One Saturday night earlier this month, the USA Network aired the Oscar-winning movie To Kill a Mockingbird. Afterwards, one of my students tweeted how much she liked the movie, and how glad she was she'd read the book.  Continue reading...

I recently went to see a production of John Ford's play 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a 17th-century British delight that is easily one of my all-time favorite titles to get to say. The production was excellent, but my companion and I were disappointed that the company we saw chose to drop the last line of the play, when (spoiler!) the Cardinal in the play says, "...who could not say, 'tis pity she's a whore?" Yes, that's right, they cut the line that gives the play its title. The play felt incomplete, and incorrectly named, without it.  Continue reading...

Fitch O'Connell, a longtime teacher of English as a foreign language, has been musing on a dilemma involving clichés. Though they are often disparaged by writers of English, clichés are nonetheless "part of the bread and butter of speech, and thus we would be doing a disserve to our students if we didn't encourage their fluency with a significant number."  Continue reading...

I had four things happen over the course of two weeks. One, my latest book proposal got rejected. Two, I was accused of tearing down a child. Three, I found out I was Missouri's Journalism Teacher of the Year. Four, I received a note from a parent thanking me for caring about her child.  Continue reading...

Teachers, want to get the scoop on the rationale behind the Common Core State Standards as they relate to Academic Vocabulary? Well, this video takes you right to the source: a conversation with one of the thinkers behind the Common Core, author David Coleman, and the NYS Commissioner of Education John King.

A penny saved is a penny earned, or so says Ben Franklin. As part of our classroom study on aphorisms and early American literature, we take a bit of a side trip into learning about almanacs. For most high schoolers, the mention of an almanac brings about a blank expression. Yet the 200+ year old Farmer's Almanac is still alive and kicking, although the hole (for hanging on the outhouse door) has disappeared.  Continue reading...