books
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A Course Plan for Literary Appreciation and Analysis: Blogiversary Post #6
I struggle with conflicting philosophies about my job. I teach English literature (as well as language and composition) as core curriculum in CEGEP, a transitional/professional college that all Quebec students must attend before moving on to university or to many professions. My classes are therefore comprised of students of wildly varying levels of ability and interest Continue reading
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Up and At ‘Em
It’s almost that time again. I hope you’ve all had a great summer. Mine has been thrilling, terrifying and exhausting, all on a small domestic scale. You will hear about some of it in the coming weeks. The upshot: school begins on Monday, and I am neither refreshed nor enthusiastic, but I am nothing if Continue reading
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What If They Don’t Do the Required Reading?
It’s a perennial problem for teachers. You plan a great lesson around today’s short story, but it turns out two-thirds of the students haven’t read it. What do you do? Do you kick out the slackers? Give them class time to read it? Give up and do something else? As a follow-up to last week’s Continue reading
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Willing to Read and Write
Yesterday, I told my college students that they need to read the next 150 pages of the novel we are studying, Life of Pi, over the next seven days. This is not news – they got a reading schedule on the first day of class, and were told to read ahead. Nevertheless, there was a Continue reading
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Word Jars and Grocery Lists: “Your Child’s Writing Life” by Pam Allyn
The premise of Pam Allyn’s parenting guide Your Child’s Writing Life is as follows: “There are endless practical books to help parents raise their children. But until now there has not been a book about the importance of getting our kids to understand that every book and story began when someone, somewhere decided to write down Continue reading
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What Young Adults Should Read
There’s been a lot of furor over the recent Wall Street Journal essay that claims that YA fiction has taken a turn to the dark side. It isn’t surprising that my favourite commentary on this piece so far comes from Linda Holmes, editor of the NPR pop-culture blog Monkey See and moderator of my fifth-favourite podcast Continue reading
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Does Reading Great Literature Make You A Better Person?
I love Laura Miller, the Books critic for Salon.com. However, in today’s Salon she’s making an argument that I’ve heard a lot and that I do not like. She’s reviewing William Deresiewicz’s new book, A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship and the Things that Really Matter. I have not read this book Continue reading
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Top 10 Posts of 2010
For your reading and catch-up pleasure, I have once again compiled a “year’s top posts” list. These posts are “top” in that they got the most hits; in some cases this may have been because of timing, a well-chosen keyword, or fluke, but in some cases I think it’s because they truly were the best Continue reading
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My Top 10 Books of 2010
I encourage you all to make your own lists, either in the comments below or on your own blog (please post the link in the comments) because of course I don’t already have enough unread books in my house. Note: These books were not necessarily published in 2010, but they were part of my 2010 Continue reading
a visit from the goon squad, amy ignatow, books, brian k vaughan, cathleen schine, david nicholls, graphic novels, jeannette walls, jennifer egan, jonathan franzen, literature, memoirs, ms hempel chronicles, novels, personal, reading, sarah shun-lien bynum, society, tana french, the glass castle, the imperfectionists, the likeness, the popularity papers, the three weissmanns of westport, tom rachman, y the last man, young adult fiction -
Literary Appreciation + Literary Analysis: A Course Plan
Regular commenter Crystal has asked for some more details about my Personal Narrative course, in which I focus less on literary analysis and more on literary appreciation. Here’s some general info on how the course unfolds. Feel free to steal/adapt/query, etc. Module 1: Literary Analysis Review Text: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls In the 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 