Category Archives: WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer)

Watching the “Up” Series (#2, 7 Plus Seven)

Posted on July 14, 2013 by Katherine Wikoff

This weekend I watched the second film in the “Up” series, 7 Plus Seven. Last week I watched (and wrote this blog post about) the first film, Seven Up. Six more films to go on my way to 56 Up, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Movies and film, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "7 Plus Seven", "Seven Up", adolescent development, documentary film, England, entertainment, films, longitudinal study, Michael Apted, movies, psychology, sociology, The "Up" series | 2 Comments

Great Books: The Devil in the White City

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Katherine Wikoff

Last night was my Great Books Dinner and Discussion event at Milwaukee School of Engineering. I usually facilitate a book discussion every June, and lately I’ve added the November discussion to my rotation, as well. This month’s selection was The Devil … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, History, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "The Devil in the White City", 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, architecture, arts, book club, Chicago World's Fair, Daniel Burnham, Erik Larson, Great Books, H.H. Holmes, Milwaukee School of Engineering, MSOE, The White City, WPLongform | 13 Comments

What the decline of tenure and rise of part-time faculty means for higher education

Posted on April 14, 2013 by Katherine Wikoff

Thanks to my friend and colleague, Lisa Rivero, for tweeting (@Lisa_Rivero) and thus calling my attention to this story and graph in The Atlantic: “The Ever-Shrinking Role of Tenured College Professors (in 1 Chart).” Basically what the chart shows is … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher education, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged adjunct faculty, college costs, higher education, higher education reform, part-time faculty, tenured faculty, WPLongform | Leave a comment

The MOOCS that laid the Golden Egg

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Katherine Wikoff

True fact: America once had thousands of auto manufacturers. When the horseless carriage craze swept the nation, carriage makers in cities across the country shifted gears, as it were, to become automobile makers instead. An ad for “The American Carriage … Continue reading →

Posted in Higher education, History, Teaching, Technology, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "Roadster", "The Prisoner" television show, auto manufacturers, Baumol Effect, Baumol's disease, Chris Goodrich, colleges and universities, critical thinking, economics, higher education, higher education reform, horseless carriage, insight, liberal education, MOOCs, productivity in education, productivity in teaching, productivity in the arts, Spellings Commission Report, WPLongform | Leave a comment

“Catch Me If You Can” – best un-Christmas movie ever

Posted on December 28, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

We have probably all watched a favorite Christmas movie this past month. But how about an un-Christmas movie – like Die Hard, for example, which has little to do with Christmas but is set during the Christmas season? It’s fun … Continue reading →

Posted in Life, Movies and film, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "A Christmas Carol", "Catch Me If You Can", "The Christmas Song", Charles Dickens, Christmas, Christmas Day, entertainment, idealized reality, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nat King Cole, Scrooge, Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, WPLongform | 8 Comments

If you build it, they will come: the importance of infrastructure for creativity and innovation

Posted on October 30, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

Here’s a little factoid I’d forgotten about until my husband and I were discussing the recent Presidential debates between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney: The famous series of debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas were not held during the … Continue reading →

Posted in WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer), Writing, blogging | Tagged Aristotle, business, creativity, curiosity, education, enthymeme versus syllogism, enthymemes, five paragraph theme, form and content, industry, innovation, Jonah Lehrer, lifelong learning, Lincoln-Douglas debates, marshall mcluhan, Nixon-Kennedy debate, politics, rhetoric, rhetoric of the open hand, the medium is the message, WPLongform, writing | 1 Comment

What’s the difference between grammar, punctuation, and mechanics?

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

The title of today’s post is actually one of my blog’s categories, shown at the lower right-hand side of the screen. Someone was wondering about the difference, so I thought I’d explain. What follows here is not dictionary-type definitions, but rather my own … Continue reading →

Posted in Grammar, punctuation, usage, mechanics, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer), Writing, blogging | Tagged American English, compound complex sentence, dependent versus independent clause, grammar, independent clause, independent clauses, kinds of clauses, language, mechanics, punctuation, spelling, usage, WPLongform, writing | 77 Comments

Sonia – Blues Radio DJ

Posted on October 13, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

Last week Friday I was fortunate to spend time in the radio booth with Sonia, who hosts “The Blues Drive” every Friday afternoon on 91.7 WMSE (“Frontier Radio, anti-established in 1981”), a radio station owned and operated by Milwaukee School … Continue reading →

Posted in Milwaukee, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "The Blues Drive", 91.7 FM, blues music, blues musicians, entertainment, Frontier Radio, Hubert Sumlin, Les Paul, Milwaukee radio, music, radio, radio disc jockey, radio dj, Sonia blues radio, WMSE, WPLongform, WYMS | 9 Comments

Why “The Hunger Games” should win the Academy Award for Best Production Design

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

I was finally able to watch The Hunger Games about a week ago and was extremely impressed by the film’s visual design – the locations, costumes, sets, props, makeup, etc. Immediately I began thinking about writing a post arguing that the film … Continue reading →

Posted in Movies and film, Popular culture, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer) | Tagged "Chinatown", "The Hunger Games", Academy Award for Best Production Design, Art Deco, art direction in film, Art Nouveau, color in cymbalta television commercials, district 11, District 12, Dorothea Lange, film, mise-en-scene, mockingjay, movies, nightlock, production design, Roland Barthes, S/Z, socialist realism, South Africa riots, WPLongform | 1 Comment

Jonah Lehrer, and the “marvellous Boy”

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Katherine Wikoff

Well, the sad news last week was that Jonah Lehrer, one of my favorite writers, admitted to fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan in his recently published book Imagine. I intended to purchase Lehrer’s book but hadn’t gotten around to it … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and reading, Teaching, WPLongform (posts of 1000 words or longer), Writing, blogging | Tagged "Imagine", "Inventing the University", "Plagiary", David Bartholomae, Janet Dailey, Jonah Lehrer, Nora Roberts, plagiarism, the marvellous Boy, Thomas Chatterton, WPLongform | 31 Comments