When teachers catastrophize, I generally tend to not buy in. When my colleagues complain about the latest bureaucratic stuff we’re expected to do, I figured you just ride it out. When somebody starts going on about how the students are getting dumber every year, or worse every year, or more feral every year (post-Covid fallout […]

Quick!  Pop-quiz, hotshot: Where does the thesis go in your students’ essays?   Go ahead and answer out loud.  The FBI agent watching you through your camera will let me know what you said. I’m kidding, of course, I don’t need Phil to tell me what you said.  You said “End of the intro paragraph.”   Well done.  […]

We spend a lot of time talking about modes of writing. What kind of writing is it? Informative? Persuasive? Rogerian? Definition? Narrative? We also spend a lot of time in our education system not teaching creative writing, which is – to use a pedagogical term – cuckoo-bananas. “Hey, you know the thing that’s great about […]

“This Is Just To Say” By William Carlos Williams I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox   and which you were probably saving for breakfast   Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold   This is Just To Say… Under no circumstances eat The plums That are in The […]