What are you doing with Grit?

As always, if you're just joining us, you really should go back and read all the blog entries for January--the ones with chapter titles. There, you'll find lots of great comments from students and faculty that came in while I was reading the book and blogging each chapter. Good stuff back there. Keep adding to that section.

As for now, every day I'm hearing more and more cool things about what people are doing with True Grit, especially in their 1213 classes but off-campus as well. For instance, we've just been invited to visit the group presentations for Sarah Griffith-Smith's 1213 class. As she says, each group has been assigned to create "a science fair-style display of a topic that was inspired by True Grit." The presentations will be up at 8:00 on this Friday morning in the Holt building on campus. I'm not sure if they'll be in a specific classroom or in the hallways, but I'm sure that she wouldn't mind if other people showed up to see them, too. Sarah? Are they up all day? All week? Can they be?

We've also been invited to go and visit the Central Presbyterian Book Club
on April 19th at 10.20 am for their monthly meeting where they will be discussing True Grit. I'll probably go myself, but I'm sure they wouldn't mind if I brought interested and knowledgeable faculty or even a bright student or two (do we have any other kind?). Let me know. I'll be going for sure.

The chair of the English department, Dr. Whiting, and I met today with Jacqueline West, who will be giving a short presentation and leading a discussion on how to read True Grit as a Fort Smither (Smyther? Smithite? Smithian? Smitherington?). The tentative date for that is March 30th and we're currently looking for a place. Details for follow.

And don't forget to mark April 1st on your calendar for the film festival and panel discussions. Those will be in the Echols building on campus. I'll post details again soon or you can visit the Lifelong Learning link.

Which brings me to my point: please tell us all what you're doing! Don't hide your light under a bushel! Tell us if you're reading. Tell us what you think about the book and about the project. Tell us what you're doing in class, in your bookclub, etc. Post it as a comment or if you're on Facebook, join us on the Got Grit page there.

One of these days, I'll finish watching the movie, too.