Anchor Tags explained by a language teacher.

[kdickso]

In the endless quest to declutter my Canvas course sites and eliminate unnecessary "call-outs" to separate pages I've been playing with HTML, specifically Anchor Tags.

For the unaware, Anchor Tags are essentially hyperlinks that allow you to jump from one place to another WITHIN a page instead of jumping to a separate page. (Experts please forgive me, I'm trying to keep things low key here).

After looking in several excellent discussions here on Canvas, most especially Damon Ellis' expert summary drawn from other work by Stefanie Sanders here, I figured out Anchor Tags, but it wasn't easy. Most examples other than Damon's (including this example of how to do it on the syllabus page from UW) have extraneous bits of formatting that aren't part of the essential Anchor Tag itself. Damon's explanation is wonderfully divorced from extraneous code, but expects knowledge of HTML/coding language that still might be beyond some of us beginners. I realized that the problems I was having are similar to those that my own students have in introductory Latin and I'll philosophize at the end of the post, but in the mean time I offer an explanation of Anchor Tags that might be easier for the non-expert HTML dabblers like myself to use. (I've also included some Best Practice Suggestions after the philosophizing).

To create an Anchor Tag you have to be working inside the HTML editor, not the Rich Content Editor.

There are two basic elements when using an Anchor Tag:

1. The place FROM which you are jumping (the FROM text).
2. The place TO which you are jumping (your destination).

Step-by-step instructions:

The DEPARTURE POINT!

1. Locate/Create the text for the place FROM which you want to jump.
2. Think of an easy to remember "shorthand" name (unique identifier) for your anchor—each anchor needs a unique identifier so that it will find its destination appropriately. In the step below, use that name for your unique identifier.
3. In the HTML editor you will modify the text around your FROM text by adding the bold (blue and green for recognition here) as follows—the FROM text does not get altered, just add the code and label around it:

• <a href="#YourUniqueIdentifierTermHere">FROM text</a>
  • IMPORTANT: Notice that the Destination Point Unique Identifier MUST HAVE the hashtag (#) symbol at its beginning after the first set of quotation marks.

The DESTINATION POINT!

1. Locate/Create the text for the place TO which you want to jump.
2. In the HTML editor, modify the text around your TO text by adding the bold (blue and green for recognition here) as follows—again, the TO text does not get altered, just add the code and label around it:

• <a id="YourUniqueIdentifierTermHere"></a> TO text
  • IMPORTANT: Notice that the Destination Point Unique Identifier MUST NOT HAVE have the hashtag (#) at its beginning after the first set of quotation marks.
  • Also important, if you want to use Anchor Tags in a blog post here in the Canvas Community, replace id with name in the above command.

The Philosophizing Bit—yes, if you clicked on "at the end of the post above" that was an anchor tag at work!:

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and it IS a language. Many people learn words or phrases in other languages and use them with varying degrees of success and appropriateness. It is entirely possible to utilize other languages without being fluent in those languages. Many of the explanations of HTML from the wonderful people in the Canvas Community assume a level of basic understanding that is still a bit beyond some of us just because we have gotten used to being able to function using bits and pieces of HTML without true fluency (like being able to order a coffee or beer in a foreign country without speaking the language).

Two of the main problems my Latin students have revolve around grammar/syntax labels and word order. In terms of grammar/syntax use direct and indirect objects, transitive and intransitive verbs, copulative verbs, subjects, predicate adjectives, independent and dependent/subordinate clauses, et cetera all the time, but they are confused by those labels for the parts of their sentences because they don't think in those terms and sometimes have never learned them (or only in the very distant past...or so they claim). In terms of word order, meaning in Latin is largely based in the endings of the words themselves as opposed to English, where word order is essential:

Take, for example, the following Latin sentences:

• Canis virum mordet.
• Canis mordet virum.
• Mordet canis virum.
• Virum canis mordet.
• Virum mordet canis.
• Mordet virum canis.

In those sentences we have six different examples of word order, but they all translate to "(The) dog bites (the) man." [The changes in word order do emphasize different things because the first position in a sentence is usually most important. Thus when the dog is first, he is what is being emphasized as the actor. When the man is first, he is what is being emphasized as the victim. When the verb mordet (he/she/it bites) is first, the action of biting is what is important.]

Blissfully, HTML requires pretty rigid word order using signals that turn things on and off by the use of an opening symbol such as <a> and a closing symbol such as </a>. There are some places this happens in Latin and I find it useful to remind my students of Algebraic expressions, specifically the good old PEMDAS order of operations. In HTML we have to remember that we are dealing with a series of nesting, paired frames/bookends/parentheses and everything that happens has to be nested within an opening and closing pair. [Disclaimer, I know you can leave end tags off occasionally just like we eliminate forms of the verb "to be" at times in Latin, but ideally and for simplicity lets say we should close our parentheses).

In re the "word order" situation, delving into HTML reminded me that when trying to understand and use a new bit of code one should always look for the bookends/parentheses that start and finish the sentence.

Best Practice Suggestions:

You might note that in the explanation above I used both bold text and colored text to aid in visual identification of the constituent parts of the code. This is a practice I would suggest to others when sharing explanations in Canvas. Being able to easily discriminate pieces of a puzzle help ALL of us, not just those with various processing difficulties. [Disclaimer, I am reminding myself that I need to remember to do this as I revise my visuals, not just with colored markers on a white board.]

In re the grammar/syntax situation, remember that we always need to define our terms. While "UniqueIdentifier" might mean something to an experienced HTML coder, to others it will NOT be obvious. Taking the time to provide the simplest explanation you can think of for your audience helps. When I explain transitive vs. intransitive verbs to my students I know that some of them already understand what I am talking about, but others do not and defining my terms makes sure we are all on the same page.

One of the explanations of anchor tags I read used the same order I did (departure point....destination point) and another reversed the process (destination point...departure point). I will admit, that although the explanation in the reversed process was somewhat clearer, part of the difficulty in understanding it was the process being reversed. I find that students for whom English is their primary language do much better with beginning to end, left to right, top to bottom explanations. However, there are plenty of people who have no problem with the reverse approach. Whatever the order you choose, if you define your terms well most learning styles should be able to follow your explanation.

Disclaimer: I've tried to model Anchor Tags within this post, but I may have to edit it several times because I am nowhere near fluent in HTML. It was during the editing to make sure the HTML worked that I discovered that, whereas in "Canvas" the bit of code for the anchor tag is <a id="identifier"</a>, IN THE CANVAS COMMUNITY (where this Blog is posted) it is <a name="identifier"</a>

I am sure another brilliant user can explain that difference, I only thought to try substituting "name" for "id" because I saw the different tags while researching Anchor Tags!

[Shar]

Thank-you  @kdickso ​ for the language teacher explanation. HTML is a definitely a language that requires paying attention to terms (id vs name) and endings ( the slash-/).

I especially loved your "dog bites man" example and all the variations and implications of the word order.

I just have 3 things to add to your post:

1. The ID from the anchor A tag can also exist in a DIV tag. I frequently will chunk out text on a long document using <div id=part1> ..stuff...</div> and linking to that same #part1 works just as well as if it was originally in an anchor tag.
2. You mentioned reverse order on setting up the departure and destinations, and I do exactly that. For me it is helpful to go through my document and identify relevant stopping points/landmarks by dropping in IDs at various places and then return to the top of the document and list all of those landmarks, and surround them with anchor tags.
   
   
3. One of the coolest things to do with the anchor tags within a document is to use the Canvas enhanceable_content tabs. This method uses DIV tags with ID to identify and separate the parts of the document. And what's even lovelier is that on mobile, these tabs instead display like a simple Table of Contents (list of links) at the top of a long document.

Thank-you again for your engaging (color-coded) post and thank-you for taking the time to give us another perspective.

Cheers - Shar

[kdickso]

Shar, I think I am going to have to get you to teach me the DIV breakout in more detail later because I am intrigued but overwhelmed right now. I'm adding it to my list of cool HTML to learn and practice.

In re going from destination to start or start to destination, I think that is a clear and simple way of how different people think (and learn) different ways. We all tend to teach in the manner that we learn best and becoming a better teacher means we have to break away from that. Although, given the above, I clearly did not do what I say and teach it both ways!

Thanks for your cool ideas!

[dejonghed07]

Thanks for detailing your solution to using anchor tags in Canvas!

Has anyone tried linking to a specific spot on another page? Here is an example of what I tried, but it didn't work. Maybe someone knows the correct code? The link goes to the correct page and shows the correct anchor in the URL, but does not take the user down to the anchored spot on the page.

Page 1 – Link to page 2

<a href="https://college.instructure.com/courses/15123/pages/textbooks#books">Books</a>

Page 2 - Anchor

<a id="books">Text about books</a>

[ajohnson]

It's not working because your page URL doesn't end in .html. That is, to use an anchor, it has to look like https://college.instructure.com/courses/15123/pages/textbooks.html#books 

AnnMarie

[dejonghed07]

Thanks for your response. Has that worked for you in Canvas? I tried that, but it didn't work because to link to a Canvas page that ends in .html, the page will have to be named with .html in the title

In Canvas, .html in a title adds -dot-html to the URL (rather than .html)

[Shar]

Hi  @dejonghed07 ‌,

Here's one possible reason the anchor tag doesn't appear to be working:

Does the page you're sending folks with the anchor reference have enough content that it would need to scroll through? For instance, if you have an anchor tag on a short page, there's not a whole lot of page for the page to scroll through and it would seem like it's not reaching the correct anchor.

In the example below, I loaded the page normal and then loaded the page to the #cantelope anchor tag. The page did scroll, but it looks like it only loaded at the Bananas tag because there's not a lot of content on this page for it to scroll through.

And I did not have to add .html to the end of the URL. https://MYINSTITUTION/courses/1045344/pages/page-with-anchors#cantelope is the URL I used when the page did scroll on load.

And here's the HTML code for that page I created:

<p>Here is a page with some anchor elements in H2</p>
<h2 id="apples">Apples</h2>
<p>I like to eat apples.</p>
<h2 id="bananas">Bananas</h2>
<p>I have half a banana every day.</p>
<h2 id="cantelope">Cantelope</h2>
<p>My dad eats cantelope.</p>
<h2 id="durian">Durian</h2>
<p>Never had a durian... yet.</p>

Cheers - Shar

[dejonghed07]

Thank you for providing an example of code that worked for you. I'm linking to a long page of text, so don't think that's the issue I'm having. My coding issue might be that I am linking from an accordion on one page to an accordion on another page. However, it's very helpful to know that what I'm trying to attempt is possible on a normal page. It's also helpful to know that .html is not required at the end of a URL when linking to a Canvas page. Thanks for taking the time to share your work!

[Shar]

Hi  @dejonghed07 ‌,

Oh linking within accordions.... hmm. I usually link with the Tabs with no problems. I think the accordion enhanceable content may be interfering with the link to the anchor because of how(the order of operations) the page loads with the accordion. I'm tagging in  @James ‌ to speak to the order of how Canvas pages load.

In fact, I prefer the tabs over the accordion because tabs are more accessible in mobile. Tabs up top become a table of contents to jumping down into the document. I use accordions when I have a long batch of text for the title, like for a FAQ where each question is it's own accordion and user can look at the answers one at a time.

Good luck,
Cheers - Shar

[James]

Sorry, ishar-uw, I don't have any great words of wisdom for you here.

There could be all kinds of things interfering, like the accordion or tabs. I don't use the accordion (tried it once and didn't like the huge white space and all pages taking the length of the longest one), but I remember something about there being issues with linking to content in another tab, so I imagine that accordions could suffer a similar issue.

Another thing to consider when you wonder why external links might not work is the order the page is displayed in. The IDs of elements on the page are not available when the page is loaded. The page is delivered using JavaScript and then it is displayed on the page. This means that when the browser tries to jump you to a specific tag, it's not available yet.

To test this hypothesis, I generated 10 paragraphs of Lorem Ipsum in then identified each paragraph with an id. id="p1", id="p2", and so on until id="p10". Note that IDs cannot begin with a number. These IDs are also on the paragraph element, not on an anchor element.

I then shrunk my browser window and tried directly linking to a paragraph that would appear off the page so that scrolling would be needed.

<canvas-instance>/courses/896851/pages/lorem-ipsum#p5 

In Firefox, it works and takes me to that paragraph. However, in Chrome, it did not take me to the paragraph. In Firefox, it jumps to that portion of the page, in Chrome, it reloads the page.

I tend to think that if you need to jump to a specific portion of content within an LMS page, you should look and see if there's a better way to do it. Maybe you need to break up the content or use tabs or something else to separate things.

[dejonghed07]

Thanks  @James !

It’s helpful to know that, when linking from one page to another page, the order that the code displays will not allow an anchor to function. Thank you for testing out code and determining that different browsers result in different user experiences.

Based on your comments and ishar-uw's comments, it sounds like tabs function better than accordions when we want to link from one section of content to another on the same page (and that tabs are a better option for mobile viewing!)

[kdickso]

Ditto the thanks for providing the example of the code, Shar. That really helps a lot!

[kdickso]

That explains some of the issues I have been having. Thanks James.

~Katrina

[laurakgibbs]

Hello  @kdickso ‌! Due to recent activity, this post popped up in my content view... and I saw Canis virum mordet. So of course I had to comment!!! I am a former Latin teacher, and I'm still pretty addicted to Latin. I have a blog, Bestiaria Latina, where I share Latin proverbs and fables... and Latin LOLCats. I also made a Canvas-friendly Latin LOLCat widget; perhaps you and your students might enjoy. Gaudeamus! 🙂

Widget: LatinLOLCats: Laura's Widget Warehouse 

[kdickso]

Laura,

Thank you so much. I hope you will be pleased to know that I have utilized/shown your Blog to my students many times over the last few years. I am a huge fan of the LatinLOLCat project and will definitely check out the Widget and pass it on to others. Thank you so much for pointing out to me another way to enjoy the tremendous work you are doing.

Best wishes,

Katrina

P.S. Here is a non-Latin meme you might enjoy (created for my Classical mythology class when we were discussing Ovid's portrayal of the many "loves" of Iuppiter and his relationship with Iuno this past Spring):

 

[laurakgibbs]

Thank you so much,  @kdickso ‌! And that mythology meme is WONDERFUL. One of the things I am trying to do next year is to get students to "make" more stuff to accompany their storytelling. I am going to snag your Ovid item to use as an example of the kind of thing they could do (we read a lot of Ovid in my Myth-Folklore class). Fabulous! Thank you for sharing that here. GO MEMES! 🙂

[kdickso]

Dear Laura,

I was originally going to have a MEME contest using that background or another, but most of the memes I kept coming up with fell into what some might consider the NSFW category because, honestly, most Classical mythology actually falls into that category which often shocks and awes the undergraduates. I played around with guidelines for how to keep such a context "safe" for the entire class (I think we had around 90 in 102 last spring), but the T.A.s and I could not work out a way we were sure that we could keep everyone comfortable (including the University). The students liked the idea too, but agreed that we would need detailed guidelines and rules for it to work and even then it felt risky the more we discussed things. The uncomfortable topics are common and come up all the time in a myth course, but I think we were all concerned that while the humorous release might be cathartic, the discomfort/misunderstanding of satire might undercut some of our course goals particularly given the propensity for divorcing things from context in the media these days.

However, despite my cowardice, the idea of the contest had unexpected value as it had me further investigating the ways that Canvas can be restricted using groups and other options, but then I realized I would have to have some sort of "trigger warning" and chickened out again.

The other unexpected good thing to come out of all my dithering was that it led me to purchase Rabinowitz and McHardy's book From Abortion to Pederasty: Addressing Difficult Topics in the Classics Classroom which has turned out to be a tremendously thoughtful and useful collection of essays and a great resource. (And for anyone who is surprised this would be an issue, let me just say that agree with Genevieve Lively's essay in the volume "Pedagogy and Pornography in the Classroom" in which she says "In the Classics classroom it can be difficult to avoid teaching pornography." I assure you, this is a truism.) In any case, I enthusiastically recommend this volume to anyone interested in handling uncomfortable topics in the classroom. Don't let the "Classics" in the title scare you away people, we all have to deal with uncomfortable topics addressed in this book and many of us deal with the ancient world even if that isn't actually the subject of the class just because of the pervasive influence of the ancient Mediterranean cultures on "western" culture  (By Jove!, Promethean, stygian, republic, democracy, philosophy, pederasty, drama, empire, etc.). We all teach Greece and Rome in one way or another, not just those of us who specialize in the ancient world.

I look forward to hearing how things work out for you and wish you luck and more bravery and skill than I've managed so far with memes (beyond my love of the Google advanced image search!).

Best,

Katrina

P.S. If anyone has ideas or thoughts on using the adaptive release abilities or other structures of Canvas to help ease students into sensitive topics (this often falls under what many classify as "trigger warnings", but that framing feels to me like a "stop and grab your anxiety meds" approach rather than and "pause and consider" or proceed carefully approach which is what I am advocating), I'm happy to hear about them or be pointed to already existing ideas and I thank you in advance.

[laurakgibbs]

Oh,  @kdickso  that Rabinowitz and McHardy book sounds fascinating! I will definitely need to read that! I am pinging  @G_Petruzella ‌ for this discussion too.

I'll confess that I have taken the easy way out because I teach fully online classes where students can choose their own reading, and because I rely on public domain materials, there are a lot of already sanitized versions out there. I use Tony Kline's translation for people who want something closer to the ancient text, but if they want to work with a 19th-century version for schoolboys like the books by Alfred Church, just to take one example, that is okay with me too. I really like how the individualized curriculum of an online course helps me with my own personal inclination to a laissez-faire style of learning. As long as people are reading ANYTHING that fires their imagination and connects them with traditional storytelling in some form, I can work with that. 

As for the artwork, I love any and all artwork, and since I teach college, I have not self-censored in the images that I use in my course materials (and that goes for my Indian Epics class where there is some seriously erotic art). Just as a kind of experiment, I'm going to go to my Myth-Folklore image widget and see how many clicks it takes me to get to a nude picture. (pause) ... 8 clicks to get me to the dead Patroclus:

I did have a student, years ago, who told me she had to shut her door so that her son would not see the pornographic art (as she called it), and when I asked, just out of curiosity, how old her son was, I found out he was sixteen. So, from that I learned that other people have very different expectations than I would ever have about such stuff, and that is just how the world works. Given that, my goal as a teacher is to give the students as much individualized control as I can, and also to make sure there are lots of spaces so they can share their thoughts and feelings about what we are studying. Now I am curious to read that difficult topics book to see what new thoughts I can glean on this, since it is definitely a topic of ongoing interest.

Even Aesop's fables have some pornographic items (they were definitely NOT for children back in the day...).

[G_Petruzella]

(Thanks, laurakgibbs,‌ for looping me in!)  @kdickso ‌, I appreciate the complexity of these issues. I admit I'm more in Laura's situation - I've not had experiences working in environments where censoring or alerting about certain topics was a significant concern. But to your query:

>> ideas or thoughts on using the adaptive release abilities or other structures of Canvas to help ease students into sensitive topics

I might imagine a couple of possibilities with Canvas capabilities...

• Groups: Specifically, the self-sign-up kind. Putting certain content within a Group, and making that Group self-sign-up, is a functional way to make access "opt-in" on a per-student basis.
• Mastery Paths: Specifically, using  @kona ' "Hacking Mastery Paths" idea to make differentiated content accessible, depending upon the individual student's choice on a Quiz question.

[kdickso]

Thanks laurakgibbs and  @G_Petruzella ,

I think that the group self-sign-up is probably the best way to go for now and I look forward to playing with that.

I want to make sure I haven't given the wrong impression. I show images and discuss items all the times that are difficult and I am often deliberately provocative (deliberately provoking thought, not rudely shocking students for my own jollies). The trick here was self-created content that could cross a line and I really do think the self-sign-up group might be the solution. Of course, guidelines for appropriate behavior will still be necessary, but its a good idea.

But, it is one thing for me to talk about 50 different images of Zeus and Ganymede over the centuries and try to explain the sexual constructs of erastes and eromenos and think about whether or not Zeus and Ganymede is a Malinowski-style myth of social charter.

It is entirely another for me to say, let's have a contest for satirical captions of ancient images and put up a meme created with an image of a fifth century red-figure vase showing Zeus and Europa with the caption "_____ grabbing, old-school style." The blank being filled in with a word used by the current president of the US in an infamous video describing grabbing women and the meme being intended as a commentary on the head of the Greek pantheon and his relationships with women, patriarchy, ancient legal codes, etc. In other words, it is a single image of relevant dark satire that is intellectual in its basis and reference, but potentially more provocative because of that darkness (and the politics). Perhaps more provocative than of me showing the famous image of Priapus from the house of the Vettii (which is something I show in probably every class every semester to explain the idea of sexual images as apotropaic devices in a liminal context, lol). For THAT, in a course about Classical mythology (even though the ancient/modern connection and reception theory and intertextuality are recurring themes) I need a little restriction. The intent in that example is to poke at the constructs, but a student of any gender who has been a victim of any degree of sexually aggressive behavior (which probably most people have) should have the option as to whether they want to "go there" because it is not a course requirement and it is meant to be fun and it will be fun for some, but it would most definitely not be fun for others.

About a decade ago, one set of students complained in a set of evaluations of the myth class about the sexual content, so I now warn them much more directly about the difference between the actuality of the ancient myths and the images vs. the sanitized versions required in K-12 schools and literature. When you are little you hear about Hades carrying Persephone to the Underworld and making her his queen. When you are in college you hear about Uncle Hades violently grabbing his niece Kore (which means maiden/virgin) who is the daughter of his brother Zeus and his sister Demeter (brother sister, but not married, wife is Hera) and dragging Kore crying and screaming to the Underworld after which her name changes to Persephone because his closely related wife-niece is no longer a maiden. And that is probably one of the tamer examples of sanitized vs. not. Discussing something like Tereus and Procne and Philomela in Ovid is easy for no-one and no amount of preparation can soften the blow of that kind of violence.

Now I want to take Laura Gibbs' Indian Epics class!

Thanks for the suggestions!

KD

[laurakgibbs]

This is such a great discussion,  @kdickso ‌ - thank you for coming back around to it, and I'm pinging  @lindalee ‌ since she had just said something at Twitter this week about Sleeping Beauty and rape which echoes just what you are saying about the different ways in which people tell the Persephone story (and my students will sometimes opt for Persephone as a rebellious teenage runaway Queen-of-the-Underworld approach, a kind of Goth Disney princess).

One thing I've noticed with Game of Thrones is the stark (whoops, pun not intended) contrast between reading/listening (I listen to those books as audiobooks mostly) and watching on the screen: there are incidents I was able to take in and reflect on in the books that I simply cannot bear to watch in the television version. And it's not just about image versus words: I can also deal with scenes depicted in art (Judith beheading Holofernes etc. etc. etc.) that I would find very hard to watch in "moving pictures" like in a movie or TV show.

I wonder if the brain researchers have figured that one out...? At some point I am guessing we learn to process words and still images in ways that are very different from real life, and the simulacrum feeling of a movie or TV show does not totally work by the same rules...?

In any case, I read Ovid with no problem (whose violence is so over-the-top sometimes that I occasionally suspect it is a burlesque in the spirit of Monty Python's Black Knight in the Holy Grail film)... but a film of the Metamorphoses done in the spirit of Game of Thrones would have plenty of horrors. Eeek.

[lindalee]

Thanks, laurakgibbs‌, for calling my attention to this! I hadn't thought about how we might accomplish anchors, so many parts of this discussion are useful!

Though I'm not a proper classicist by any means, when I've taught Ovid's Metamorphoses, I've always talked about his work in the context of satire. But burlesque is probably a better descriptor. (Though burlesque might have needed much more unpacking than satire for my students.)

[kdickso]

Thanks to both laurakgibbs and  @lindalee  for their comments. I often joke about being traditional about my classicism in some ways, but I'm also the same person who wants to see everyone reading and appreciating Ovid, so I'm probably more of an improper classicist who invites all aboard for the journey. (Game of Thrones, "stark", that was a good one even if unintended!)

I am still having trouble making anchor tags work consistently, though I just got a great HTML & CSS reference guide (by Jon Duckett) that the senior Computer Science major taking his Latin 101 final in my office right now gave a big thumbs up to, so maybe I'll figure it out. It doesn't seem like my "Create Anchor Tag Tool in Rich Content Editor" idea is going anywhere fast (it has a score of 13 right now). In particular, the reference guide does something I advocated for in my blog post above in that it has simple examples with the HTML tags differentiated by color to make them easier to "see."

As an unapologetic Romanist, I have to say that I believe Ovid would LIKE the fact that we read his work in so many different ways even if we do not know what he was aiming for as he wrote. The fraught political environment of the early Empire was a dangerous place to be. We still do not know the reason that Ovid was exiled to Romania and it is likely that we will never know why. The ancients could definitely keep secrets. And that's not even touching the point that my father the retired English/Humanities professor likes to make about a text taking on its own identities and meanings in the hands of each reader/viewer no matter the authorial intent (the author can't sit on your shoulder and tell you what to take away from it, right?).

Seems like I've managed to hijack my own blog post here several times, so I'll keep up that theme as well...For the many people who delight in the Classics, in addition to laurakgibbs fantastic blog Bestiaria Latina, there is a blog many of you might be interested because it covers classical reception in wonderful ways: Pop Classics. It includes thoughts on a little bit of everything, not just I Claudius or Percy Jackson, but also wonderful things like Supernatural, Wonder Woman, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

(laurakgibbs the Black Knight is a superb example of the best of Python. These days there are so many undergraduates who have never heard of Monty Python that I have to explain the ensemble before I can even approach Life of Brian, and after hearing Terry Jones talk about the filming of that two years ago at Dragon Con I am determined to keep teaching it forever. If you like Life of Brian, I highly recommend the volume of essays edited by Joan Taylor, Jesus and Brian: Exploring the Historical Jesus and His Times via Monty Python's Life of Brian...totally worth it!).

Cheers to all and thanks for your thoughts and contributions!

Katrina