In "Bart Gets a Z," Bart Simpson has a young substitute teacher who's seriously wired. He sends a mass text to assign homework: "20 MINUTES OF TWITTERING." At one point, the teacher asks, "Who can tell me what the Monroe Doctrine was?"

An unfortunate student starts to answer: "The policy of President Monroe that America has the right as a nation to ...." The teacher interrupts him.

"Are you telling me you memorized that fact," he asks, "when anyone with a cell phone can find it out in thirty seconds?"

Computers and Composition Online will publish a special issue on the intersections between composition, literacy, and computer/video gaming as a companion to the Fall 2008 special print issue of Computers and Composition, "Reading Games: Composition, Literacy, and Video Gaming." These issues will explore the social, historical, cultural, and pedagogical implications of computer/video games on literacies and the writing classroom.

The co-authors of Rural Literacies (SIUP 2007) invite submissions from researchers in composition, literacy, and rhetorical studies for an edited collection investigating new ways to understand and interpret literacy, rhetoric, and pedagogy in rural contexts. This volume seeks essays that move beyond the typical arguments for preserving, abandoning, or modernizing rural communities. It seeks explorations of the rural that address the complexities of rural life and the interconnections among rural, urban, and suburban communities, and among the local, global, and transnational.

This is cross-posted on my blog, techsophist.net, but I thought those of you interested in literacy and media choices would be interested. I found this story via TV Squad. A three-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota boy got the birthday party of his dreams recently. No, it wasn't themed around the Teletubbies, Barney, Sesame Street, or my personal favorite from the past, Bananas in Pyjamas--this three-year-old wanted a Jim Lehrer News Hour themed party--and he got it. The full story with photos of the decorated cake and custom party hats tells how he has been watching the Newshour from day one, with this interesting result.

It just goes to show you--have Jim Lehrer on every day at dinnertime and your toddler too will be in the know and calling Mr. Lehrer "Jimmy Jimmy BoBo" instead of begging for extra time watching Major Astro and the animated Star Trek series--no wait--that was my childhood.