleeping with at night.
[it goes on...]

Posted using ShareThis
first seen at The Miss Rumphius Effect

Back to School

Tricia over at the Miss Rumphius Effect posted a link to this funny Onion back-to-school story: Six-Year-Old Stares Down Bottomless Abyss of Formal Schooling. This one depicts the existential tragedy of hours spent in classrooms. But for those of us teaching college, there's another one that may elicit a rueful giggle: First Night of Freedom Spent Alone in Dorm Room. Read it and weep.