Scott McLeod sometimes shares blogs that “deserve a bigger audience.” I don’t presume to know how many people read Robin Bates’s blog Better Living Through Beowulf, but I find it consistently makes me think about the connections between everyday life and literature. Robin is an English professor at St. Mary’s College in Maryland. He regularly shares his insights regarding literature’s and film’s connections to such wide-ranging topics as current events, sports, and spiritual matters. I often save his posts for last when I’m catching up on RSS feeds in my feed reader because I know I will want to read them slowly and think them over. There’s nothing I don’t love about his blog, from his interesting connections and engaging commentary all the way down to his layout. I think even if you don’t teach English, you can learn something from Professor Bates’s blog.
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I look forward to better living through beowulf posts every week. I have also recommended it to my AP kids, who can sometimes forget why we REALLY read books.
So glad to find "Better Living Through Beowulf" via your blog, especially since I teach Beowulf. BTW, there was an EJ article a few years back titled "Everything I Need to Know About Teaching I Learned from Beowulf."
I need to track that article down. Beowulf is one of my favorite works of literature ever. Every time I look into it, I learn something new.
I started reading BBTB after my junior year at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Robin Bates is an amazing professor and his blogs read similar to his classes. He always encouraged my class to make connections to life which I think is something that we often lose in school when faced with the pressures of standards and testing.
Jessica, how lucky you are to have been one of his students.