{"id":1150,"date":"2017-07-24T12:26:33","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T16:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1150"},"modified":"2017-07-24T12:26:33","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T16:26:33","slug":"monday-missive-july-17-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2017\/07\/24\/monday-missive-july-17-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday Missive – July 17, 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>United We Teach<\/b>\u00a0— Every summer I teach an intensive graduate seminar called Children’s Literature Award Winners in which I cover the most recent winners of some of the major awards in the field of children’s and young adult literature.\u00a0 Among the awards that I regularly cover are the Coretta Scott King Award, which recognizes outstanding children’s books by African Americans, and the Printz Award, which recognizes outstanding books for young adult readers.\u00a0 This year\u00a0March:\u00a0 Book Three\u00a0<\/i>won both of these prestigious awards.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

March:\u00a0 Book Three\u00a0<\/i>is the final work in a trilogy of graphic novels focusing on John Lewis’s role in the Civil Rights Movement during the first half of the 1960s.\u00a0 Co-written by Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell,\u00a0March:\u00a0 Book Three\u00a0<\/i>culminates with the famous march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in March 1965.\u00a0 Lewis led this march as part of a larger campaign to advocate for equal voting rights in the South.\u00a0 This march helped win the necessary support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which President Johnson signed into law on August 6, 1965.\u00a0 One of the final scenes in the book depicts President Johnson giving the pen that he used to sign this legislation to Lewis in recognition of the role the Lewis played in making the Voting Rights Act a reality.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Although\u00a0March:\u00a0 Book Three\u00a0<\/i>can be read on its own, it has a greater impact when it is read in conjunction with the first two books in the trilogy.\u00a0 However, in preparing to teach this summer’s seminar, I kept my focus on the third book since it is the book that won this year’s awards.\u00a0 Luckily for my students and me, Paula Connolly came to the rescue.\u00a0 Paula had already studied the first two books in the trilogy, and this past Friday she gave a guest presentation to my class on these books.\u00a0 During her presentation, she also explained how graphic novels differ from conventional novels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Paula’s presentation underscored for me what I see as one of the great strengths of the English Department.\u00a0 In my nearly 34 years of teaching in this department, I have witnessed countless examples of faculty members supporting each other in the classroom.\u00a0 This support includes giving guest presentations, sharing syllabi, mentoring new faculty members, and exchanging teaching tips.\u00a0 In some cases, this support involves covering classes when faculty members are physically unable to meet their classes.\u00a0 This situation happened to me last semester when I was unexpectedly hospitalized after the electrical side of my heart stopped working properly.\u00a0 Without any advanced notice, Paula stepped in and covered my classes.\u00a0 As a result, not a single one of my class sessions was cancelled during my heart crisis.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By supporting each other in the classroom, we are able to accomplish more than we could if we taught in isolation.\u00a0 In my reading of\u00a0March:\u00a0 Book Three,\u00a0<\/i>I see a similar message.\u00a0 By marching together, John Lewis and the 600 other peaceful demonstrators who set out to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge were able to accomplish much more than they would have if each of them had walked across the bridge alone.<\/p>\n

Kudos<\/b>\u00a0— As you know, I like to use my\u00a0Monday<\/span>\u00a0Missives<\/span>\u00a0to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Andrew Hartley<\/b>‘s\u00a0<\/span>Steeplejack<\/i>\u00a0won the International Thriller Writers’ 2017 Thriller Award in the YA category last Saturday at a gala banquet in New York City.\u00a0 On the same day,\u00a0Steeplejack\u00a0<\/i>also won the North Carolina-based Manly Wade Wellman award for fantasy\/science fiction.<\/p>\n

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Tony Jackson<\/b>\u00a0published an article titled “Imitative Identity, Imitative Art, and\u00a0AI: Artificial Intelligence”<\/i>\u00a0in the June 2017 issue of\u00a0Mosaic<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Sarah Minslow<\/b>\u00a0published an article titled “Forced to Cross Oceans:\u00a0 Displacement in Children’s Literature” in the Spring\/Summer 2017 issue of\u00a0RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal<\/i>.<\/p>\n

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Alan Rauch<\/b>\u00a0published an article titled “Ocean of Whales and Dolphins”\u00a0<\/span><\/span>in the Spring\/Summer 2017 issue of\u00a0RISE: A Children’s Literacy Journal<\/i>.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Angie Williams<\/b>\u00a0was recently received a certificate of recognition “for 30 years of faithful service to the State of North Carolina and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.”
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Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 John Lewis, the co-author of\u00a0March: Book Three,\u00a0<\/i>lives in Atlanta, which is also the home of Emory University.\u00a0 Who, among our current faculty members, received a PhD from Emory University?<\/p>\n

Last week’s answer: Thomas Paine<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Several leaders of the American Revolution went on to support the French Revolution, including the famous pamphleteer who wrote Common Sense and Rights of Man. Does anybody know the name of this writer? <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

United We Teach\u00a0— Every summer I teach an intensive graduate seminar called Children’s Literature Award Winners in which I cover the most recent winners of some of the major awards in the field of children’s and young adult literature.\u00a0 Among the awards that I regularly cover are the Coretta Scott King Award, which recognizes outstanding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-missive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1150"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1154,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1150\/revisions\/1154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}