Sierra DeMulder and her poetry have been a part of my life since I was in high school. I discovered her work on YouTube when I joined the speech team and was introduced to the world of slam poetry. I tried to memorize her poems and perform them for my friends, even performing her piece, “The Tampon Poem,” for a group project in my sophomore English class. I was so lucky to be able to attend Slam Poetry Summer Camp in 2015 and 2016, where I got to learn from Sierra and other talented poets for a whole week! Those two weeks were very much life changing for me and helped me find my voice. I left those weeks feeling powerful, capable, and heard, supported by a community of people who showed so much love. Sierra was so generous with her encouragement, affirmations, and knowledge. Sierra DeMulder is one of my favorite poets ever. She knows how to break your heart and put it back together again in a single poem. Her voice is gentle but strong and welcoming. She can capture the tiniest of mom...

Hastings College's Director of Advising asked if we wanted to create a short promo video about our department for incoming first-year students. LOL! You bet we do.

The Iliad may be almost 3,000 years old, but it can still captivate an audience.  That was the case this Spring in ENGL 211 Ancient Literature, which focused on the topic of Troy. In addition to Homer's Iliad (c. 8th century BCE), which covers a few weeks near the end of the famous Trojan War, we read plays by three different authors (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides) from 5th century BCE Athens, and Quintus of Smyrna's Posthomerica (c. 4th century CE), an epic poem that picks up where the Iliad leaves off. Our goal was to understand how an author's historical and cultural contexts affect their telling of a story.            We learned about the contested history of Troy (did it actually exist?) and how the Athenians' experiments in democracy influenced playwrights' explorations of the story of the Trojan War. We debated whether the Iliad is a stitched-together collection of oral stories or a clearly plotted narrative poem, and whether th...

I’ve worked as an after school lead teacher at a low income elementary school since coming to college. My podcast emphasizes more of the experiences I’ve had while working there, however, I wanted to specify the exact instances where socioeconomic status impacted the lives of Hastings elementary students. In addition, I hope this blog acts as a call to the Hastings community to fight for more funding, better education, and fewer students left behind.  I remember interviewing for the position and my (now) supervisors telling me that Lincoln elementary had the highest rates of free and reduced lunches. The students struggled with poverty, mental health, and behavior issues. It was nerve-racking to say the least- especially as someone who’s only real job experience was babysitting. And my first day was a complete disaster. Kids were jumping off of tables, punching other students, screaming cuss words at various teachers, and tearing the decorations off the walls. It was my first perc...

Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images. “Guilty Pleasures” by Laura Miller, August 2019. Int. Eight years ago when I was writing Harry Potter fanfiction (because a 12 year old can write better than a TERF), Serial took the podcast world by storm with the idea that they will tell one story — a true story — over the course of a season .   While it wasn’t the first true crime podcast, their examination of a murder that occurred before I was born introduced many to the genre, and with Adnan Syed’s conviction being vacated on September 20th, 2022, more have witnessed the impact of true crime. But as we all know, eyewitness testimony isn’t reliable…which means we must ask, does this slay? To translate for those among us who aren’t Gen Z, is this ethical? This genre also exists in formats other than podcasts. Please tell me I’m not the only one addicted to Investigation Discovery documentaries…if only true crime trivia was a major! I take comfort in the fact that Ch...

Accessible Design  About According to  OurHC  , Accessible design, sometimes called universal design, is an approach to designing that pays special attention to accessibility for everyone. the point of accessible design is to present information clearly and thoughtfully to be inclusive and non-stigmatizing. The Three key Factors  Text When designing text for documents. the most important feature should be legibility. Text includes font, size, and spacing to name a few.  A good example would be:  For text to be legible it is important to consider font, spacing, size, style, and contrast.  A bad example would be:  For text to be legible it is important to consider font, spacing, size, style, and contrast.  Organization The visual organization of a document is an important feature in comprehension. Paragraphs, Columns, White Space, Images and their placement are all important factors of organization.  Web/ Digital Either when creating origi...

WRITING - Through the Ages  Chloe Tiell   Background      I took an anthropology class my senior year of high school and I still believe that it was one the best courses of my high school career. My teacher loved to analyze how the modern day human race is actually regressing rather than progressing. He said that our reliance on technology will eventually lead us to a stopping point in human development.      It was a lot of information to take in as an eighteen year old but continues to be a foundational learning experience that I want to incorporate among my own classroom one day. When given the opportunity to create an informative brochure, I jumped on the topic of writing tools throughout history. I figured it would be a great topic that captures of the essence of humanity as well as the concept of language and communication.  Sheong. "The History of Writing Tools" Here's a little video to help you get started!  Communicati...