Caedmon Tutorials

Blogging is a bit of a lonely world, I'm discovering. I suppose somewhere in a portion of my brain, I thought doing this might make a difference in somebody's day---I just forgot that that person might only be me. The desire to connect my life with others'---that's at the heart of this insatiable desire to write, write, write. There's no instant gratification for the beginning blogger. It does really just boil down to slogging through a post, getting out all those pent-up ideas, realizing that I need this more than anyone. Why is it so important to share oneself with others? I guess it goes back to humans being social creatures and all that. I've always been the kind of person who doesn't mind her own company....But sometimes---often---I need the others. I think I'm coming to that more and more as the years go by.

Well, here's yet another way I propose to make connections: This month, I launch my online English Literature Tutorial service, Caedmon Tutorials. Reading, writing, and thinking: these are all activities which one can very happily do all alone. But my tutorials seek to bring people together to talk about great books, to contemplate what they mean and how they apply to our own lives. I'm so excited about this new venture! It seems to connect in one package all the things I care about so much: faith, writing, books, people, education, innovation, sharing, creativity....

I have to realize that it may take a while to catch on. The idea of schooling via the internet is still relatively new. For me too. How to reproduce a classroom atmosphere on the computer? It'll be a challenge, for sure, but I love new challenges and am eager to get this one started. It's been a wonder just planning the courses and I look forward to posting the syllabus soon.  Just thinking about some of the authors and works I'd like to introduce has got me enthused: Tolkien, Lewis, all those wonderful unknowns of the Medieval period!

If you haven't checked out http://www.caedmontutorials.com/ yet, I invite you to do so! I hope you'll join me on these explorations of life-changing literature. By the way, I'm thinking of starting an online book discussion via this blog in August. I've been meaning to re-read the Narnia  books. I'll start posting my thoughts in August and hope you'll join in and share your own with me as I go along.