2025 IN REVIEW

Alexis and I discuss Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell, book and movie; A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, book, play, and movies; The Housemaid Frieda McFadden - book and movie, Animal Farm by George Orwell, book and movies, and Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid. 

Creators and Guests

Host

J.S.Jenson

Author, writer, educator. I am a veteran reporter and currently teach writing to kids of all ages. I am also the Author of Jon and the Soggy Leaf, Sharp Bites and Other Pesky Poems, and A Cat Named Taco.

Guest

Alexis Jenson

Alexis “Alex” Jenson is a PhD candidate studying Political Science at the University of California Irvine, with International Relations and Feminist Theory as her major subfields.

What is Author, Poet, Thinker, Pie?

A podcast about good bpopks, great women and fantastic pie.

Jackie (00:00)
Welcome to our podcast, Author, Poet, Thinker, Pie, where we discuss our fascination with books and the mysteries of pie, which may sound like a strange combination, but trust us, it's a mashup that works. Hi, I'm JS Jensen, the author and poet of this duo, and I'm just Kim, the resident thinker and pie wrangler.

Jackie (00:21)
Well, hello. This is J.S. Jensen. And Alexis Jensen. We are doing a year in review for a couple books that we've read and we've talked about before. And we're talking about again. We'll see how we do on them. Okay, so the first one that I want to talk about, I have a few on my list, but Hamnet, only because we both read it, and you got to see the movie. It went in and out of my theatre, didn't see it, but would love to see it.

big screen. Yes, I saw it in theaters. I had to make quite a journey to see it. The only theater playing it near me was pretty far away. Took two buses to get there and two buses back. Wow, and this is in like, you know, Southern California where you're like, it's just endless people in theaters, but still, you had a hard time seeing it. Yes. Wow, what is up with that movie?

I know, I assumed it would come to mind and then just didn't. I was surprised. Do you think it came out at a strange time? Because it was like the talk of the town and it's talk of the Oscars right now. Why isn't it playing in more theaters right now? Yeah, I don't know.

Theater business has been very strange. Theaters are not showing who they think they are. They're having really short runs. True. And then streaming right away. But I don't think this is streaming yet, is it? I don't think so, If it is, it's pay for streaming, and I'm not going to do that because I already pay for streaming. no, I did enjoy the book, though. The book was an interesting take on Hamlet, right? Would you say is it? Yeah. It's kind of a backstory of Hamlet, which is you don't get a lot of historical fiction like that. So it's kind of interesting.

What did you like about it? Yeah, thought Maggie O'Farrell had a really interesting voice. The writing style was really engaging. I thought was really beautifully written. Yes, and apparently the movie, which I've not seen, was beautifully shot. Cinematography, that's a hard one to spit out on a cold day. is zero degrees here right now as we're speaking. yeah, but good cinematography and good shooting prowess there. Yes, it was really, really beautiful movie. Really beautiful scenery.

and some really, really great performances by the actors as well. It looked like it would be. It was a strange book to read. I remember it took me a while to get into it, but as I'm...

understanding this year I think it's better when it takes you a while to get into it because it sets up the characters more. At least that's my take on it, a slow burn I call it. If they take time to give you some character development and then I want to see what happens to them. If it's too fast I lose interest sometimes. What interesting thing the book did was it kind of, even though you know going in based on the name of it that it's going to be about William Shakespeare, he sort of isn't there. He's off to the side of the plot throughout most of the novel and he's never named throughout the novel. True.

He's a strange creative who's different from everybody else, doing different things. We just see the life of his wife, Agnes, and their kids living at home. And he's just off in London. They don't see him for months at a time. Which is strange when you think about that part. So he's this bigger than life character. yet, in this portrayal of him, his family life was definitely different then.

Then he would think. He didn't realize there was a lot of traveling to and from, back and forth. And then didn't see his family for long periods of time. I don't know if that's historically accurate. Maybe. I believe I've seen some speculation that that's been under a debate. It's under contestation since her book was published. Well, and this one too. are always... I was wondering going in if they were going to hit the topic on it was William Shakespeare female. Because that's been the biggest debate for a long time. Was it a woman?

Was it somebody else that you just used a pen name for? Yes, the Compton debate was William Shakespeare actually. Was Shakespeare a pen name? Do we actually know anything about him? Do we know anything about this man? I don't know. I always tell my class. Which is strange is that, you know, obviously he was a good writer because we're still reading his stuff 500 years later, which is kind of weird. We don't do a lot of things like that anymore, but we're still reading this stuff. It's pretty, it's pretty timely. Yeah. Even though it's 500 years old.

We kind of just rehash all of the same stories over and over again. He is a very good storyteller though. So that's what I like about Shakespeare.

Yes, and I've been reading lot of Shakespeare as well. What's your favorite? My favorite is Macbeth, which I know is a classic, maybe a bit stereotypical for a favorite. But fun, It's most read in English classes probably, but it's my favorite. I tried to introduce it to my eighth grade class this year, and we had fun because it's active. It's got witches, it's got magic. It's got magic. A quest for the throne. Yes. So it's always... Death, mayhem. I'm also a big fan of Twelfth Night. That's one of my favorites.

Took in college. I took the comedies. You got to read six comedies That was one semester and the next semester if you dare take it again because you really need one as an English major I like the comedies so much better. They were just very witty, excellent performance That's right. I gotta see that yes, it's right now Yeah, I'm this way or too for you, but it's leaving soon, but it was on PBS great performances, which is

a PBS series. They have a performance, it's New York's Shakespeare in the Park. They're doing a performance and it's starring Lupita Nyong'o, Sandra Oh, Peter Dinklage. Has a really excellent cast. And the guy from Modern Family, I don't remember his name, Tyler Jesse Ferguson. He was really funny in that as well. Some very good, talented actors that have been doing stage work for a long time too. Yes, a lot of them very serious actors. Or actors I think that are being serious, like Sandra Oh and

who do really well with the comedic timing of That's what it takes. I stand by my observation. I think it's harder to be a comedian than it is to be a dramatic actor. I might get some mail on that, yeah. I think timing is everything. It's hard to be a comic and you have to have the timing down.

I it's pretty good. But I enjoyed the read. was an interesting take on the whole how Hamlet became Hamlet and the motivation and the dire feelings behind it. I mean, there was a lot that drove him, supposedly in this version of it, to write it. Death mayhem and loss of a child. So you would know that Hamlet and Hamlet were apparently the same name in that period. They're used interchangeably, so it's Shakespeare's son's name is Hamlet.

after he died wrote Hamlet. And then well yep doesn't make it out. it was a tragedy Hamlet did die but Hamlet died. Yes. Very good. Well I'll have to watch the Twelfth Night one because I do love Twelfth Night. He's an excellent adaptation. And I did like somehow have to watch Hamlet. I would like to see it on the big screen but I don't think it's coming to my little theater.

I wish it would come. I wish it would come, but missed my chance on that one. But we did get to see another one. If we switch gears to the talk about going from a 180 from Shakespeare to... This gorgeous historical drama. Historical drama with... Based on a literary icon. A literary icon to a current... I don't know.

want to call her a diva of writing at this point, the up and coming at the moment writer, Frieda McFadden with The Housemaid that is now movie as well. Yes, with Sidney Sweeney, Amanda Seyfried. Which was very good too. I mean, liked the movie. was a fun ride. Yeah, think... My expectations weren't very high for it because I mean was supposed to be fun. It wasn't supposed to be Shakespeare. I think the movie and Frieda McFadden's book hit sort of the same...

what sort of looking for like niche of that need to watch just a classic kind of Stereotypical thriller something that has takes you on a ride Not too deep don't think too hard about it. No I read the book as well very recently was it close to the very close the main difference was like in the torture technique well, that's good to know. Yeah Shook it up a little bit

I almost gagged with the...

tooth was being taken out but yeah I couldn't do that. I think we were sitting next to each other in the theater because we saw it together. I think we were both hiding our faces in that particular scene. was pretty No, we both have troubles with dentistry so no. were grossed out by that. Couldn't quite watch. The rest of the movie was fine but I couldn't quite watch that. Yeah, it had a lot of twists and turns which is a fun ride and that's kind of why you read it. Breeden Fadden is sort of known for her twisties.

Were you surprised at any of the twists? Not really. I wouldn't say so. I kind of had a sense of where it was going. It was a good reveal when Amanda, I always say her name wrong, I'll say it again. I really am good at pronouncing names until I come to this podcast and I'm like, do you say that? I say it right again? Amanda Seyfried? I think so. Seyfried.

So when she does the scream in the car, I thought that was excellent. And then you think that she was upset and you realize, no, she was exuberantly happy. overjoyed. She gets to go dance in hotel room by She gets to be totally off with this really crazed man that she's been attached to at the hip for way too long. So that was a fun little shift. And you knew that shift was coming, but it's still fun to see it played. I thought she did an excellent job at it too,

Did they have that kind of reveal in the book? structured kind of the same way, where the first half is told from, I forgot the character's name, but Sydney Sweeney's character's perspective. So the first chapter is all from her perspective as she's doing this. And like in the movie, it switches to the Amanda Seyfried characters. Which I kind of like that now, that's kind of a thing going on where you get different... A new perspective in the end.

And then so that's how the twist plays out, the new character voice, a new perspective.

So you're not being lied to by the narrative. You're just seeing it from the other point of view. Which I like storytelling-wise So you get a different voice, a different perspective. And then sometimes they jump around with time. So they add the time jump in there too. So you get bits and pieces of how it's going to come together without having to have it all just chronologically put forth. Which kind of makes you think and dart around a little bit. Maybe that's how my mind works. I don't know.

I don't know if that's a modern way of storytelling, but...

I thought it was interesting. The Amanda Seyfried section, her character, the character's name is Nina. Nina. think you are correct. Her section, when it starts on, you go back in time. You to the whole development of the relationship, which happens in the movie as well. get a long extended flashback scene of here's the beginnings of the relationship where, like with the other character, he seems so nice and charming at first and doesn't realize until she's agreed to marry him and moved into the house.

he's really like. Which is interesting. do enjoy that kind because flashback is a good way to just propel information So being a writing teacher, it's the number one area that people usually go wrong in. me too. You're trying to set up a character so you do a lot of telling what the character is rather than showing, which they always say, show, don't tell. But it's really hard. You want to relay all this information so you can connect it elsewhere. Well, it's much more fun if you

do it in a flashback or something like that. It's a much better way of conveying information, but it can be hard to do well. I think a lot of new writers try to do too many flashbacks or they just give a little brief scene. feel like it's really hard to dole out what the appropriate amount of flashback should be, how long they should be, how much important information you have to give them. We just watched a movie last night. We watched Jay Kelly with George Clooney and Adam Sandler.

Both were excellent, I thought. And I liked their use of flashbacks in that one where he went like little vignettes in his movie career. So they were pretty gorgeously shot, the flashbacks were in his transition to him. a neat way of doing it, a new way of him. I thought it was interesting because it shows him walking in basically on a set of memory. You got to see him watch these little scenes play out remembering mistakes he'd made, choices he'd made in his childhood. You get to really see how he became the person he was.

So interesting. Why everyone was so angry with them. Little prima donna once we were talking about flashbacks, thought hey they did it pretty good. I kind like it was very lusciously shot. I thought that looked nice And the same with The Housemaid. I their flashbacks were pretty juicy. Yeah, I thought they were well timed. Yeah. To do good. Yeah, wasn't the director known comedy director?

I gotta look into that again. But this was a new challenge for him Noah Baumbach has done a lot of... He did a marriage story. he did. So he does... I'm of somebody else. He often does like relationship So very tense. Because a marriage story was pretty tense. was Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. Two very good actors as well. We tend to, at least I love reading books and then seeing a movie production of it. Just to see inside somebody else's mind.

I think that's why I do it because a lot of times, I don't know, do you find yourself when you're watching the movie going, that wasn't in the book, but I like this better or should have done that differently or? Yeah, I do. I noticed that when I was watching Hamnet as well. They're like that. Things I liked, things I was like, that's different. Obviously there are things you have to do differently because it's different medium. Yeah. Because I think if you did a straight adaptation of Hamnet, I don't know if it'd be an interesting watch.

because it's much happens, it's very internal. True. it's very fun to read because the characters have such interesting voices. But I don't know, it would be pretty to watch. So there's a few extra like added scenes to add drama and tension. Kind of have drama and tension and all that. And it's a choice when you're going to movie, you got to choose if you want to do it visually and then skip all the dialogue. Yes. Or if you want to have somebody saying it so it is always a choice.

I always remember I was watching some adaptation of a James Joyce novel. I think it was a portrait of an artist and they were trying to relay how this lady had aged. And so she was supposed to be a great opera singer. So, and in the book they have them talking about it, if I'm on the right book, and they have them chit chatting about how she's, you know, not as good as she used to be, a two aside, blah, blah. But in the movie version, they just had her try to sing and she couldn't sing like she used to. So she was not, and she was all floundery and her voice was bad and you're like, felt bad for her. But in the book, that's not what it was.

was. They just talked about it. They just talked about, she used to those high notes better But that's a choice. Do you want to do it visually or audibly When I was thinking about Hamnet, the reason I wanted to see it is there are some scenes in that book.

Especially her having her children. I wondered how they would handle that one. And she went off into the woods, literally. Yeah, it's pretty much exactly how you'd imagine. She just went off into the woods and had her kids under a tree. was like a little sprite. Yes. In the second scene, childbirth scene, because there's two in the book, there's two in the movie as well, is very long.

Those are always my least favorite scenes in movies. I usually look away. Between the teeth pulling out in a housemaid and the birthing scene in Hamlet. Done. Done. It was a lot. Well, the other book that I thought that was strange in this mix that we read, at least my family, we're readers and we're movie watchers, was Animal Farm, which actually we rated your room, and think we call your room the library because you have some books in it. And my other daughter and I said, let's just see what we want to read. And we went into your room and we picked Animal Farm.

it was a short read but we couldn't remember it from high school. Lord knows I couldn't because my high school was a long time ago.

Read it and then we tried to watch a few adaptations of it and they were just impossible I had to quit didn't but the book itself was almost Hard to get through because it was pretty timely. I thought yeah, there was a lot of stuff going on now that seems in a long time, but It seems like a book. don't want to go back to right now. It'd be a bit too prescient Do you remember anything about it? I know the concept just the kind and and we watched a animated

We looked for that and we couldn't find it so we got the live-action version which just seemed weird and I could get into it so we actually shut it down but But it's funny we passed the book around we all read it. Yep We all we all read it for an interesting Christmas read animal farm

in a classic section of your bookstore right now, so check it out. The other book that I read this year and I've read a lot, you've read a lot. According to my good read, it's 140 for this year. I think I have 75, so I'm not, I'm behind. I think 75 is pretty impressive. It's hard to keep up now because I have to read a lot of YA books with my class too. So I've got this adult stuff that I read and I've got genres that I've never read because I'm trying to broaden it up as I'm writing my own books. So I'm on a little

flavor of everything to see what they're doing. And then I go back to, you know, I'm reading Wonder, which is a really good book for a sixth grader, I gotta tell ya. And we just got done with A Christmas Carol.

which is one of my favorites. I just read it. Did you read it? I checked it out for Christmas. Did you? I'd like to. It's short and I love to give my class a win so they can finish a book. It's only 64 pages. So you can do it. and there's so many references in modern day Christmas right now and all the other adaptations through Christmas Carol that it's kind of fun to go back and forth and see even that Mickey's Christmas Carol has some lines from Dickinson in there. Yes. And the we watched a

of Christmas Carol adaptations for the holidays. Yes, I like to I think you watched at least three anymore. There are varying levels of familiarity with the text, or the animated one.

Yes, with Jim Carrey is the closest. is so, so scarily like it. Yes, which is so weird. I started doing it. I like to show kids that, you know, here's what's written on the page and here's what the movie thought and some pull dialogue right out. I mean, there's some that's such good stuff. They put it right in the movie. mean, word for word in that version has a lot of word for word. Yes, the Muppets one does too. So does the Muppet movement. It has a lot of direct quotes and one of the, I can't remember which Muppet it is, sorry, but one of the Muppets.

is narrating and so he says a lot of direct lines. And he says a lot of lines directly from like the Diggins to narrate the scene. But then there's always Rizzo the Rat. He's doing some weird little stuff. Make sure you get a little comedy, a little comedic break in there. Like popping in with some jokes. You are right. That is a fun version of it. So the kids get the flavor of Charles Dickens right there and then they get this fun little Muppet version with songs.

so it's got some catchy tunes it's got Michael Caine trying to sing which

Even he said he's not a singer, but you know, he brings some realism. You don't expect Scrooge to be like an opera star, And then all these Muppets doing crazy things. I read somewhere that Michael Caine said they wanted him for this Muppets movie. He said that he thought the funniest thing he could do was play it so seriously. He said, I'm going to treat the Muppets like they're the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I'm going to put on a very serious production with them. That's what it seems like, because

word-for-word Dickens on that. He's playing it so serious and he's talking to a Muppet. I think it's pretty cool and you're right that Rizzo the rat comes in for comic relief which is hilarious. I think at one point his bit is too is as Gonzo is giving the recitation for each stave because each chapter is each stave within it there's five. Rizzo comes in as I was looking for food so at one point he's looking for a little bag of jelly beans when this you know big stuff is coming that Grim Reaper's coming Or he's falling into a vat.

He's doing some physical comedy where he's falling over and getting knocked around. So it's one you can watch with kids and you can watch with adults and theater kids because it has a really good little, it has a lot of good musical numbers. a lot of cute songs. It is and I will have to say I always enjoy that one and so I'll show that one and then I show the Jim Carrey, I don't know.

animated but realistic whatever stop motion whatever it is they call it and it's got an amazing cast i mean it's got colin firth and yes it's just got in it's just got really good people in it they're doing really good acting and it's very very very well done

And I always forget, because Jim Carrey, I knew him primarily as a comic actor. I forget how good he is in serious roles. Very much so. Because was so silly in the play. Yes. But then you see him in this, he does Dickens really well. He also, I watched the Truman Show for the first time this year. He's really good in the Truman Show. Makes me want to do, what's the other one that's in there?

in Turtle Sunshine and the Spotless Mind. So he is a very good actor and when he talks about, doing the Grinch, he was so serious about it. He takes his comedy very seriously. So you talked about almost drowning in that costume when it was terrible and it was horrible, but yet he wanted to get it done because this is what you do and He took that really silly show.

which is my other daughter's favorite Grinch movie. Yes. Which is kind of fun. So that's a whole generational thing of kids that really enjoy that one. But I did. I did like that one. And I love my Dickens and I love introducing my class to it. I love introducing to Shakespeare so they have a different take on language throughout the years. And then I also like to add in a little sci-fi, which is not everybody's cup of tea, but.

It's kind of, always, at least I've heard some of the Shakespeare players say this. Patrick Stewart has said this on number of occasions that obviously because he played a Starfleet captain on Star Trek, And also in the X-Men? Yes. So he has a big, you know, bigger than life personality. He's been in Masterpiece Theater and the traveling Shakespeare group. He's a very excellent actor. And he's done this one. He did the Christmas Carol on Broadway. He's done that at Winnac Play. But he always said that Sci-Fi is really close to Shakespeare because Shakespeare commented, you

on the kingdom, two kingdoms away. You can get away with it if you're not dissing your own king, but you can talk about the king in Denmark. That's what sci-fi does a lot too, is it talks about what's going on here, but, you're off world, so it's not really in the earth, but it really is. So he had some fun takes on that. So I like to do a little bit of sci-fi, and I like to hit a little bit in my class, but one interesting book this year that was sci-fi adjacent? We had the same word. You can tell we're related, aren't we? So adjacent was Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkin.

and that was an interesting historical fiction. I thought. I really enjoyed it. That was a really great book. Having lived through the Challenger incident when it exploded, it's like, wow. I remember I was younger, but still, you know, we were all watching the space shuttle and we watched it explode. I remember none of us knew what to do. We were like, did that really happen? Did they die? Well, obviously they exploded way up in space. But the program itself was a...

interesting, the whole space shuttle program from concept to development to actually going up and then disappearing completely after that happened, just gone.

So this is an interesting take behind the scenes and how they got it up and running. think it's sort of imagining a world where Challenger incident didn't happen. Or it did, but it... It came... They saved it. They saved it somehow. And so the space program gets to continue more. how they had to train for it, which would have been weird when they didn't know how to train astronauts like that. And also interesting dynamics between the scientists who are there.

because they're scientists and that's why they wanted to go to space. And then the people who are there because they're pilots. The military personnel who are there to fly planes.

Me and technology this year have been struggling. think I've learned probably five brand new apps and software packages and...

editing software for a bunch of stuff and I'm at my limit for availability in my brain space right now as I'm writing all these books. So maybe I'm living out my own sci-fi nightmare here. don't know. But... I've been thinking of going more lo-fi. Lo-fi? Or low tech with my writing. I've been wondering if maybe I should get like an old school type writer because I'm too easily distracted on my laptop and phone. I feel like I need... I've been thinking of handwriting sections for my dissertation.

to transfer that into typing afterwards because I have a hard time not going down a rabbit hole of whatever when I'm on my laptop. Which is interesting because I go through this segment with my class every year. We learn how to take notes because I'm a middle school teacher and that's when you learn how to do that.

I read up on the latest technology, know, so what is the best? Is it better to do it on a computer? Because we all have Chromebooks now in class, even sixth graders do. Or is it better to write it out? Or what's the best way to listen to? And it always comes back to the same thing. You take better notes if you take them by hand. The professor that I was, I was, I'm a TA, and I was a TA for professor this quarter, and he instituted a no laptops rule in class this quarter because he attended a like teaching workshop over the summer and he did, met

a lot of people. Apparently my university has a really well-known educational research institute. They have so many things going on there but I that was there. have some world-renowned educational research going on there.

And so there's researchers that are who are studying the best ways to take notes and doing like neurological research. And they found that, it's remember things way easier if you hand write them in notes and laptops provide so much distraction to students during class. So the professor made students bring notebooks and just take notes. And students really, I think, did really well. They came to class with notebooks full of

stuff so they knew what they would be talking about during class. Sure. So when you call them, they had pages of notes on their reading so they could respond to his questions. And you can organize it. I mean, you're thumbing through a pad, paper, a notebook, and you only have so many notebook pages you're going figure out it's easier If it's on your computer, tap to relocate stuff. Yes. If you're like me and you name it wrong, or you're all over the place, it's kind of different.

would be good but we found that at least the research that I did to see if I should be pushing one or the other is that when you're on your computer you are so worried about the typing of it in that you're not listening to the person and you don't do that as much when you're handwriting them.

You're listening better and it's at the same speed as they're talking. And I think also when you're typing, because it's so much faster, I think it puts students in this mindset of like, have to put down every word. Because you kind of can. So they're so obsessed with getting down every word in the slides and everything the professor is saying down. then they're not actually absorbing the information because they're just typing it. It's basically just transcribing. Yes, which is the funny thing.

because professors and teachers go through a lot of work to make sure the slides don't have a lot of words on. They're not supposed to be dense so that you have to think and just write down the three main points or whatever. You try to really not have them be too crowded so that to doing every word I'm saying would be self-defeating. Yes, and so that's been a difficulty to do. And so the professor I was taking for the time, he doesn't have slides either. He just talks.

Well that brings back the old days. I do enjoy to talk in front of a class. Because you notice that a lot of students were just panicked about trying to get all the information from the slides copied down. And so he was like, I'm just going to talk. And there you go. And so he just talks. I agree. Actually, it was just to hit up today from an educational website. I was going over some grading and it popped up because when you're teacher you get bombarded with a bunch of

but the one thing they pushing was how to do slides.

and have a better access to shutting them down while you're talking. That was the main thing, is to be able to curtain them as an app that would actually take your slideshow and shoot, throw a curtain over it and up on the screen, of course, not physical, but just to show down to get the kids to think. Yes. Which would be interesting. And then was just a moment of reflection or even blurring the screen. It's just effects to make them stop so intently looking at it and typing on their computers versus just writing stuff down.

Yes, I had a once who I T.A.ed for. He would not use slides during class, but he made slideshows for every class and then he didn't use them. He posted them online. Oh, that would be interesting to do it. So a lot of students would come with the... because I think PowerPoint or Google Slides, one of them or maybe both, have a note-taking function where it gives you a side-by-side and then a blank page to take notes next to the... Oh, I should check would come and they would take notes on the slide he was on because he would have it out so he would know... Where he was at.

because he couldn't figure out the technology in the room to get the PowerPoint on and he didn't want people to... so they had to have the PowerPoints already read or downloaded before class. find that interesting because it's an interesting take on how to teach.

which is great, which is I think what we lose in AI. It's like so AI, everything was so slick that it worked. And you didn't have this technical difficulty, you want to be pushed and doing this new thing, which is probably a super successful way to reach your class and to have this slideshow behind the scenes as you listen to me talk while you're here in front of me. talk about changing education for AI. The professor I'm teaching for next quarter.

in order to sort of change how AI's, it's a writing class. It's everywhere. It's writing class. she's doing a flipped model, which is more similar to how they do education in countries like Finland, where you are expected to do a lot of prep work on your own outside of class before class, and then do class assignments in together, instead of listening to a lecture and then going home to do homework.

you'd like read the lecture and then go to class and do the homework with the teacher. So they do it in Finland and my professor is going to do that as well where she's filmed her, she's recorded her lectures from last time she taught this class and is posting readings and slides that students will have to read on their own time before class and then in class she's going to spend time doing writing exercises with them, having them write in class for the hour of class. love that idea. I think it seems like a really interesting idea because it allows people to get

help with writing because they can ask their friends and they can ask for help and really work on while they're being supervised sort of how to build the skills and confidence to do writing. I took a writing pedagogy course over the summer and that's one thing we were learning that a lot of the barrier to writing for students and one of the reasons they're turning to AI is because they're scared of writing. It's very intimidating. You don't have a lot of writing experience and your professor just one day your first day of college says and you're gonna

to write a 10 page paper at end of this course. You're like, what? I've never written 10 pages before?

I barely know this topic. What do you mean after I write 10 pages? I can't do that. It's the length. They freak out. So then they want to generate portions of the text so they don't have to do it. Man, that's interesting. And so one thing we talked a lot about was scaffolding assignments out so that they're building skills by writing small assignments and build over time in really low stakes, low graded, whatever, which is what this professor this quarter is going to do, where she's going to do a lot of lower stakes writing assignments that are graded on completion, where we're giving detailed

feedback, but they're going to get an, the grades are based on completion, but still getting feedback based on what they do. So probably assign a grade like this would be a C quality wise, but you're getting an A because you completed it. Here's how you could improve it. I do like that idea too, because it's like getting kids to speak in class. You're not trying to torture them. You're trying to get a dialogue so you can discuss things and get other opinions and ideas.

you do that is you want to show kids that not everybody has the same idea. You don't have to. It's not a black and white. You can bring your own ideas into class and we'll talk about them. But it's really hard to get kids to speak. It's also really hard to get kids to write. And that's other thing is they get nervous. I was always really struggling with speaking in class. I still probably do, even in my grad seminars.

How is it as a TA though? Is it easier as a TA because you're an authority in the room? I'm an authority and I know I have to prepare. When I'm teaching I know I have to prepare like an hour's worth of teaching material. So I prepare an hour's worth of teaching material. Rarely do kids go into class with that, yes. So they feel always off-kilter. normally show up to classes like I have to speak for an hour and here's my slide. No, but writing is a new thing that's challenging.

for kids I think today, students of any ages, whether you're in college or a little middle school like myself, because they're afraid to write something down and when they're afraid to write it down, you don't have anything to build on to tell them how to get better. No one's great at doing anything the first time you're trying to give them the tools to just keep getting better and better because not everybody is born to be an orator and get their ideas across that way. Sometimes you got to write them down and give them to somebody. So we try to figure out how to get that through. I'm having a lot of success with poetry in

and that kids tend to like to write obviously shorter but I think poetry mimics texts and things that they do and they're to doing that but now they're just trying to get them to add more vocabulary Yeah and I think if you're doing like any sort of social media or texting you're probably used to like thinking about the rhythm of your texts in different ways like often sending two separate texts has a different rhythm than just putting two lines in one text. think students think about that a lot more like if I send this and then

another one after. Yeah, gives them some chronological order to what they're doing.

and organizes thoughts and gets them down on paper and gets them down somewhere. That's the thing. You got to get them out of your head, through your hand, down on the paper. That's why it's a challenge. There are a lot of times, having been a professional writer now for 30 years, that you swear you wrote something down and it's like, no, that's still stuck in my head. It didn't come out. But I was sure it was in that line. I'll swear to it. And it wasn't there. No, because you just, your mind works in peculiar ways, It was interesting trying to get back on that segue, which was awesome.

because we have lot of educational expertise between the two of us. But the atmosphere book, what I liked about it was just some of the science-y part of the space stuff that they were basically going up in space without half as much technology. Not even an eighth of the much technologies they have now. like, they were sending people up, and we don't even do that anymore. It was crazy what they were willing to do to get people into space, I thought.

That part really caught me off guard. It's like, this can go really bad. As it has any time we've explored any part of our world or the space above, we've lost people along the way, which is crazy. The other part that got me on that book was all the stuff backwards thinking as far as who's in the program, as far as women having such a hard time to get in. That was just impossible because they were sure just being a woman would be.

a non-starter. Yes, and then there were competition because there was only three or four from the program. They all felt like, I think after the only one. Yeah. In the sense of competition that comes from that. They were all more qualified than most of the men, but there was such a sense that it could only be one woman. Yeah, that's all your token woman. what I thought this book did really well for those of you who are not into women's lit or female authors, I thought you did a great job of showing that it's just it wasn't male or female. took a certain kind of person that was going to succeed in this

program they had a certain kind of mind and dedication and love of space and it was a wide variety of men and women. There were fighter pilots that were men and women, were scientists that were men and women and it just took a certain type of person, regardless of gender, to get it through.

really enjoyed the very human elements of it as well, the not space stuff. they had some. I think a really charming romance story between the astronauts. They did. And I really enjoyed the plot line with the niece. Yeah. she ended up adopting her niece. In the middle of becoming an astronaut, she realizes that her sister probably isn't a good mom. So takes over the rearing of this child in a time when

That's the last thing they want to see you is be a mom when you're supposed to be the scientist at this point. I mean, and since they were she was in gay relationship in the 80s in the 80s, which they disqualified her, would disqualify her. So their relationship was very secretive. So to the entire world, she would have appeared to be a single mom. Yeah. At a time when single moms were, you know, a thing either single working mom in the 80s. Very odd. Yes. That was a very strange take on a lot of things. That's why that's why Patrick Stewart said sci fi can be like

Shakespeare. It shows a little commentary on things going on in the world that sometimes you can't get to when it's too close to home. the shuttle program was like in the 80s, early 80s. I mean we're talking 40 years ago, 30, 40 years ago, and we're still dealing with some of those issues right now. I mean you think you get past it and it's like no it's still always a human thing that we're always dealing with different versions of it an interesting take, very much so.

I so. I thought we did. And that was only four or five books. think we threw in A Christmas Carol, so that was an extra one and a few extra things on that, which was pretty good. from your many books that you read this year, my many books I read, these are just a few that kind of bubbled to the top, I thought.

We'll see what happens next time we could get together, which I think we have a system down now. We'll just dial in on your campuses since you are not from here, since we're in Minnesota, my favorite place.

I'm not making fun. When you live in sunny California, which is nice and warm, we could probably get together and do this a couple more times. But yeah, we'll have to see what some books are on our radar next. You've given me a few. One of them was that I I want you to read is My Friends. So to do that one, that was kind of a book. then.

was the other one we were gonna do the correspondent that will be an interest just a different way to tell a story through letters so we've done space we've done Shakespeare we've done a farmyard and we didn't made and now we're gonna do it through letter making and then

And then childhood, basically, childhood is my friend. So we'll see how we can revisit that. But it has been fun. We'll see if we can get any of this to upload. I am technically challenged. But I'm going to do my best to get it done this year. The only reason I got onto this, I don't know if I told you, the only reason I did this is because I needed a way to market my own books. And I just.

don't enjoy social media. I don't enjoy it. I was raised to Lutheran. It's not supposed to be about me, so it's really hard just to talk about me. So this is a way for maybe just fun talk about books and put something out there and challenge it up in the writing process itself. So hope you had a good time. I had a good time. And we'll see if we can salvage any of this for a podcast. All right. Till later. Till later. Till later. We'll see if we can do it.