In Like a Lion! Bits Flashback for March 6

According to the old adage, March should come in like a lion and go out like a lamb. With rain and flood watches here in Blacksburg and reports of new snow from colleagues across the country, I guess the saying is true to its word. Here’s hoping that you got a mild, little lion cub rather than a big growl lion of weather.

This past week, Bedford Bits has had posts on everything from poetry to propaganda. Here’s the round-up, in case you missed something!

• Holly Pappas shares an assignment she’s using to counter the notion that poetry is a hard-to-crack code in Gen Ed Poetry: Finding a Real Toad or Two.
• High School Bits blogger John Golden shares a video explanation of Teaching Strategies: Twenty Questions, an analytical strategy students use to work through tough texts in class.
• Andrea Lunsford asks how teachers of writing face the challenge of Making Room for Both Old and New in today’s increasingly complex classroom.
• Doug Downs presents Writing-About-Writing as Survival Guide to College, one that give students the skills to write effectively in any college class.
• Andrea Lunsford gives us An Update on her post-earthquake travels in New Zealand.
• Barclay Barrios says that the key to effective commenting is focusing on “Promising Moments” in student texts. He shares a concrete example of how the strategy works in Promising Moments: Putting It Together.
• Traci Gardner asks if you Know What Not To Post Online, and discusses what can and will go wrong if you misstep.
• High School Bits blogger Nathan Odell shares Propaganda Critic, a site with background readings and related resources on propaganda.
• Susan Naomi Bernstein shares ask if we are prepared to imagine students, not as numbers to crunch, or statistics to be lamented, but as rock stars in Writing Beyond Statistics.

[Photo: “Lions & Lion Cubs by fortherock, on Flickr]