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Best Books & Fabulous Films

“When you spot your flower, you can’t let anything get in your way”: Adaptation (2002)

By Kai-Arne Zimny

Adap­ta­tion is an oldie but good­ie with an excel­lent cast of char­ac­ters. Screen­writer Char­lie Kauf­man (Nico­las Cage) is sup­posed to write a movie adap­ta­tion of Susan Orlean’s (Meryl Streep) non-fic­tion book, The Orchid Thief. The empha­sis is on ‘sup­posed to’ because he doesn’t.

We accom­pa­ny Char­lie try­ing to over­come his severe writer’s block by pur­su­ing his work with­out a plan. In the process, we wit­ness his soul-crush­ing ram­pages of self-loathing, short moments of seem­ing progress, and trag­i­cal­ly unful­filled desires. All the while, Charlie’s much more light­heart­ed twin broth­er Don­ald (Nico­las Cage in a dou­ble role) naive­ly pur­sues his own screen­play endeav­ors. Also, the audi­ence dives into the book along with Char­lie and get a glimpse into the life of orchid thief and breed­er John Laroche (Chris Coop­er). Ini­tial­ly, the film is noth­ing but bizarre; how­ev­er, grad­u­al­ly it becomes inspir­ing and holds quite a few sur­pris­es for unsus­pect­ing viewers.
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Teaching Tools

Connect-the-Cards: Making Academia Exciting while Fostering Critical Thinking Skills and Meaningful Conversation

By Sabrina Völz

Ques­tion and answer. Ques­tion and answer. Ques­tion and answer. And then silence. Last­ing silence. It hap­pens to the best of us. The rou­tine of work­ing with texts can be an excru­ci­at­ing expe­ri­ence for both learn­er and instruc­tor. But it doesn’t have to be.

A while back I came across a must-do activ­i­ty that works in a vari­ety of edu­ca­tion­al set­tings from mid­dle schools to under­grad­u­ate sem­i­nars. Con­nect-the-cards may have a painful­ly dull name, but this text-based exer­cise can lead to deep learn­ing and engage stu­dents so much so that they lose track of time and leave their smart­phones in their pock­et. So if you want to know how con­nect-the-cards works, you are only one click away.

Cred­it: Based on Jeff Zwiers and Marie Crawford’s exer­cise “Connect-the-Cards”in Aca­d­e­m­ic Con­ver­sa­tions: Class­room Talk That Fos­ters Crit­i­cal Think­ing and Con­tent Under­stand­ing, Port­land: Sten­house Pub­lish­ers, 2011. 106–107.

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Access America

1550 San Remo Drive

By Maria Moss

This almost Bauhaus-style vil­la, over­look­ing the Pacif­ic Ocean, is locat­ed in beau­ti­ful Pacif­ic Pal­isades, just off Sun­set Blvd. In 2016, it went up for sale – for a measly $16,000,000. And the Ger­man gov­ern­ment not only went right ahead and bought it, but also ren­o­vat­ed it for anoth­er $4,000,000. Now why would Ger­many buy real estate in Los Ange­les? Read more »

Teaching Tools

“No, It’s Not Sissy Ball” – In Defense of Soccer

By Sabrina Völz

Cred­it: Steven Depolo

As most of you have prob­a­bly noticed, the Unit­ed States is not among the coun­tries play­ing in the World Cup for the first time in 32 years. There is cer­tain­ly a pletho­ra of expla­na­tions – or excus­es – cir­cu­lat­ing that revolve around the ques­tion why (men’s) soc­cer isn’t as pop­u­lar as oth­er sports in the U.S. Watch a few of the YouTube videos on the sub­ject with your class and have learn­ers col­lect the argu­ments and excus­es. A num­ber of them are just plain sil­ly, so divide the stu­dents in groups and have them see who can give with the best or wit­ti­est counter argu­ments. Here’s my list:
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Best Books & Fabulous Films

Living by the Watch: Stranger Than Fiction

By Kai-Arne Zimny

Pho­to Cred­it: miracc

Yes, ok. So the film is twelve years old? It’s fun­ny and clever, and it fea­tures some of the best actors and actress­es Hol­ly­wood has to offer. (How often do you get to see Emma Thomp­son, Dustin Hoff­man, Mag­gie Gyl­len­hal, and Queen Lat­i­fah in one sin­gle movie?) In short: Stranger Than Fic­tion is a clas­sic. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, it’s a clas­sic not many peo­ple know. Well, we’re going to change this now.

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