A few days before I was married, almost 21 years ago, I was walking the eight blocks from our apartment to the daily newspaper at which I worked and, at a stoplight, happened to glance downward. Yikes! I was wearing two different shoes.  Continue reading...

Writing teacher Margaret Hundley Parker continues her entertaining and enlightening look at common errors in college papers and how to fix them. Here she tackles frequently appearing grammar goofs.  Continue reading...

Erin Brenner of Right Touch Editing provides "bite-sized lessons to improve your writing" on her engaging blog The Writing Resource. We previously heard from Erin about the serial comma, and now she offers tips for using commas for direct address.  Continue reading...

Several times throughout this school year, I've filled readers in on what's been going on in my Beginning Playwriting classroom, an 11th grade level class I introduced this year at my school. You can read about those updates here and here. At the end of March, we finished up the test run of this class with a final production, and I thought you'd like to read a bit about that experience as well as my final (for now) thoughts about why Playwriting belongs in the classroom. Call this my 11 o'clock number!  Continue reading...

I'm a writer, not a videographer. But every once in a while I like to mix things up a bit. I fell upon the idea of creating my own video about writing thanks to Gretchen Rubin, and her blog The Happiness Project. On her truly marvelous site, she features two works she calls one-minute movies. Truth be told, her films are each a bit longer than a minute, but they inspired me.  Continue reading...

Apple's iPad tablet computer is being heralded as a technological advance on par with Gutenberg's invention of the printing press. Mere hyperbole? University of Illinois linguist Dennis Baron takes a look, and considers how the iPad might revolutionize the way we interact with text.  Continue reading...