Irving Berlin knew it when he wrote, "From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam." Emma Lazarus knew it when she wrote, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Abraham Lincoln knew it when he wrote, "Of the people, by the people, for the people." And Thomas Jefferson knew it when he wrote, near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and, at the very end, "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor." Continue reading...

Michele Dunaway teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, but she has a double life: she's also a best-selling romance novelist. Michele has some compelling advice to teachers of writing: "teach the basics first and worry about voice later." Continue reading...

"...Once more, or close the wall up with our English dead." Appropriate words to start a new school year.

See what I did there? Our English dead? Like, our English Language Arts dead? Funny stuff, right?!

Sorry. I'm writing this during the second week of school. Just having pants on is a major accomplishment. Continue reading...

By the time they enter high school, most students know that a simile is a literary device used to show a similarity between two dissimilar things, and that the words "like" or "as" link the dissimilar things, as in "busy as a bee," "like a fish out of water," "as big as a house," and "fits like a glove." They know, too, that similes differ from metaphors in that metaphors dispense with "like" or "as" and get right to the point: "He's a rat." "Life is but a walking shadow." (Not all similes employ "as" or "like," as here: "On a normal day, Jennifer Capriati tends to rush through games with the haste of a short-order cook, moving from point to point without a pause.") Continue reading...

Shannon Reed wraps up her summer of delving into literary and cinematic depictions of the classroom with appreciations of Half Nelson, Election, and The Class.

It's that time of year, folks. I've been watching the Facebook status updates as summer winds down for my friends across the country. First comes a note that there's only one week of summer left, then a sad little post about the last day of break, and then an update about the first day of school. Parents, teachers, students, people who can't wait for all of us to clear out of Starbucks between 9 and 3 — we all know it's here. Continue reading...

University of Missouri writing teacher Scott Garson takes a look back at a classic essay by George Orwell to see what lessons it still has for students today.

Have you reread Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" recently? The awesomeness of that essay is undiminished. The relevance to college writers? Up for debate. Continue reading...