Crash Courses—Listen Fast

The Crash Course series offers entertaining, short, free videos bursting with facts, delivered in a catchy style, by informed presenters. Usually less than 15 minutes, each video is almost too smart, too knowledgeable. Go figure. Part of their charm is that each focuses on a relatively specific piece of information. As a teacher, you can choose just the right video to provide context for a particular work or time period. It is sometimes dificult to locate convenient access, especially on YouTube, so those links appear below. I have made his Crash Course offerings as accessible as possible—in one central location. Most of these are to the YouTube Playlists.

The Crash Course Home Page includes links to their own massive online resources for 44 courses from varied disciplines, by multiple speakers chosen for their subject expertise. No, it is not all always John Green. They provide a Tumblr link where you can download nearly every video. I have provided pages below which list and link directly to the 676 individual episodes of the courses I find most useful, all in one place. Trust me, we need this.

I have also included materials on Anthropocene Reviewed below.

• Literature(Specific Titles 45)
• World Mythology (41)
• Film Studies (History 16, Production 16, Criticism 15)
• Drama & Theater (50)
• Latin American Literature (13)
• Philosophy (45)
• Religions (24)

Crash Course Mixed—Media, Etc. (72 videos)

• Study Skills (11)
• Study Hall (11 selected of 25)
• Intellectual Property (8)
• Media Literacy (12)
• Artificial Intelligence (20)
• Navigating Digital Information (10)

Crash Course Histories—All the Histories (339)

• World History I and II (72)
• Big History (10)
• U.S. History (48)
• European History (50)
• Black American Hstory (51)
• Native American History (25)
• History of Science (47)
• Art History (22)
• Political Theory (14)

Crash Course World History Episodse 1 through 12 Study Guides

Hint: You might consider these as models should you be assigned to develop a Study Guide for another Crash Course episode.

Anthropocene Reviewed—The Book

150,000 signed copies were available and I am such a fan that I got one. And, of course, there is a podcast about the signing process.

The Book Cover & How Book Covers Get Designed

The Magill entry from EBSCO Host is the best general verview of the book.

Lit Charts offers an excellent online study guide. With a subscription, you can download a PDF of the guide as well as a Teacher Guide.

SuperSummary offers a 72-page guide which covers every cahpter. includes reading checks, as well as multiple assignments and an exam on the book as a whole.

In 2022, the University of Mississippi chose this book for their Common Reading Experience and materials are still available to download. A very thorough exploration which includes teaching materials aimed at college students and their life experiences. Often copied and re-used by many other sites. Overall Handout. Critical Thinking Exercises. Essay. Spotlight Essay Prompts. Writing on Writing.

Full Text as .Doc or .PDF

Anthropocene Reviewed—The Podcasts

There are multiple places to view/listen to the podcasts themselves. Keep in mind that some reviews are not in the book itself. but exist as podcasts only, so transcripts are really helpful.

• WNYC Studios, the original hosts of the series, still provide them, though they are a bit disorganized.
• Nerdfighteria Wiki has 32 episodes, complete with transcripts.

Heidii McMichael’s site, Reading The Anthropocene Reviewed, adapts the Ole Miss materials for high school (AND credits them). With extensive writing activities, from short responses to individual entries to original student AR-style reviews and full essay topics, this is a major resource.

John Green has also posted a charming animated version of how his book came to be. Fully explains the history of the 175-Word 5-Star Review.

Live Wire House Party Interview

Marginalia Interview

Chapter Analysis of CNN Review

The Reviews

Including John Green’s Review of the Reviews of his book of reviews!

• Book Marks
• Booklist
• Christian Century
• Daily Beast
• Kirkus Reviews
• Ladue Publications
• Library Journal
• Michigan Daily
• National Public Radio
• New York Times
• People
• USA Today

PowerPoint with Six Reviews with Links to Readings / Podcasts for Analysis

Assignments & Handouts

Inspiration for Journaling—a blogger’s review of the book, with responses about specific reviews and suggestions for possible personal journal topics. Handout.

Whole Book Individual Review Questions & Prompts—nearly 50 writing prompts on individual reviews, from multiple sources

• Book Club 1 & Book Club 2 Discussion Questions
• Generic Review Evaluation
• Mentor Review Packet & Breaking Bones Teacher Sample
• Narrative Writing & Rubric
• One-Pager OR Sketchnotes
• Original Review
• Review Imitation
• Student Essay Packet (Plan Page, Evidence, Peer Review, Rubric)

Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance

John Green’s favorite photograph, as established in his review of it, but also in his interview for Time magazine’s multimedia project—100 Photographs: The Most Influenrial Images of All Time.

Download the review here.

Watch Green’s return to this photograph, On Our Way to the Dance, and his discussion of What This Photo Doesn’t Show.

Then, complete this assignment analyzing and reviewing, on your own, one of the two provided photographs, Two Towers or Mardi Gras.

More John Green

A brief biographical sketch

John Green Book Banning Letter Rhetorical Analysis & Rhetorical Précis Master

Why John Green Likes Writing for Teenagers from the New York Times

John Green Is Not Writing in Code from the New York Times

TED Talk: The Nerd’s Guide to Learning Everything Online (Lesson Plan)

“Writing Back Towards Hope”—CNN Interview, even includes his review of CNN

“How the World Ends”—William Belden Noble Lecture, Harvard University (2022)

“Learn to Listen”—Commencement Speech & Transcript, Kenyon University (2016)

“Happy Graduation, Despite the Circumstances”—Commencement Speech & Transcript, Butler University (2013)