"The Known World" by Edward P. Jones

Our book club is reading The Known World by Edward P. Jones. He was one of four authors in last February's Winter with the Writers at Rollins College. I've seen the video of that hour-long interview with our writer in residence, Connie May Fowler.

Here are a few more interviews with Jones or critical reviews, culled from the many websites on the internet. Some are written reviews, others written transcripts of interviews, and still others are audio files.

Jeffrey Brown’s interview (written transcript) from PBS’ The News Hour, 9.19.03
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec03/jones_9-19.html.old#

Audio file of WHYY’s Fresh Air’s 20-minute interview w/Jones.
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=11-Nov-03

NPR’s Morning Edition interview w/Jones, 10.28.03
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1476600

Ron Charles’ review in the Christian Science Monitor 8.14.03
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0814/p16s02-bogn.html

Stephen Deusner’s review on PopMatters.com
http://www.popmatters.com/books/reviews/k/known-world.shtml

OTHER INFO not directly related to the book.

Free Blacks in the Antebellum Period, from the African American Odyssey website
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart2.html (remember to click to see the second part)


Talk of the Nation’s 45-minute audio file titled Teaching Slavery, with guests listed below:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=995144
Spencer Crew
*Wrote the Introduction to the companion book to HBO's Unchained Memories
*Executive Director of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (opening Summer 2004)

Stephanie Camp
*Assistant Professor: African-American, History of Slavery, American South, University of Washington, Seattle.
*Teaching an American Slavery course in Spring *Involved with Teachers as Scholars and Diversity teaching workshops, which teach other educators about slavery.

Michelle Evans
*Co-Author of the Follow the North Star Program
*Associate Director for Interpetation at Connor Prairie Living Museum, Indianapolis, Ind.

David Ould
*Deputy Director, Anti-Slavery International

learning styles; how we process information

The word of the week is "processing."

My tutor staff meeting this week was devoted to understanding more about how to help students with learning disabilities. I've found that understanding our own learning strengths and challenges makes us better able to help someone with a different learning profile. So this meeting was a vehicle to learn more about our own learning styles first, then to look at those with even greater challenges. Two more quick assessments on the internet expand the information we learned from the VARK (Visual, Aural, Read-write, Kinesthestic) that we all did in crash training (http://www.vark-learn.com):

The first is the Hemispheric Dominance Inventory, a 20-question, scored-immediately test that will tell you if your left or right brain dominates how you process information.

http://www.web-us.com/brain/braindominance.htm

Be sure to click on the link at the bottom of your results page to read more about their six types of cognitive processing: Linear vs. Holistic; Logical vs. Intuitive; Sequential vs. Random; Verbal vs. Nonverbal; Symbolic vs. Concrete; and Reality-based vs. Fantasy-oriented.

Find yourself in there. I came out slightly right-brained in this assessment, but reading the characteristics of these 6 processing types, I saw my own predelictions more clearly. Take random vs. sequential processing: I am quite sequential in thinking about what the component steps of a process are, what must be done first before something else can happen. I keep those steps in mind when doing projects. But I just love being random, being spontaneous, multi-tasking away. I love Saturdays and Sundays where I have the time to drift from this to that. And in my fifth decade, I know now to start on projects earlier so I can just devote an hour or two or even just fifteen minutes to something and have the freedom to move on the something else, knowing that I can continue that first project the next day or later in the afternoon and not get in trouble with the final deadline. My process takes a long time. So if I don't start early, I'm screwed.

In our staff meeting the message I got from the tutors (and I agreed) was that the assessment for this one was frustrating and seemed simplistic (Which side of the movie theater do you sit on, right or left?) but that the explanation of the 6 processes was great.

If you're game for another one, try this one: Brainworks, on the MindMedia website:
http://www.mindmedia.com/brainworks/profiler

Through a series of 20 questions (each w/three possible answers, not two), this Brainworks assessment categorizes you in both your right/left brain usage and your reliance on either visual or auditory processing. It has no explanations at the end, although you can go back and review your answers, to see how your choice and the other choices tend to classify your thinking process. Some of the questions are so weird you wonder how they help understand our ways of thinking. But the final analysis you get (starting with your % of R/L brain and auditory/visual tendencies) is right on. If you take the assessment more than once, you'll see different questions, some more visual and some more word-based, asking for comparisons of two words. There must be a bank of questions.

I'm curious to see what you all noticed when doing these two and reading the explanations.

baba's & susie's & charlie's extras on their way to Kerry's

Cleaning out my kitchen cabinets looking for things I haven't used in a year or two or five, finding boxes I packed from Mom's (Baba's) house in SC especially for Kerry and Alex when they set up their own working kitchens. Realizing how Baba would love knowing that Kerry in Sarasota is using her things in his new abode. Warm fuzzies inside. Yay.

kerry rock and friends' sewers of babel.com

Son Kerry and friends have a dot-com website called the Sewers of Babel. Perhaps the name came from the online journal The Tower of Babel? The contributors, mostly all New College of Florida students and alums, gather news and literature from all over the world. I love the index on the right side of the screen, giving the reader the ability to search for types of posts by each of contributor; in the footer a click makes the site one contributor's alone, as in The Sewers of Babel-Kerinth.
Kerry's (Kerinth's) posts are mostly literary, with an occasional Bush-lambast and kitty-cat caper.