Rothacker Reviews

Angela Maiers: Classroom Habitudes

Classroom Habitude - A combination of habits and attitudes.

In this article, fellow JJL neighbor and author, Angela Maiers, explains six different habitudes that are essential for 21st Century Learning. 

Everyone says imagination is important, but it's something we take away by forcing students to memorize and repeat rather than think and envision.  From a description of the habitude Imagination.

Check out this Mini-Lesson on Imaginative Reading:

Classroom Habitudes - Imaginative Reading

View more documents from angelamaiers.

Pick up a copy of Angel  Pick up a copy of Angela's book Classroom Habitudes today!

Clive Thompson: The Future of Reading

Clive Thompson writes an article in the June 2009, issue of Wired magazine titled, The Future of Reading.  It centers around publishing books online and letting readers take it from there.  I clipped Clive's article, marked it up a tad and provide a link to it and also to Wired's version below.

I cannot imagine that there is a greater book lover on the planet than me.  I love the feel, the smell, the ability to mark up and write in books.  I love the idea of placing books online to be read!  I believe it would enhance my ability to connect with relevant content.  That is, the commentary by others about what they believe to be relevant would greatly help me.

I am an Amazon.com boy.  I love this company!  But for all of the hundreds of books that I've bought from them (I've financed a six inch piece of teak in Jeff's boat), I don't think I've once bought a book based on a customer's review.  (I have been influenced by the "Customers who bought this item also bought...")  And, for one of the three reviews that I wrote, I got spanked by a commenter for preaching.  I have bought quite a few books based on reviews from my colleagues at JJL.  Why?  Because these are folks who I've come to know.  Authors of personal Web sites that I follow, would no doubt make notes on content extracted from online books.  This has the ability to provide a spark to dry Kindling and cause me to visit Amazon once again (you can use this copy Jeff, I'll just need to initial that next piece of teak...)

Good stuff Clive!

Clive clipped by Dave:  Download The_Future_of_Reading

Clive at Wired

Illustration: Michael Bierut/Pentagram; book: Istock Photo

Purple Cows Don't Age

Services that are worth talking about get talked about

Seth Godin wrote this statement in his 2002 book titled Purple Cow. This one sentence is the very essence of the book.  One could design their entire company around this one sentence.  These words of wisdom will never become outdated.  At one point in your life, you must read Seth's book.  Period.

Pic of cow from dcbprime on Flickr

Escape From Cubicle Nation

Escape From Cubicle Nation is your personal key to freedom!  Like a weary soul who scraped, clawed and crawled his way across the desert in search of water, I smoked Pamela Slim's most excellent book in search of liberation.  From the tiny molecule in my soul who is standing atop the mountain screaming "no more bosses!" to my entire and collective soul who is getting dry heaves even thinking about Monday mornings, I simply cannot make a more heart felt and direct recommendation: Buy Pam's book today!

Escape From Cubicle Nation is a treasure and as such, I will dip in and review parts of this book with care and reverence.  I will treat it like a fine wine or a seminal Clint Eastwood classic, to be sipped and reveled upon.

Visit Pam's new format at Escape From Cubicle Nation for more info.

NASA and the Space Pen

Today's story is from Tim Hurson's book Think Better.

NASA discovered that a pen will not work in outer space.  So they gathered teams of mechanical, chemical and hydrodynamic engineers and spent millions of dollars in research.  They finally produced a pen that will work in outer space.

About that time the Soviets encountered the same problem.  Instead of trying to figure out how a pen will work in zero gravity, they asked, "how can we write in zero gravity?"  And then they issued Cosmonauts pencils.

 

Tim refers to our minds following well-worn patterns as the elephant's tether*.  NASA was obviously in a thinking rut. Tim teaches methods to break from ruts and patterns to improve our ability to think and come up with different ideas.

*The elephant's tether - In India, elephant wranglers chained baby elephants to a stake in the ground so that the elephant could not escape.  As the elephant grew older they would simply tethered it with a rope.  It had been deeply ingrained in the elephant's mind that it could not break free from the tether, so it never tried.  That's pretty sick to think that our own thinking could get stuck in ruts like these!

Space Pen from Cairphoto on Flickr

Pencil from Peteryouvelostthenews on Flickr

Feeding Your Muse

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451 and one of the most popular American writers of all time, where do you get your ideas from?

Ray tells us where our muse is in the chapter How to Keep and Feed a Muse, in his book Zen in the Art of Writing.  This one chapter is worth the price of the book.  One place our muse isn't, is out there, floating in the wispy ether of never-never land waiting to be summoned by chance, stance or circumstance.

Ray tells us our muse lies within and can come from two different sources.  One is the life that we've lived.  The other is what we feed ourselves by way of reading.  Ray strongly recommends ingesting poetry, essays and books that cater to our senses.  He says to read material written by authors who write the way that we hope to write.  And also not to feel bad about a diet of comic books, TV shows, plays, magazines and film.  Passion is what pulls this all together.  Passion fueled by curiosity to explore and learn from all of these sources.

Wanted muse from Bayroadphoto/laura on Flickr; Three muse by third.eve on Flickr;

Zen in the Art of Writing is a must read!

Ask Small Questions

Small questions create a mental environment that welcomes unabashed creativity and playfulness.

The above words of wisdom are from Robert Maurer, author of One Small Step Can Change Your Life.  Robert weaves the Japanese philosophy of Kaizen - slow, incremental continuous improvement - into a navigable, sensible way to change your life.

If you need to make a chang in your life, pick up Robert's book today. 

Photo from jhhwild on flickr.

Mark Twain: Write in Your Books

Reading provides far better creative exercise when we make notes as we go

Creative legend Alex Osborn made that observation in his book Wake Up Your Mind.  Alex goes on to say:

In Albert Bigelow Paine's life of Mark Twain the biographer wrote: "On the table by him, and on his bed, and on the billiard-room shelves, he kept books he read most.  All, or nearly all, had annotations-spontaneously uttered marginal notes, title prefatories, or concluding comments.  They were the books he had read again and again, and it was seldom that he had not hand something to say with each fresh reading."

Photo from M. Godek on Flickr

Writing About Your Writing

Writing down your mission turns your vague hopes into language.  By writing about your writing, you learn what you need to learn.

In his book Writing Tools, author Roy Peter Clark, tells his readers how he learned more about reporting and telling stories from a piece titled "Three Little Words," which he wrote for the St. Petersburg Times.  Prior to writing this article, Roy created a mission statement that covered his intent and purpose.

Isabel Joely Black: Writing Coach

What are the qualities of a good writing coach?

• A passion for writing
• An active imagination
• A deep love of writing
• A love of art
• A proven track record
• A degree of sensitivity
• Inspirational
• Creative
• A desire to see others flourish
• Intuitive
• Compassionate

Absolutely.  And Isabel Joely Black is everyone of the above!  These characteristics are clear and evident in her writing and communication. After doing a little research on Joely, it is clear and evident that others feel the same way too. 

Joely Black is an incredibly intuitive and generously supportive writing coach.  The progress I've made with my writing struggles since I've been working with her have been remarkable.  Diane Whiddon-Brown, author of Outdrivingmyheadlights.com

Read more from Diane here.

I was so excited when the opportunity arose to work with Joely as my writing coach.  I was feeling very stuck and uninspired before we began working together.  But she is so excited about writing and the art of living creatively that it is impossible to remain stuck around her for long.  Working with her has helped me give myself permission to relax, and to let go all of the rules I was making up about how writing was "supposed" to be.  Jenny Ryan, author of Using My Powers For Good.

And for good measure visit with Alex Fayle.

Now everything that I've told you about Joely is just there.  It's there in black and white for all to see.  But I need to tell you something else about the girl that is there.  It's something that is not necessarily in black and white.  But when you read her words you can just feel it resonate throughout your body.  Isabel Joely Black is thoughtful.  And if I am looking for a writing coach, that's what I'm looking for first!

By the way, if you are in search of a fantasy novel about a young woman on a journey of self-discovery, bent on learning right from wrong, and set in fantastical world...with an occasional dragon, search no more.  Visit Joely's most excellent work: AMNAR THE AWAKENING.