Okay, I'll commit educational blasphemy. I'm not a fan of whole-class/large-group discussions. I don't care what you name them (one of the most common monikers is Socratic seminars), but get more than 10 people in a group and it becomes a license to zone out.  Continue reading...

In September, my younger child turned 16. The day before her birthday, I opened the mailbox and pulled out a blue envelope. Her paternal grandparents had sent her a card. Her face lit up, and not just because there was a check inside. She'd gotten mail.  Continue reading...

It's been about three months since I started my job as a teaching assistant at the University of Pittsburgh. Since doing so, I've not just left behind Brooklyn for the 'Burgh, and "Fuhgedaboutit" for "Yinz want some food?"; I've also adapted my vocabulary, too. The words I use in my classroom now are different from when I taught high school. This is a challenge, and one I've been interested to watch my students — all first-semester freshmen — take on, as well.  Continue reading...

An ongoing struggle in the English Language Arts classroom is improving students' spelling habits. We educators know that good spelling is a crucial skill; is there anything more likely to derail a résumé or essay than a spelling error? Yet it's also a skill that requires assiduous practice on the part of our students.  Continue reading...

In an earlier article, I suggested that the selection of a "standard" English for teaching purposes was a bit arbitrary and that the "standards" selected frequently failed to be representative of the way that most native speakers actually speak English. I opined that it seemed somewhat disingenuous to expect learners of the language to struggle with mastering phonemes that many native speakers didn't bother with much themselves. This is just the tip of the iceberg.  Continue reading...

Hi. What did i miss in class today. i want to keep up in english

I get a lot of e-mails. My favorites are the ones that come in from students who clearly like to prove to me how little they are using the skills I'm teaching. Thus, the group of teachers with whom I work decided to address the art of writing e-mail.  Continue reading...

At a summer journalism workshop, young writers were thrown into the deep end of the pool but came up with impressive results. Bob Greenman recounts how the high school students that he taught proved up to the task of becoming dogged reporters.  Continue reading...