I recently learned of this web site, which I think many of our wordsmiths will love! The free site combines a game to test English vocabulary and donations of rice to countries suffering from hunger and poverty. The game is simple: every time you correctly choose a word’s definition or synonym, you have donated 20 grains of rice. While the game can be addictive, at least you are contributing to a good cause!
Click on the image to start.
Our gratitude to those who generously supported us last month: Ms. Jenny Anne Burkholder (1993) Mr. Lawrence M. Dennee (parent) Dr. Richard M. Flynn (1987) Prof. Christopher Sten (faculty) Ms. Jennifer Lyman Wagner (1990) All contributions directly support our department’s mission. You can donate online here. Please make sure that you designate your gift to…
Yesterday’s Plotzfest was a huge success. More than 100 people came out to hear our six wonderful speakers–Carolyn Betensky, Richard Flynn, Margaret Higgonet, Uli Knoepflmacher, John Plotz, and Rajeswari Sunder Rajan–and celebrate Prof. Judith Plotz’s long and productive career. We heard papers about the “happy” and “unhappy in Victorian literature (Betensky), Randall Jarrell’s work for…
Rajiv Menon, a junior here at GW, was one of ten students enrolled in a one-credit reading course with our GW-British Council Writer in Residence, Nadeem Aslam. Students in the class were required to keep a reading journal and compose an essay about the experience. We thank Rajiv for sharing his reflections with the English…
Dear friends,It has been my pleasure to serve as chair of the GW English Department for the past three and a half years. Now that my term of service is coming to an end, I want to thank you for the support you’ve given me to make this time in office so enjoyable — and…
The Department of English is pleased to announce that Josie Price has won the first annual Student Poetry Contest for her piece “Floor-Scrapers.” Josie will be awarded a prize of $500. We also expect her to win the Nobel Prize for Literature and/or a Pulitzer some day. The competition garnered forty-one excellent poems, and we…
This is an image that has been circulating online since last week, when The New Yorker magazine posted it on its blog. [Click here for a link to the White House Flickr site, where you can see a huge image of the same.] As an English professor and as someone who loves to be edited…
