Timpson, Vargas Llosa, Paxton, Garcia Marquez, Allara, Yserbyt, Morton, Sulivan

I have read an issue of The New Yorker and an issue of The Economist since my last post.

I also read a truckload of books. I'm right in the middle of Garcia Marquez's News of a Kidnapping, the story of a woman journalist abducted and held for sixteen months. It's riveting. I also read Vargas Llosa's Death in the Andes, which I didn't like, and The Bad Girl, which I loved. He is the first writer for which I've ever felt such a dichotomy. I read two books about Alice Neel, one, Black and White, a catalogue of an exhibition of her drawings; and Pictures of People by Pamela Allara, a biography and discussion of her work. I also read a collection of essays misnamed Metacognition, by Yzerbyt et al, which was mostly about neural processes in learning. I also read an Adam Morton essay on metacognition and strategic thinking, also misnamed. I read an excellent history of Vichy France by Robert Paxton. I also read several books by Jean Sulivan, Consolation de la nuit, and Les mots a la gorge. The most important book in all of this, from my point of view, was Timpson's Metateaching and the Instructional Map, which was primarily about the instructional map, but contained some student evaluation questions which are much more appropriate to my way of teaching. I record them here for future reference. All of them are to be graded from 1 (low) to 5 (high):

teacher knowledge
teacher enthusiasm/energy
teacher preparation/organization
teacher clarity
student engagement
content/activity meaningfulness
positive learning climate
feedback to students

to which I would add

applicability of learning to other situations
learning compared to other courses