The Scout Report -- Volume 25, Number 28

Anglophiles, map enthusiasts, and fans of digital humanities tools should check out The Pudding's People Map of the U.K., "where city names are replaced by their most Wikipedia'ed resident: people born in, lived in, or connected to a place." Visitors to the site can peruse visually for their favorite historical figure, artist, or otherwise famous UK-connected person, and simply looking over the map offers an interesting mix of figures from various times and places. Names that are "Wikipedia'ed" more often are larger and in bold font. Perhaps the most prominent names available on the map are Mary, Queen of Scots (Edinburgh); Ed Sheeran (Framlingham); Elizabeth II (Mayfair); and William Shakespeare (Stratford-upon-Avon). Hovering over each name pulls up a small blurb with the option to open a new tab with the full Wikipedia entry. Readers interested in learning about the project should select the question mark in the upper-right hand corner of the screen. As explained in this section: "Data for this story were collected and processed using the Wikipedia API. The period of collection was from July, 2015 - May, 2019, from English Wikipedia." There is also a U.S. version of the map in the same style that is accessible from the Info tab at the top of the homepage. [JLB]

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Founded in 2007, the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) aims "to promote the awareness and adoption of open education to enhance teaching and learning at community and technical colleges." Here, readers can learn about the benefits of open educational resources (OER) for both students and educators, and interested instructors will find tips on sourcing, adopting, and creating OER under the Learn tab. Faculty and administrators considering adopting OER on a larger scale should check out the Plan tab, where they will find planning guides for institutions and faculty, as well as a guide to integrating students' perspectives into the planning process. For institutions that may be considering going even further with OER, the website also features a section addressing OER-based degrees, including case studies from 16 community and technical colleges. Finally, under the Get Involved tab, readers will find CCCOER's community email group (which has searchable archives) as well as their upcoming and archived webinars. A member of the global Open Education Consortium (featured in the 3-01-2019 Scout Report), as of this write-up CCCOER boasts 83 member colleges in 34 U.S. states and is directed by Una Daly. [JDC]

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Science teachers of middle and high school students may want to consider adding this creative lesson plan published by Science Friday to their curriculum. In this lesson, students take on the roles of both a paleontologist and a paleoartist to virtually examine dinosaur fossils, record their observations, and use those observations to create evidence-based visual interpretations of how their fossils may have looked in real life. Designed to take place over one to two days, this lesson produces a STEAM learning experience that integrates topics from earth science, life science, and art. Downloadable resources are available, including a fossil specimen guide for the Morrison Formation in Colorado, an image-filled dinosaur ID guide, and a packet of student worksheets. The lesson plan also provides links to a five-minute illustrative video featuring professional paleoartist Gabriel Ugueto. This lesson plan was written by Brian Soash, Science Friday's educator community leader, and published in January 2019. It aligns with several Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core English language standards, and National Art standards. [JDC]

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This report published by the Pew Research Center compares student data from the 2015-2016 academic year (the most recent data available) with the same study done by Pew in 1996 and reveals important information about the changing landscape of higher education institutions in the U.S. Some of the most prominent figures present in Pew's data show that undergraduates, in general, are increasingly likely to be from families in poverty; the share of nonwhite undergraduates has grown overall at postsecondary institutions; and all students continue to take out loans to fund their education, regardless of income status. The most notable jump in the data over the last 20 years is the fact that Hispanic undergraduate students "have more than doubled their share of enrollment at four-year colleges and universities since 1996 (from 6 percent to 16 percent in 2016). Hispanics are now the largest minority group among students at minimally selective four-year institutions." The full report is available at the link above and can be read on the web or as a downloadable PDF. [JLB]

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Created in celebration of Rembrandt Year 2019, the 350th anniversary of the artist's death, this documentary-style website from the Rijks Museum discusses the history and planned restoration of one of the most famous paintings in the world, The Night Watch (De Nacht Wacht), 1642, by Rembrandt van Rijn. Readers may want to begin by selecting Operation Night Watch on the site's Home page for an eight-section overview of the reason the project is being undertaken, past restoration efforts, discussion of the materials and techniques involved, and more. Each of these sections are about one to two minutes in length and include audio-visual narration with accompanying transcripts. Once familiarized with the project's mission and context, users can move on to explore other sections, also accessible from the Home page. These sections are devoted to areas like the History of The Night Watch, details on the work's Composition, as well as its Secrets, where the curators state that in the painting "nothing is what it seems. Rembrandt made choices that centuries later would still raise questions." Those looking for a brief yet comprehensive resource should navigate to the Highlights Tour, which pulls excerpts from sections across the site. [DS]

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Founded in 2003, the award-winning online magazine Words Without Borders (WWB) offers readers a terrific view into contemporary international literature. This resource aims to "open doors for readers of English around the world to the multiplicity of viewpoints, richness of experience, and literary perspective on world events offered by writers in other languages." WWB's monthly magazine publishes contemporary global fiction, non-fiction, and poetry translated into English, as well as reviews of newly translated works. Recent issue themes include WWB's tenth annual Queer issue (featuring new Korean Queer writing), explorations of identity from five Omani writers, new Swedish-language writing, and international graphic novels. Readers may also want to check out the magazine's Find & Search feature, which allows users to filter their entire catalog of articles by country, language, or keyword, among other fields. As of this write-up, WWB has published work by more than 2,200 authors, translated from 114 languages and representing 134 countries. In addition to WWB's magazine, their blog, WWB Daily, "offers commentary, interviews, and essays on timely topics related to translation and international literature." [JDC]

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Book lovers looking for a new literary podcast to enjoy may be interested in Reading Women, a show that "reclaims half the bookshelf by interviewing authors and reviewing books by or about women of all backgrounds and experiences." Launched in 2016, Reading Women is hosted by Kendra Winchester and Autumn Privett, who bonded over their "shared love for feminist literature" while in graduate school together. Their podcast, which releases new episodes every Wednesday, features thoughtful conversations about both fiction and nonfiction books, alternating every other week with interviews of women writers such as Soraya Chemaly and Anissa Gray. Each month's book conversations center on a theme, with one episode highlighting a number of titles on that theme and one featuring a more in-depth discussion about two of those titles. Examples of recent themes include "Working Class Stories" (June 2019) and "Australia and Surrounding Archipelago" (March 2019). Episodes of Reading Women are generally about 30-40 minutes long, and all episodes, as well as show notes and transcripts, are available at the link above. Listeners can also subscribe via Stitcher, Spotify, or other podcast platforms. [JDC]

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English literature teachers at many levels, as well as fans of classic literature, may be interested in this collection of educational resources from PBS LearningMedia created to accompany the 2018 PBS series The Great American Read. The collection is organized into three categories (elementary, middle, and high school), each containing resources related to titles that are often read at the indicated grade levels. Most of the featured titles are in the high school category, where readers will find classics such as The Great Gatsby and Pride and Prejudice, as well as contemporary selections like The Martian and The Hunger Games. Examples from the middle school section include The Outsiders and Little Women, while the elementary category highlights favorites like Charlotte's Web. Visitors to this collection will find video clips from The Great American Read, lesson plans, links to educational websites, and other resources, all chosen to help "contextualize the authors and the impact these books have had on specific readers and throughout history." [JDC]

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Readers with an interest in contemporary literature and literary criticism may appreciate Alluvium, which describes itself as "an open access scholarly journal dedicated to 21st-century writing as well as 21st-century approaches to the literary canon." Here, visitors will find a robust collection of peer-reviewed essays (with most accompanied by multiple images) on a wide range of timely contemporary literary themes and topics. For example, the most recent issue, published in July 2019, discusses prose and poetry centered on the theme of ecocriticism, while earlier essays explored contemporary speculative fiction, the relationship between print and digital literature, and much more. This electronic journal was originally founded in 2012 and relaunched in early 2019 as a graduate-run partner journal of the British Association of Contemporary Literary Studies. Alluvium is supported by the Department of English and Humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, and edited by a team of literary scholars around the U.K. The journal is published under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and archived in the British Library's ISSN electronic store. [JDC]

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Educators who use Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel Crime and Punishment as part of their curriculum may want to check out this set of lesson plans available from EDSITEment, the National Endowment for the Humanities' online collection of free educational materials. Here, visitors will find three standards-aligned lesson plans, each examining a different aspect of the novel. The first lesson focuses on the main character Raskolnikov's "dualistic personality traits" and is intended to take place after students have read Parts One and Two and the first chapter of Part Three. After students have read the entire novel, the second lesson addresses Raskolnikov's Man vs. Superman theory and whether this theory is borne out in the novel's fictional reality, while the third lesson centers on the societal schisms in Crime and Punishment. Each lesson comes with downloadable worksheets (with separate teacher's versions), and suggested writing prompts for learning assessment and lesson extensions are also included. While these lessons were created with upper-level high school students in mind, independent learners or book clubs may also enjoy adapting them to enhance their reading experience. [JDC]

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We originally featured the Brit Lit Blog in the 5-18-2018 Scout Report, and it continues to be a great way to discover new titles from the British publishing world.

Fans of British literature will want to check out the Brit Lit Blog. This blog is authored by Claire Handscombe, a self-described "bookish Brit who lives in America and wants to champion the work of British authors as much as she can." The Brit Lit Blog features a monthly summary of newly released book publications from the U.K., including fiction, non-fiction, memoir, young adult novels, and more. The blog also highlights ways for American readers to track down editions for purchase in their original British English. Podcast fans will want to check out the Brit Lit Podcast, which features conversations with a variety of writers, book bloggers, and others from the publishing industry. New episodes of this podcast are released approximately every two weeks, and visitors can subscribe to the Brit List Podcast via iTunes or listen to the podcast on Spotify or Soundcloud. Those interested may also subscribe to the Brit Lit Blog's newsletter for updates via email.

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