On Teaching And Being A Collegial Academic

I have been enjoying the posts from two academic blogs lately.

Natalia at Works Cited has recently written a great -- I mean, great -- series of posts on something most of us don't necessarily get a lot of guidance on as grad students: receiving feedback on your writing and giving feedback to others. One of the things I particularly like is the tone. The whole series has an advice column feel to it, but nothing like Dear Abby; it's more like a Chronicle for Higher Ed column but more specific and less stress-inducing. You get the sense that the pearls of wisdom she imparts are the contemplations of an intelligent and very perceptive mind. Honestly, if I had read her posts on how to respond to other people's writing years ago instead of just last month, I could have saved myself some *facepalm* moments that have had some ramifications to my budding academic career. There are six (relatively short) posts in all, so go through and read them as well as the other fascinating stuff she writes on.

Then there is ladysquires at Shitty First Drafts (great blog name!) who has been focusing on teaching in interesting, practical, and thoughtful ways. (The posts I just linked to have all three qualities, by the way, not just the one they're attached to.) She also writes a regular educational post on logical fallacies every Friday -- love them!

PLUS, both bloggers are feminists and critically aware of race. (I love this post on the recent Arizona craziness over immigration from ladysquires.) The world needs more of that.