{"id":1166,"date":"2017-07-31T12:54:03","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T16:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2017-07-31T12:54:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T16:54:03","slug":"1166","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/blog\/2017\/07\/31\/1166\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Of Construction Toys and Public Engagement<\/b>\u00a0—\u00a0 A few weeks ago I arranged for a group of graduate students to take a tour of ImaginOn, which\u00a0is a collaborative venture of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the Children’s Theater of Charlotte.\u00a0 During our tour, we spent part of our time exploring an amazing\u00a0interactive exhibit called “TINKERTOY:\u00a0\u00a0Build Your Imagination.” \u00a0This exhibit will be at ImaginOn through\u00a0September 10<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

I talked with one of the librarians who brought the exhibit to ImaginOn, and I shared with her my long-standing interest in construction toys.\u00a0 As a result of this conversation, I agreed to write an essay about the history and importance of construction toys.\u00a0 This week the administrators at ImaginOn will post a giant version of this essay as part of the Tinkertoy exhibit.\u00a0 Over the years, I have collaborated with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library on many projects, but this latest project is the first time I have written text for one of their exhibits.<\/p>\n

My involvement with our public library is but one of many examples of members of our English Department sharing their academic expertise with the general public.\u00a0 For the purposes of today’s Monday Missive, I will highlight the public engagement activities performed by JuliAnna \u00c1vila, Alan Rauch, and Greg Wickliff, but I am aware of other examples that I hope to highlight in future\u00a0Monday<\/span><\/span>\u00a0Missives.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

JuliAnna has an expertise in digital storytelling, and she has been publishing on this topic since 2008.\u00a0 Recently, however, she has become involved with several community projects in which she is drawing on her expertise in this area.\u00a0 For example, she is participating in the Lumbee tribe’s project called Unlocking Silent Histories.\u00a0 This project involves an extensive digital storytelling program. \u00a0\u00a0She is also joining forces with Tisha Greene, the principal of the Oakhurst STEAM Academy in Charlotte, to implement a digital storytelling into their curricula. \u00a0 As part of her public engagement work in this area, JuliAnna is creating opportunities for our English Education students to participate in these projects.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Alan’s public engagement activities often relate to his scholarly interest in the relationship between literature and science.\u00a0 A recent example is tied to his role as a member of the Advisory Board of the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature at University of Florida.\u00a0 As part of his involvement with the Baldwin Library, he helped curate an exhibit of books about science written by women for children between 1790 and 1890.\u00a0 Titled “Subverting the ‘Natural Order’:\u00a0 Women and Science,” this public exhibit showed how women contributed to the advances in scientific knowledge during the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Greg regularly shares his expertise in technical communication with the members of the Charlotte Regional Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.\u00a0 He has participated in several collaborative projects with the members of this organization.\u00a0 However, the largest of these projects is an annual exhibit of student work.\u00a0 Each year the faculty teaching in our Technical\/Professional Writing programs invite undergraduate and graduate students to exhibit and discuss their projects with representatives from the regional chapter of the Society for Technical Communication.\u00a0 Over the years, Greg, Aaron Toscano, Meg Morgan, and Mary Ellen Muesing, with support from graduate students and other faculty in the department, have worked together to make this annual event a big success.\u00a0 The discussions of the projects with professional writers and editors have often led to formal job interviews for our graduates with employers looking for employees with a balance of language, computing, and graphic design skills.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

As these examples demonstrate, our English Department can be seen as a hub off of which there are many spokes extending in different directions. \u00a0 I find it intriguing that this description applies equally well to the design principle behind Tinkertoys.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Kudos<\/b>\u00a0— As you know, I like to use my\u00a0Monday<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0Missives<\/span>\u00a0to share news about recent accomplishments by members of our department.\u00a0 Here is the latest news:<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

Pilar Blitvich<\/b>\u00a0recently\u00a0<\/span>presented a paper titled \u201cTrolling in the Name of Free Speech\u201d: The Milo Yiannopoulos\u2019s Controversy” at\u00a0<\/span>the Politeness Symposium in York, UK.\u00a0 She also presented a paper titled “Peninsular Spanish Retailer-Consumer Interactions on Facebook: A Variational Pragmatics Perspective” at the conference of the International Pragmatics Association in Belfast.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Sarah Minslow<\/b>\u00a0presented a paper titled “Impossible Choices, Possible Justice?\u00a0 The Realities and Representations of Child Soldiers” at the International Research Society of Children’s Literature conference at York University in Toronto.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Alan Rauch<\/b>\u00a0presented a paper titled “Evolutionary and Anglican Afterlives:\u00a0 Death as a Sacrament in Kingsley’s\u00a0Water Babies”\u00a0<\/i>at a workshop sponsored by Princeton University and held at the Gladstone Library in Hawarden, Wales.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Lara Vetter<\/b>‘s edition of\u00a0By Avon River\u00a0<\/i>was featured in a poet-scholar’s blog.\u00a0 Here is the link:<\/p>\n
<https:\/\/lesleywheeler.org\/2017\/07\/18\/hybrid-h-d\/<\/a>><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n<\/span>Greg Wickliff<\/b>\u00a0recently participated<\/span>\u00a0with his wife, Alisa, in the STEM education learning festival at Ludwigsburg University \u00a0in Germany on July 19th. In Germany, the STEM acronym is MINT:\u00a0Mathematik, Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik.<\/i>\u00a0The learning festival brought together hundreds of elementary and middle grades students, their teachers, and students and faculty of the university for a day filled with workshops and exhibits.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

Quirky Quiz Question<\/b>\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Tinkertoys were very popular during my childhood, but nowadays the most popular construction toys in the United States are Legos.\u00a0 However, Legos did not originate in the United States.\u00a0 Does anybody know what country gave the world Legos?<\/p>\n

Last week’s answer: Charleston, SC<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Does anybody know what city in the South serves as the setting for the opera\u00a0Porgy and Bess?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of Construction Toys and Public Engagement\u00a0—\u00a0 A few weeks ago I arranged for a group of graduate students to take a tour of ImaginOn, which\u00a0is a collaborative venture of the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the Children’s Theater of Charlotte.\u00a0 During our tour, we spent part of our time exploring an amazing\u00a0interactive […]<\/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-1166","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\/1166","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=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1171,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions\/1171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/mark-west\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}