While I was visiting friends over the 4th of July weekend, we all panicked when a flyer from a local store advertised a big "Back to School" sale. If you were in the Boston area, you may have heard me scream, "I have ten more weeks! TEN MORE WEEKS!" Perhaps you recognize that horror. But, don't worry, folks, most teachers have at least a month left. No need to get up from the hammock yet.  Continue reading...

This article is going live on the first day of my last week of school for this school year. As you read this, if you're an early reader, I am packing up my colored chalk and putting away my homework charts for the summer.  Continue reading...

When I was in high school, I was a major eco-head. I belonged to Greenpeace, insisted on recycling everything not nailed to the floor, and gave up eating meat, despite my family's innate fondness for... um, meat. I was probably pretty insufferable, but people put up with me for the most part. I remind myself of this phase when dealing with self-righteously insufferable kids as a teacher.  Continue reading...

I do not have any sisters. I have but one sibling, a beloved brother, Poopie (not his real name). I'm blessed in that over the course of my life, I have made very close female friends who feel like family to me, but no actual sisters of the Lord-Help-The-Mister-Who-Comes-Between-Me-and-My-Sister type. Maybe that is why I've long been fascinated with Louisa May Alcott's classic American novel, Little Women, about four sisters.  Continue reading...

You can keep your Liz Taylor screaming in her white sundresses, and your bellowing Marlon Brando in an undershirt bellowing outside Stella's window: I think Tennessee William's finest work isn't A Streetcar Named Desire or Suddenly Last Summer, or even Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Genius as they all are, I think his most magical, lyrical play is The Glass Menagerie.  Continue reading...

Hey, have you guys heard about this crazy new thing lots of teachers are doing? It's a little nuts, so you may want to sit down. I was floored myself when I heard, but lots of language arts teachers are using recently-written literature in their classrooms! Like, literature not written by Hawthorne, Williams or Dickinson. Nuts!  Continue reading...

I feel like I ought to begin this column with some kind of public service announcement. Maybe a shaky close-up of the cover of the script of Death of a Salesman (preferably the one of Dustin Hoffman in old-age makeup), followed by a slow pan out as we hear Morgan Freeman's voice saying, "Teachers of America, before you teach Arthur Miller's classic, you should know... your students will not understand this play. If you have any choice in the matter — any choice at all — you should choose The Crucible."  Continue reading...