Author Archives: davidbdale

About davidbdale

What should I call you? I prefer David or Dave, but students uncomfortable with first names can call me Professor or Mister Hodges. My ESL students' charming solution, "Mister David" is my favorite by far.

Sonnet 29

FIOS was screening a movie in which someone playing Shakespeare was talking to someone playing his patron and king. Shakespeare was laying on the praise pretty thick, and the king knew full well we was being lathered up, but they … Continue reading

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The ROBUST VERBS Exercise Modeled

One of your classmates has submitted a set of revisions for the “Robust Verbs” paragraph. It contains some good work, but also neglects a substantial number of available improvements. Consider this post an example of the sort of advice you … Continue reading

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Open Strong: A Model

Travel Deprivation in a Pandemic Instructor’s Note: What follows is a perfectly fine Open Strong paragraph for an essay devoted to exploring the harm done to our psychologies by depriving us of even the promise of traveling any time soon. The … Continue reading

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The Weight

Please, please, please feel free to post links to your favorite music. Otherwise, I keep looping songs that were first recorded 50 years ago. Thank you.

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If / Whether

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Hypothesis Proved?

Follow that? If ants truly gauge the distance they’ve traveled from the nest (and therefore the distance back to the nest) by counting their steps, then returning to the nest with longer legs means they would travel farther with each … Continue reading

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A Note about Feedback

The premise of the course is that you write drafts, receive feedback, improve your writing, and are graded accordingly. Experience has taught me that many students decline to revise their work no matter how much feedback they receive, so I … Continue reading

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Having Trouble with Claims?

The Claims assignment is complex. I’ve been helping your classmates with it since I assigned it, so I won’t be surprised if you’re not quite sure how to go about it. Here’s how I explained the project to one of … Continue reading

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In case you missed it.

LINK TO CANVAS ZOOM MEETINGS

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The Universe—davidbdale

The Universe Creates God God does not create the universe, the universe exists to create God. The universe is an incubator, and everything inside it makes up a part of God. The universe expands over time, which shows how God … Continue reading

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