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A World Without People
Yesterday, when I left school, I wanted to live in a world without people in it for just a little while. My classes that morning had gone well – my Child Studies students just finished reading the first Harry Potter book, and we talked about why most of them loved it, and I asked them… Continue reading
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Can A College Classroom Be a Reading Zone?
I’m reading Nancie Atwell’s The Reading Zone, and it’s inspiring my pants off, but I’m feeling very frustrated. In this book, Atwell describes her middle-school English classes, where students spend a majority of their class time just reading books they have selected from her library, and then recommending those books to one another and discussing/writing… Continue reading
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The Book Review Blog Carnival
My post on Roberto Bolaño’s The Skating Rink is featured in this week’s Book Review Blog Carnival over at Clark Bjorke’s beautifully titled blog I’ll Never Forget the Day I Read a Book! A number of other interesting posts about interesting-looking books are featured, so go take a gander. Continue reading
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Why Children Shouldn’t Read
I love this excerpt, published in today’s Globe and Mail, from children’s author Susan Juby’s new memoir, Nice Recovery. This book has gone straight to my list of “what to read next,” and it may be a contender for the reading list for next fall’s personal narrative course. In it, Juby discusses her struggle, beginning… Continue reading
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What I’m Learning From Roberto Bolaño’s The Skating Rink
A friend gave me a copy of The Skating Rink for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I’d told her that I’ve been trying to get into mystery novels lately, and she’s been devouring Bolaño but didn’t want to plunge me into his difficult masterpiece 2666. It’s a relatively slim book, with an attractive,… Continue reading
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What I’m Learning From What I’m Reading: Sara Maitland’s A Book of Silence
I’d like to propose a hypothesis: “Students in college should be required to study literature because it’s not too late for them to become lifelong voracious readers.” The obvious followup question is, “Why should they become lifelong voracious readers?” I’m collecting answers to that, and Sara Maitland’s A Book of Silence suggests a few. Maitland… Continue reading
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What I’m Learning From What I’m Reading: Ann Patchett’s Bel Canto
On Thursday, I received a number of pre-spring-break, post-1st-major-assignment visits, emails and phone calls from students who are now hopelessly behind. These communiqués are always bad for my blood pressure. I start obsessing about what I will say if they challenge my “no makeups without a medical excuse” policy. I twitch every time I think… Continue reading
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What I’m Learning From What I’m Reading: Zadie Smith’s Changing My Mind
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What… Continue reading
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Teaching This Week: 5 Cool Things
I managed to make some time this week (mostly due to a couple of sick days) to mess around online, and see what the world of teaching looks like right now. 1. The big talk is around the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s article “Can Good Teaching Be Learned?” (or, as it is known online,… Continue reading
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Carnival of Educators: Mar. 9, 2010 Edition
The latest edition of the Carnival of Educators is up at Notes from a Homeschooling Mom. 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 