writing
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Prompt #1: The Writing on Learning Exchange: Learning About School
Welcome to the Writing on Learning Exchange! Every week or two I will publish a prompt that is meant to get us thinking and writing about some aspect of our learning and/or teaching experience. Whether you are a teacher, a learner, a parent or just a citizen who cares about the growth and development of Continue reading
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The Writing on Learning Exchange: A Project to Get us All Writing
It’s clear that I’m in over my head this semester. I continually wish I had time to come over here to Classroom as Microcosm, ruminate at length about something going on in my classroom, and chat with all of you. Instead, when I’m not teaching or planning or grading, I want to think about something Continue reading
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What’s That When It’s At Home?
Dear Readers: I will be back in a few weeks with my yearly “Best Books” and “Top Posts” lists, but otherwise, Classroom as Microcosm will be on hiatus from now until the end of January. I hope you’ll consider, in the interim, subscribing to my personal/homestyle/living blog, What’s That When It’s At Home? This new blog Continue reading
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Willing to Read and Write: Reprise
Last week, this post – first published in September of last year – spiked in my blog stats. It seemed a whole pile of people were reading it, but I couldn’t figure out who or why, although the search term “effort” had a corresponding spike. Maybe now, at midterm, teachers and students are being hard Continue reading
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How I Saved My Teaching Career: Step 7: Write a Blog
This is the final post in a series on how to overcome burnout and love teaching again. See the end of this post for previous entries. In the summer of 2007, my burnout reached its peak. I’d taken some steps to deal with it (and you can check out the links below to read Continue reading
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Essay Writing: The Cake Analogy
This week, I am working on essay structure with my post-intro students. After 22 years of teaching essay structure in various forms, I am, as you can imagine, sick of it. But then I came across this little analogy: how to bake your essay like a cake! It’s cute. It’s tasty. There are things here Continue reading
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Plagiarism: What Do Students Think?
It is only a week and a half into the semester, and already my office mate and I are talking about plagiarism. There are hangovers from last semester – cases that never quite got resolved – and our college has a new plagiarism policy that requires, among other things, that we submit any plagiarism accusations to Continue reading
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Bloggers Anonymous
As is usual this time of year, I’m dealing with a trying student. Yesterday, as a cathartic measure, I prepared a post in which I collated our email exchange since the beginning of the semester. If you are not me, this exchange is no doubt extremely entertaining. (If you are me, you spent most of Continue reading
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Formatting Blues
The following conversation took place earlier this week on my personal Facebook page. Siobhan: Open memo to a student who shall remain nameless: Going into your final paper, you had an overall average of 59.7%. Did you not feel the stakes were high enough to invest half an hour in formatting your paper properly? Because Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 