Shaping the American Republic

I got the information for the summer institute from UTSA.

Looks exciting!

I've been looking forward to this ever since I got accepted. I'm hoping to learn a lot and to meet teachers I can network with. I have a few friends who are history teachers, but for 5 of the last 6 years my networking has been among English teachers.

I'm also excited because this is a period that I feel like I'm not as strong in and I'm hoping to become very well-rounded in the period.

In other news, I read The Scorch Trials by James Dashner yesterday. I actually enjoyed it a bit more than The Maze Runner, though it had some of the same flaws.

First day off of work

Yesterday the campus librarian checked out a bunch of books to me that I've been meaning to read. Yesterday afternoon I read Countdown by Deborah Wiles, which I had been meaning to read ever since a student reccomended it to me. I really enjoyed it; I though the main character was very well-developed and I ended up caring about what happened to her.

Today I read Maze Runner by James Dashner and didn't enjoy it as much. The subject matter was OK, though I've gotten a bit tired of the dystopian YA genre, but my main problem was with the way the narrator was handled. I understand that for the narrative to flow in a particular way, the author had to have the narrator keep secrets from the reader. However, that strategy made me feel like there was this huge gap in the narrator and thus he just didn't feel as vivid and real. That said, I've started The Scorch Trials (the 2nd book in the series).