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"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." (Exodus 20:16, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)

This short, but poignant film is a complicated story about . . .

That's revolution, not "corn."

The next in our series of Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz documentaries examines the after-effects of revolution, particularly the people themselves. While Generation '89 used this "then and now" model for the details of one event in Polish history, this films looks at a much broader spectrum. This time, Zmarz-Koczanowicz looks at many different revolutions from many different dates in several European nations . . .

The 44 minute documentary from 2002 Siłaczka [The Strongwoman] by Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz reports the story of Justyna, a young girl who was a champion weightlifter in Poland, who brought charges of alleged sexual abuse committed on her and her sister Aneta by their trainer, an older man and respected member of the community. A young journalist learns about the scandal in Malbork and goes to investigate why justice wasn't served. What she discovers is something neither she nor the viewer are likely to suspect. The neighborhood, it seems, decided to support the alleged molester (even though all of the weighlifter's friends attested to the journalist that "Justyna's story was true) . . .

Today I screened the first part of a documentary film called Pokołenie '89 by director Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz. This comprehensive exposé provided a series of concise vignettes about the Independent Student Union [in Polish, "NZS"] participants who, in the late '80s, actively opposed the Communist government in Warszawa, Poland. Says the Visegrad Documentary Library:

The portrait of the first generation of Poles who reached adulthood after 1989, the turning point for the political transformation in Poland. The protagonists are middle-class people from Warsaw.

I will show the conclusion in the following class meeting. Granted, this material is hardcore and radically different from anything I've shown thus far. For example, the production is subtitled. So, for several at least, this is the first opportunity some of the students have had to literally "read" a film as a text. My decision to immerse them . . .

Dear Convention-Defying Instructors,

When hurtful stereotypes and ignorant prejudices collide, a major accident is bound to ensue. Mao once said, "without destruction there can be no construction." I interpret this to mean that in order to construct (or re-construct), a positive deconstruction is sometimes necessary first . Crash is layered enough to do that and much more. If you have a class of top-level English students that seem open to receiving pop-cultural topics for writing and discussion subject-matter, you might have some success with this piece.

The film itself is a full two hours long and it took two complete class periods to show this film in its entirety to my class. Should you decide to screen this film, your students should be forewarned: It's certainly violent, graphic and has something to offend almost everyone. But, at the same time, some really important social issues are first toyed with and then brought to the surface. The narrative results in an amazing chain-reaction of hatred, prejudice and bigotry. Does hate fuel the uninformed and misguided opinions or do uninformed and misguided opinions inform the hate? In the third class period, I conducted a . . .

Scholars,

As several of you might know, I lived as an expatriate for many years overseas, primarily in post-Communist Europe, teaching, doing research and operating new businesses after the Berlin Wall came down in East Germany.

I made many good friends there including Mr. Bernard Offen - a survivor of the Holocaust - who has dedicated much of his life to giving, sharing, educating and promoting peace. I had the opportunity to learn a lot from Bernard and . . .

Katrina. A name many will likely never forget, no matter how much they'd like to.

The damage she caused was absolutely devastating, her aftereffects heartbreaking and the embarrassing bureaucratic response to her a national tragedy. These points are not the subject for this post. Instead, I ask you to consider the subject of "process" on the subject of this catastrophe.

On the surface, process is only a word, like procedure, that we use everyday in a rather benign way. In theoretical terms, it is nothing more than a signifier that signifies "an action, or a series of actions or events, progress [or] course" (OED). The process of getting from here to there, from this state of affairs to that. As a verb, we "process" our feelings about things and even process our food. As writers, can we . . .

"The Stone Age was marked by man's clever use of crude tools; the information age, to date, has been marked by man's crude use of clever tools." ~ Source Unknown

I've been using the instructional videos from this production company, the Standard Deviants, for some time now. They also have a series on grammar and punctuation in a similar format but it's the one on writing for college that I generally try to incorporate somewhere in my writing courses near the beginning of the semester. The overall success of this series has . . .

For Monday's English composition class, I used this educational video as part of my daily lesson plan:

English Composition: Writing for an Audience. Program 2. "Finding Something To Say." Nar. Peter Berkow. Prod. Peter Berkow and Anita Berkow. Annenberg/CPB, Annenberg Foundation-Corporation for Public Broadcasting. PBS. 30 minutes. 2000.

For Friday's English composition class, I used the following production as part of the lesson:

English Composition: Writing for an Audience. Program 1. "School Writing / Real World." Nar. Peter Berkow. Prod. Peter Berkow and Anita Berkow. Annenberg/CPB, Annenberg Foundation-Corporation for Public Broadcasting. PBS. 30 minutes. 2000.

I found that . . .

“Vertigo is the conflict between the fear of falling and the desire to fall.” ~ Salman Rushdie

Aggravated Acrophobia, Clinical Depression, and an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder . . .

Today's Film Review courtesy of English-blog contributor Adam Mc.

*Warning: Article may contain spoilers!

The Tooth Fairy

I would like to start off by saying that both of these films were excellent additions to the Hannibal Lector series. They were the only films of the series that I had not seen before and not only did they explain many of the events that take place in the later films, but were also just as entertaining. Whether you're a fan of films with good plot twists and storylines or just a good old fashioned fan of the blood and gore that all of these films have become so famous for, you will definitely enjoy both Man hunter and Red Dragon . . .

Today's Film Review courtesy of English-blog contributor Daniel M.

*Warning: Article may contain spoilers!

The Evolution of Dracula

Count Dracula has gone through many changes since the original publication by Bram Stoker in 1897. Dracula has been depicted in many different views in film and theater. He has gone from a hideous beast, to a suave gentleman, and then as a tired old man. In the 1931 film Dracula, and the 1992 film Bram Stoker’s Dracula the vampire is portrayed in two very different ways. The differences and similarities in the two films are both minor and drastic. At the same time though, the films seem to get much of the same elements across . . .

Wanna Contribute?

Articles, that is, not money. Of course, you can ALWAYS contribute $ by just clicking on any of the ads, but what this entry is all about is your writing contributions.

Are you an aspiring writer? Got tons of good ideas floating around in your head but no where to show them off? Then, . . .