Now Read This

Here’s a story from People magazine, at the time of Randall Dale Adams’ release. Here’s one from the L.A. Times. Both add some useful context, and the Times’ piece reveals that Adams was not Errol Morris’ intended subject when he came to Dallas to make a documentary:

Errol Morris had never heard of Randall Dale Adams when he came to Texas to make a movie in 1985. He was interested, instead, in a man named James Grigson, a Texas psychiatrist nicknamed “Dr. Death” because his testimony had helped send Adams and 26 others to Death Row.

In the course of his research, he came across Adams and his story. At first, Morris didn’t believe him. But as more and more facts checked out, he began to be swayed, and finally convinced. Thus began a three-year project that would become “The Thin Blue Line.”

 Here’s a story from www.truthinjustice.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public about gaps in the criminal justice system like that which convicted Randall Adams.

Last year in the New Yorker, David Grann raised questions about another case where an innocent man may have been executed.

The guidelines for the author study, including a partial list of authors, can be viewed here. In addition to the authors listed on that handout, I’ve added…

• Mary Roach
• Oliver Sacks

Something that might interest some of you here: a shot of Obama looking over a speech that he’s edited. I don’t know who to credit with “writing” the speech, since he has speechwriters and participates in that process himself. But here you can see some of the changes he’s making to it (click pic for larger view, and zoom-able). Atlantic blogger Jim Fallows has some interesting thoughts on what the edits tell us.

Photo from the White House Flickr page.

Swift’s full text is available through Project Gutenberg, which is a great site that has 30,000 titles for free. If you’re ever looking for pre-20th Century works, check this place out.

Also, despite being dead for a long time, Jon Swift continues to maintain his blog on a regular basis.

The guidelines, and some suggestions on how to make the essay really good, are here.

When is the portfolio due?

Tuesday, March 2.

What should I do with the old portfolio?

Keep it in the same binder, and put the new portfolio materials on top.

Can I put the fall term writing and winter term writing in the same writing section?

Please don’t. Keep the terms separate from one another.

So should my table of contents page include the materials from both terms?

No. Have a separate table of contents for winter term.

What should I do about my Scholarly Practices commentary if my presentation isn’t until after the portfolio is due?

Discuss the research and presentation process up to the point you’ve completed.

The requirements are here. Note that the general purpose of this portfolio is to compare and contrast between the work you did first term, and the work you did second term.

Both fall and winter portfolios belong in the SAME BINDER. Please put the winter term portfolio on top, so it’s the first portfolio you see.

Here are the presentation schedules for 0 Hour and 2nd Hour.

Here it is.