Now,
It goes without saying
that this means I am a deadly super-spy,
put into sleeper mode, hidden amidst the sublimely mundane
Only faintly conscious of my true importance

The impact of AI on writing, critical thinking, and the teaching of writing is too big and impossible to contemplate at first glance. This is not just because generative AI is still new enough to feel like magic (which, if someone said that was how it worked would make it make a lot more sense)

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to write a terrible introduction with a sucky hook? Well, according to Brainyquote, someone named Jeffrey Dahmer once said, “A good introduction can make all the difference in succeeding in your plan.”​ Same with a bad introduction, only the opposite. In this blog post, I’m going […]

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 […]

Ah, the 5-paragraph essay.  It’s so great, isn’t it?  It creates a perfect essay, every time. And amazingly, no matter what you want to say – no matter what your point, how simple or how complex, you need exactly 5 paragraphs to do it.  It’s astonishing!  How to make pasta? 5 paragraphs.  Explaining how to calculate […]

Often, a couple days before my students turn in a piece of writing, I have them reflect on the process and product at that point. The reflection typically concludes with two questions: What are you going to not do that you will wish you’d done? What question are you going to wish you’d asked me? […]

But why? Why did it bother me? Sure, I always outline. (okay, generally not blog posts and, yes, I recognize the irony). My approach in writing is always I want to know exactly where I’m going, and I want to be wrong.

In other words, respect the arc and ending, but hope to have moments of inspiration that surprise and grow the narrative.