The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury.
As you may have guessed from the emphasis on creative writing in these classes, I am a fan of role-playing. After all, in a story you can be anyone... or anything. This cartoon shows why this is a very valuable life skill to master! The cartoon is about playing Dungeons and Dragons, but I think it works just as well if you readabout dragons too!
"Patient care is more than just healing -- it's building a connection that encompasses mind, body and soul. If you could stand in someone else's shoes . . . hear what they hear. See what they see. Feel what they feel. Would you treat them differently?"
I saw this quote about libraries, so I decided to illustrate it with a picture of the Great Reading Room in Bizzell.
Here is a more complete version of the quote: Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace, and wit, reminders of order, calm, and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep, and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still, and absorbed. – Germaine Greer
I know I am not the only fan of Doctor Who in this class... and I know I'm not the only bookworm! And of course the TARDIS has its own article at Wikipedia.
Innocuous on the outside, bigger on the inside, able to transport you through time and space... OH MY GOD... Every book is a TARDIS!
I thought this was a great graphic about the power of reading, and for a great article about reading as a skill for lifelong learning, see: How to Help Students Develop a Love of Reading by Holly Korbey.
Reading can seriously damage your ignorance.
And here is the same idea in Spanish from a Spanish-language bookstore (thanks to Maria Piret at Twitter):
I thought this video was very funny, and also very thought-provoking. Plus I really like the idea of going "tabless" every once in a while! James Hamblin is an editor at The Atlantic, and you can see his other articles there. His idea for "Tabless Thursday" got written up in Lifehacker: "Save up tasks for Thursdays that need intense focus. Tabless Thursday can be your day to intensely single-task and avoid multiple tabs in your browser. One tab, one task, one day a week. The other six days you can tab to your heart's delight."