John Green CrashCourse YouTube Videos

John Green, popular YA author of The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska, has a secret YouTube vlogging persona on the Crash Course YouTube channel!

Did you find him? I hope so because it really wasn't that secret...perhaps just relatively unknown, at least around here. (He has over 3.5 million followers!)

If you took a moment to visit his YouTube channel, you saw a sampling of Crash Course's almost 450 educational videos. Started by John and his brother Hank, the Crash Course channel offers free (and might I add, entertaining) 10-15 minute videos covering all sorts of content. Currently, 24 of those videos are specifically connected to commonly taught high school literature. The literature playlist starts with:

And then it moves on to:
Of Pentameter & Bear Baiting - R&J Part 1
Love or Lust? - R&J Part 2
Like Pale Gold - The Great Gatsby Part 1
Was Gatsby Great - The Great Gatsby Part 2
Language, Voice, and Holden Caulfield - The Catcher in the Rye Part 1
Holden, JD, and the Red Cap - The Catcher in the Rye Part 2
Before I Got My Eye Put Out - The Poetry of Emily Dickinson
A Long and Difficult Journey, or The Odyssey
Fate, Family, and Oedipus Rex
Ghosts, Murder, and More Murder - Hamlet Part 1
Ophelia, Gertrude, and Regicide - Hamlet Part 2
Don't Reanimate Corpses! - Frankenstein Part 1
Frankenstein Part 2
Reader, it's Jane Eyre
If One Finger Brought Oil - Things Fall Apart Part 1
Things Fall Apart Part 2
To Kill a Mockingbird Part 1
Race, Class, and Gender in To Kill a Mockingbird Part 2
Aliens, Time Travel, and Dresden - Slaughterhouse Five Part 1
PTSD and Alien Abduction - Slaughterhouse Five Part 2
Slavery, Ghosts, and Beloved
Langston Hughes & the Harlem Renaissance
The Poetry of Sylvia Plath

Beyond the literature playlist, however, are many other videos that could be connected to the literature in our classrooms. For example, the US History Playlist contains 48 videos that could help set the stage for texts studied in American Lit. There are also Psychology and World History Playlists that could connect. View all of the Crash Course playlists here.

While these videos were not originally intended for the classroom, the Green brothers are very encouraging of teachers using the videos. I could see the videos working in many classrooms, or as part of a Blendspace activity, or as an informational text/video to be analyzed, or...

Lakota Emergence Online Exhibit

"That night, they dreamt of unknown landscapes..."

Mixed Media by Michael Two Bulls, Oglala Sioux Tribe

CAIRNS (the Center for American Indian Research and Native Studies) recently published an online exhibit titled Lakota Emergence. The main feature of this exhibit is a collection of vignettes that revolve around the Lakota emergence narrative, "How the Lakota Came Upon the World." The short narrative is divided into 16 pieces, each of which is paired with practical and historical Lakota museum objects, and an original piece by a modern Lakota artist who "creatively interpret[s] the passages and museum objects from a contemporary Lakota point of view." The culmination is a vignette that reveals a portion of the emergence narrative through not only word, but also artifact and art. Together, history and passion weave the narrative.

As part of the online exhibit, CAIRNS has also provided a number of resources for educators and students. Each vignette is accompanied by the digital version of a museum plaque; the artist is introduced, the artwork is described, and the historical significance of the objects is explained. Also woven into the vignettes is a mini-lesson on counting from one to 16 in Lakota. Beyond the vignettes, CAIRNS provides both a background and a foreground. The background documents set the stage by helping readers understand the spirits of the underworld and the Pta people (the Lakota underworld ancestors). The foreground documents provide readers with a brief history of the Oceti Sakowin (Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota), focusing on the Titonwan (Lakota) nation.

Overall, it looks to be an excellent resource for many classrooms, particularly for those who are looking to add diversity to the curriculum or to add more depth to the Oceti Sakowin components of the curriculum.

John T. Price at Augustana!

Are you a fan of David Sedaris or Annie Dillard? Maybe both? If so, you should make plans to hang out at Augustana's Kresge Recital Hall on Tuesday, September 29. Why? Because John T. Price will be there and, well, I can't say it any better than The Iowan:

“If David Sedaris and Annie Dillard had a literary love child and raised him in Iowa, he would write like this.” — The Iowan

Here's what you need to know:

John T. Price

Tuesday, Sept. 29

7:30 p.m.

Kresge Recital Hall

Tickets are available at the door. General admission is $5; children and Augustana students are free. (I wonder if I can still use my Augustana College ID?)

For more information, visit the ALA website or call the Mikkelsen Library at 605.274.4921.

A Juicy Bestseller

Ever thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter as a juicy bestseller? That is one take on how the public might have perceived it back when it was published in 1850. Whether you teach the book or read it (and loved/hated it) back in high school, mental_floss has gathered 10 interesting tidbits to recognize The Scarlet Letter's 165th birthday. Go celebrate the birth of this juicy novel!

Native American Authors at SD Festival of Books (American Lit Teachers!!)

The SD Festival of Books is approaching. There is quite of bit of information on their website. I also highly encourage you to peruse the presenter list as there may be an author or two applicable to your classroom. At first I was going to pick out a few names to highlight, but my list kept growing! A handful of Native American authors (most of whom are local SD authors) will be presenting at events this year. Click on their names to learn more about each author.

Joseph Bruchac

Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (Crow Creek Sioux Tribe)

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve (Rosebud Sioux Tribe)

Kevin Locke (Hunkpapa - Lakota)

Gwen Westerman (Sisseton Wahpeton - Dakota)