To Host A Scrabble Tournament?

This year our chapter of Sigma Tau Delta will be hosting its first campus-wide Scrabble tournament.

We got the idea while in St. Louis during last year's convention. After spending the better part of our days attending each others panels and wandering the streets of St. Louis, we would often end our nights with friendly games of Scrabble. This attracted a lot of attention, both from members of Sigma Tau Delta as well as from various passerby in the hotel. It gave us the idea that we could possibly plan an event that would get not only members of Sigma Tau Delta and the English department involved, but professors and students from other disciplines as well.

The tournament will be held on March 16th, from approximately 1:00pm-4:00pm in the main lounge of Bliss Hall - the nexus of all things literary at The College of New Jersey. Participants will be randomly paired in brackets. Games will be timed (1 hour long) to ensure that the pace of the tournament is fair. We are currently in the process of selecting prizes, although there will be a prize for every participant. Although we are still in the planning process, we have already generated a considerable buzz on campus.

Please email us at enghonor@gmail.com if you are interested in joining!

To Teach in a Foreign Country?

YES. Do it. If you have the opportunity, it is truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I have been in Rome, Italy since the beginning of January. TCNJ has a unique program that allows Education majors to complete half of their student teaching overseas and I immediately jumped at the opportunity.

A long and arduous application process many months later and… here I am! A true Roman… kind of. There is nothing like spending two months in a foreign country to make you realize how hard communication can be when you don’t speak the same language as most people around you, and need to communicate using hand gestures that you silently pray are not rude or obscene.

My student teaching placement is in a 3^rd grade classroom at an American school here in Rome, and even if you feel as though you have experienced diversity within a classroom, you probably haven’t seen what I have. There are 22 children in my class, only half of which are native to Italy. The remaining half comes from the United States, Egypt, Israel, India, and China. Only the English language is permitted within the classroom because some of the children are still learning it, but the languages native to the various students are Italian, English, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Hindi. On my third day in the classroom, it was a child’s birthday and I listened to the “Happy Birthday” song in English, Italian, Arabic, French, Hebrew, Spanish, and Chinese. It was one of those eye-opening experiences that gave me goosebumps and made me realize just how lucky I am to be able to experience all of this.

While the variation of English language skills in the classroom ranges from late kindergarten to 11^th grade, I have not yet found teaching the children in English to be that challenging. There are a handful of students who leave the classroom daily for ELL, and I have to be careful not to talk too quickly, but the children are all wonderful and have a passion for learning that you don’t really get to see that often. Occasionally, they will have one of those moments where they slap their hand to their forehead and go, “Ohh…uhhh… ummm, Miss Gargiulo, what is the word for ‘[insert Italian word here]?” or “Miss Gargiulo, how do you say [insert Italian word here] ?” When this happens, I try to exercise the little bit of Italian I know or ask one of the students around us, who usually seem to know the answer.

To say the least, it has been an adventure and an experience that I know I will never forget. I will be sad to go but will be walking away with a newfound appreciation for those children who are bi- or tri-lingual and have acquired more language skills in their lifetime than I could ever hope to obtain.

-Katie G.

To Nominate?

In preparation for what is likely to be a very heated penny war, Professor Steinberg is accepting nominations for Sigma Tau Delta's annual 24-hour Marathon Reading. The first ten nominations will enter the competition. Thus far, we have received three nominations:

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K Rowling

Unhappy with the selection so far? Nominate your choice! Stop by Professor Steinberg's office in Bliss 205 with $5 to propose your pick!

To Raise Money for The American Cancer Society?

This year, we are proud to announce that Sigma Tau Delta will have its very own Relay For Life team. Each year for the past several years at The College of New Jersey, an organization called Colleges Against Cancer (CAC) has organized this event, raising money for The American Cancer Society. Relay For Life will be held at The College of New Jersey from Friday, April 1st until Saturday, April 2nd.

If you would like to sign up for our team and walk with us (the registration fee is $10), please go to the event's homepage at the following link: TCNJ Relay For Life Registration. Once you get to the website, click on "Join a Team" and select "Sigma Tau Delta" from the drop-down menu. Each member who raises at least $50 will also receive a free t-shirt!

Check out our team page, and please donate to our team.

Our goal as an organization is to raise at least $1000! After only two days, we are already 12% towards our goal. With the event 56 days away, we can possibly double or triple our donation to The American Cancer Society!

To Meet Online?

Due to today's inclement weather, our first Sigma Tau Delta meeting of the Spring 2011 semester will take place in the "logged chat" section on SOCS. Our president, Todd, sent out the following message to members this afternoon:

Because of cold, wet, icy and generally treacherous weather today, we have decided to not meet on campus. Instead, we will hold our meeting in the "logged chat" room on SOCS at 4:30 today. You can join us in ENGL HONR in SOCS. Then click the "logged chat" tab on the lefthand side toolbar.

If you can make it please join us as this is our first meeting of the semester and we will be talking about lots of fun and interesting things like: an upcoming Applebee's fundraiser, scrabble tournament, the conference in Pittsburgh, etc. However, if you cannot make the meeting, the logged chat will record what has been said so that you can read it at your leisure. Take care and I look forward to meeting with you all in cyberspace!

To Trade Books?

Photo courtesy of bookmooch.com

Have you ever heard of a swap meet? Have you ever heard of a swap meet for books?

I just learned about a new website, called BookMooch where people can trade books that they don't want anymore for books that they do want, which another user has posted. Apparently the website is free to sign up for, and all a person needs to pay for is shipping.

How does the website work? People can search for books in a variety of ways: by genre, by recently added, by country (yes! the website is International), by language, by title/author, by topic, etc. Then, once a person finds a book they want, they can swap a book of their own with that user.

Skeptical? Intrigued? Would you be willing to swap your books for "new" ones?

~Kristen

To e-read?

This Christmas I was turned into a hypocrite.

Since the advent of the e-reader, I've been a fierce opponent. Nothing compares to holding a book; it's weight, it's smell, it's texture. I demonstrate my love for literature by demolishing books. I fold pages, highlight, write myself notes, write "witty" remarks that I hope someone someday sees. And the Kindle? The iPad? The Nook? Where is the new book smell? It's replaced by cold, clean, computer screens. Sure, it's "green," but in this case, I shut out the pleas of the sprouting resident Loraxes and acquire books like an addiction. Sorry, trees.

Materialism and book sniffing aside, the e-readers have always frightened me as an aspiring writer. What does this new technology mean for writers? Is it good or bad? What will happen to bookstores? The only bookstore in my town, an Annie's Book Stop, recently went out of business. I'm devastated. Is this just a prelude of what's to come? Will there be a time when bookstores will be completely extinct?

I received a Kindle for Christmas.

Though I am still terrified for the future of bookstores, though I prefer print above all technological advances, I'm afraid I've been won over. Here's how I am choosing to justify myself: I am not replacing my beloved books. The Kindle is merely allowing me to mobilize my addiction. I can be a nerd everywhere and instantly, download the classics for free (it is unbelievable how many books are free), listen to a book while I'm driving, play electronic Scrabble and read the newspaper on a train. I can even write notes and highlight passages.

I will still buy print books. There are certain authors' work of which I need the physical representation. I don't foresee that ever changing. It's my perhaps naive hope that there are enough people who share my "archaic" need for paper. Hopefully they will be enough to save bookstores (and newspapers for that matter). I'm hoping that the e-reader will remain a supplement to print, rather than render it obsolete. Again, I know it's naive. For the time being, however, I'm enjoying the coexistence of the two.

-Katie Brenzel