Blogs about: High School Teaching
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An Early Resolution
Home from school about six, eat, drag my feet by doing the crossword or reading the paper, then work again. Asleep by ten, up again at four to finish (or start) more homework, then the gym—early, so … more →
Signals to Attend
An Early Resolution
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wrote 2 weeks ago: Home from school about six, eat, drag my feet by doing the crossword or reading the paper, then work … more →
Talking to Bartleby
wrote 1 month ago: Another experiment… “Bartleby, the Scrivener” is a long short story by Herman Melv … more →
Catcher in the Finn or The Adventures of Huckleberry in the Rye
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wrote 1 month ago: Teaching Huck Finn after Catcher in the Rye, I’m struck—again—by how much the second book owes the f … more →
Four (and a half) Lessons of Running
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wrote 1 month ago: Riding home from the Illinois State Cross Country Championships yesterday, as the athletes slipped o … more →
My Extra Hour: On Complaint
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wrote 2 months ago: As an exercise today, I wrote for exactly the extra hour the departure of daylight savings time allo … more →
On Loving to Hate
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wrote 2 months ago: The other day a student asked if I intended to read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I took a moment to … more →
Ahead and Behind
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wrote 2 months ago: Other runners must have the same daydream—shambling along at my tired pace, I look up and imagine th … more →
If I Ruled the School
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wrote 3 months ago: The musical “Pippin” contains a song called, “If I Ruled the World.” I’m not crazy about the song, b … more →
It's Never Their Fault
wrote 3 months ago: From a December 2007 NYT article. “When you get up there that first time and you don’t d … more →
The Value of Labor
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wrote 3 months ago: The other day, I participated with a group of students in a day of service. Our assignment was to a … more →
Poetry Foes (And Woes)
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wrote 4 months ago: Some students aren’t shy about hating poetry—they use so many words: “I… hate… poe … more →
Next!
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wrote 6 months ago: Teaching is supposed to include a built-in restart button and enforced down time—June arrives, a cyc … more →
Under 50 Words Each
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wrote 6 months ago: Some weeks ago, my son gave me a small notebook with the handwritten title, “I Dunno… Wo … more →
Loud and Proud
wrote 6 months ago: Hear me read? Evaluators who visit my classes sometimes cite me for not letting my students read alo … more →
Ugly Emotion
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wrote 7 months ago: For me, the end of the school year is a season for envy—seniors choose colleagues to speak at functi … more →
The Final Final
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wrote 7 months ago: Next week my school holds final examinations. I used to be a big believer in finals, but my students … more →
A Writer in Our Midst
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wrote 7 months ago: Sometimes I tell writing students they are compiling rulebooks, absorbing four dos from one teacher, … more →
Changing for the Better
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wrote 8 months ago: In college, one of my housemates—a theater major—had a closet of costumes and racks of hats. Monday … more →
My Assignment
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wrote 8 months ago: My students are busy this weekend writing a paper about an American poet’s ars poetica. The term com … more →
