John Carter

Robert Eidelberg

A Brooklyn Boy Plays Detective to Find His Missing Father, writer and editor Robert Eidelberg has added thought-provoking questions throughout the pages of John Carters original story (theyre set off to the side here and there); these questions are intended to prompt you, the reader, to engage in some detecting, some reflecting, and even some expecting during the novels development of character, plot, and point of view. These provocative questions all appear under WERE YOU WONDERING? headings because they are just the sort of questions that good readers generally wonder about when they read mysteries (actually, when they read all kinds of stories). Good readers look closely (detect) in order to know; they think more fully (reflect) about what theyve noticed in order to understand what it most likely means; and they predict (mindfully expect) by using the details of a story and their own experiences and knowledge to guess at what will probably happen next.

Julio: a Brooklyn Boy Plays Detective to Find His Missing Father

In a parallel universe (also known as the state of California), private investigator Philip Marlowe, of Raymond Chandler’s masterpiece novel THE BIG SLEEP, tells us: “I watched him out of sight and went up the central walk of the La Baba and parted the branches of the third cypress. I drew out a wrapped book and put it under my arm and went away from there. No one yelled at me.” This is not that book. Also, no cypress tree. Still, no one yelled at any of us when we decided to wrap up the twenty-two pieces of writing we had artistically imagined as part of our spring 2022 creative expressions English Department course at Hunter College known in the vernacular as “Playing Detective” but listed more classically by the college’s Office of the Registrar as “English 25145 / Survey of Detective Fiction.” CRIME SEEN’s puzzle products, created by seventeen sophomores, juniors, and seniors, were incited by instructor Robert Eidelberg’s list of twenty-five ideas for “creative constructions” in, on, and about detective fiction, with drafts studiously revised, rewritten, and edited following collegial feedback from the course’s Dr. Watson-type “sidekicks.” We hope we’ve gotten you so curious that you will enter our crime scenes and enjoy our examples of crime seen.

It’s Only a Mystery in the Eyes of the Clueless

Crime Seen

Hey, Professor / Email Received From Michael Two Weeks Into Our Distance-Learning Course I hope this email finds you well. Thank you for reaching out and expressing your concern. This transition has been a little of a challenge for me. I’ve been trying to adjust to feeling a lot more anxiety after being laid off from my job as a waiter and getting used to spending much more time at home, where I live with my brother, his wife, and their (quite rambunctious) three-year-old son. I am used to being able to do my coursework in the library or at cafes and I am still adjusting to having to do the majority of my work at home. As a result, I have fallen a little behind in my coursework. Hey, Professor / Email Received From Patrick Five Weeks Into Our Distance-Learning Course Unfortunately the course assignments I completed for this session of distance learning are on my work computer. I have to go in to pick up some belongings, anyway, so I’ll send the assignments by then. Sorry for the delay; my mom got sick and she’s immunocompromised, so it has been a rough couple of days. I appreciate how accommodating you have been to our class in this trying time. The reading and thinking assignments you’ve created to make up the distance learning half of our course have both been a light in this time. I hope that reading our completed assignments brings you a similar light. Hello Professor Eidelberg / Email Received From Christina Six Weeks Into Our Distance-Learning Course I know that this is a lot to just unload in an email but I felt that I wanted you to understand why I have not been able to get to my work as productively as I’d like to ideally, as well as confide in you about my current mental and physical health. I have been sluggish, tired, unmotivated, lethargic, and plain struggling to do many tasks beyond existing from moment to moment. I am trying to research more resources for therapy, as I have neglected this for a few months... Dear Professor Eidelberg / Email Received From Shanya After Seven Weeks of Distance-Learning Ends I’m glad to hear you have been doing well and keeping busy since our course ended. My family is doing great; we’ve been using this time to share some of our passions — one of mine, as you know, being writing — and the reception has been amazing. I can’t wait to read and re-read our course’s book on “Some Day: The Literature of Waiting.” Also, I have recommended your other Hunter College humanities course, "The Teacher and Student in Literature," to many friends — but ironically, also recommended that they wait a semester if forced to take the class online. Your courses are simply too magical to be minimized.

An Experiment in Distance Learning and Teaching by a College English Department Instructor and 27 Sheltered-In-Place New York City Undergraduate Students Enrolled in a Humanities Course Studying, of All Things, the Literature of Waiting

Hey, Professor

PLAYING DETECTIVE A Self-Improvement Approach to Becoming a More Mindful Thinker, Reader, and Writer By Solving Mysteries By Robert Eidelberg The intentionally long subtitle to PLAYING DETECTIVE comes close to saying it all about this unique two-in-one book - but not quite. PLAYING DETECTIVE is both a book to read for the fun of it and a book to read for self-improvement if you are looking to become a better thinker, reader, and writer. The for-the-fun-of-it part comes from reading and wondering about the mystery-solving approaches and skills of the contemporary and classic detectives showcased in these 17 remarkable mystery stories. The self-improvement part comes from the book's four special interactive features: Suspicions?, How Clever?, DetectWrite, and Don't Peek! Multiple Suspicions? "intermissions" in the margins of each mystery are strategically placed to help you to think like a detective - and like a good reader. Their provocative questions prompt you, as you read, to note and track clues and to make predictions while immersed in the mystery. How Clever? questions and activities, located immediately after each mystery's conclusion, give practice in the skills of detection and reflection so vital to the self-improvement goal of becoming a more observant reader and more mindful thinker. How Clever? sections enable you to review the now-solved mystery, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your own Suspicions? speculations, and evaluate just how capable both you and the story's fictional sleuth were in arriving at a solution. DetectWrite writing prompts following all the How Clever? sections of each mystery help you to establish your own voice as a more effective writer in a variety of writing forms while also giving you many opportunities to write like a detective story author. At the very end of the book (but don't jump to any conclusions!), the more than thirty pages of the Don't Peek! section provide "one reader's" commentary: mindful explanations and a "best reading" of the solutions (not necessarily "the answers") to the 17 case studies in PLAYING DETECTIVE.

PLAYING DETECTIVE

Stories for Thinking, Solving, and Writing

Detectives

The information about the book is not available as of this time.

Solving Ten Classic Mysteries Together with Their Celebrated Sleuths

Evidently, My Dear Armchair Detective

The intentionally long subtitle to Detectives comes close to saying it all about this unique two-in-one book – but not quite. Detectives is both a book to read for the fun of it and a book to read for self-improvement if you are looking to become a better reader, thinker, and writer. The for-the-fun-of-it part comes from reading and wondering about the mystery-solving skills of the contemporary and classic detectives showcased in these 24 remarkable mystery stories and plays. The self-improvement part comes from the book’s four special features: Suspicions?, How Clever?, DetectWrite, and Don’t Peek! Multiple Suspicions? “intermissions” in the margins of each mystery are strategically placed to help you to think like a detective -- and like a good reader. Their provocative questions prompt you to note and track clues and to make predictions while you are immersed in the mystery. How Clever? questions and activities, located immediately after each mystery’s conclusion, give practice in the skills of detection and reflection so vital to the self-improvement goal of becoming a more observant reader and more mindful thinker. How Clever? sections enable you to review the now-solved mystery, analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your own Suspicions? speculations, and evaluate just how capable both you and the story’s fictional sleuth were in arriving at a solution. DetectWrite writing prompts following all the How Clever? sections of each mystery help you to establish your own voice as a more effective writer in a variety of writing forms while giving you opportunities to even write like a detective story author. At the very end of the book (but don’t jump to any conclusions!), the almost 50 pages of the Don’t Peek! section provide “one reader’s” explanations of the solutions to the 24 mystery stories and plays.

A Self-Improvement Approach to Becoming a More Mindful Thinker,

I began teaching in 1964 and am still at it. Thanks to the values of my parents and my maternal grandmother (Beba), as well as to their high expectations for me, I learned at a young age that no matter how old I got, I would always be a student. Later I learned that I would always be a teacher. Not only is that combination of student and teacher an unbeatable one, it is a necessary one if by a "successful" teacher we mean a person whose humanity is expressed through what is both a calling and a career. (Geoffrey Chaucer put it more poetically in The Canterbury Tales: "And gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.") This is a book about answering the call to become a teacher and working to be an effective one (whatever your subject but generally on the secondary school level). So You Think You Might Like to Teach features the classroom experiences of 23 fictional teachers and the practical lessons they learned from their successes and failures about what happens of value on both sides of the teachers desk. This book's 23 "novel" role models (from contemporary and classic works of literature) may not be actual but they are quite real (flaws and all); and although some of them may be larger than life, all are true to life both in and out of the classroom. I've chosen these particular fictional teachers for you to learn from because "you think you might like to teach." I suspect, and hope, that you want to become the best possible teacher you can be and never have to worry about burnout. Your joy in your career and your students' joy in your joy will depend on it. And so I wish you the best should you decide to profoundly affect the lives of, let's say, 151 very special human beings in the next school year: 150 students and you, their teacher. Robert Eidelberg

So You Think You Might Like to Teach: 23 Fictional Teachers (For Real!) Model How to Become and Remain a Successful Teacher

SOME DAY The Literature of Waiting A Creative Writing Course With Time on Its Hands Now wait. Now. Wait. You do it all the time. Time and time again. You’re doing it right now: waiting on our every word. So here goes: before there was this book SOME DAY on writing creatively about a world of waiting, there was special topics Hunter College English course on “The Literature of Waiting” that featured a selection of novels, plays, and short stories by some rather famous world authors. But wait: even before that time-sensitive college course there were, well, the elevators—particularly the ones in the North Building of Hunter College of the City University of New York. Elevators that you always had to wait distressingly long for when they were apparently working and eternally long for when they were “out of service.” There was even that infamous elevator repair sign. Picture it: a photoshopped female student with her right hand flat out in the stop-and-wait position, her compressed lips silently conveying that any wait on your part for an elevator to come would be entirely futile. And did we mention that the repair sign would inevitably remain up even after that elevator had been fixed? Now that made a certain sense since it was only a matter of time before the sign was, like a broken clock, accurate again. Author Robert Eidelberg’s Books With a Built-In Teacher In addition to “Some Day: The Literature of Waiting, all of the following “Books With a Built-In Teacher” by educator and author Robert Eidelberg are available through all online bookstores as well as from the author by contacting him at glamor62945@mypacks.net “Who’s There?” in Shakespeare’s HAMLET – That Is the Question! Stanza-Phobia: A Slef-Improvement Approach to Bridging Any Disconnect Between You and Poetry by Understanding Just One Poem (Yes, One!) and Winding Up Not only Learning the Process involved but Coming to Love at Least a Few More Poems (and Maybe Poetry Itself) Good Thinking: A Self-Improvement Approach to Getting Your Mind to Go from “Huh?” to “Hmm” to “Aha!” Playing Detective: A Self-Improvement Approach to Becoming a more Mindful Thinker Reader, and Writer By Solving Mysteries Detectives: Stories for Thinking, Solving, and Writing So You Think You Might Like to Teach: 29 Fictional Teachers (for Real!) Model ow to Become and Remain a Successful Teacher Staying After School: 19 Students (for Real!) Have the Next What-if Word on Remarkable Fictional Teachers and Their Often Challenging Classes. Julio: A Brooklyn Boy Plays Detective to Find His Missing Father (with John Carter)

Robert Eidelberg

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