literature
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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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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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In Which Siobhan Does Not Lose Her Temper Over Important Literary and Pedagogical Matters
Is non-fiction less “literary” than fiction? Someone has suggested to me that it is, and I’m so mad about it I could spit. Last week, I attended a meeting with English teachers from several colleges. We were there to give feedback to the creators of some online essay-writing activities. We looked at some sample exercises, Continue reading
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Character = Behavior: A Lesson Plan
Two parallel experiences over the last couple of weeks have culminated in a lesson plan that I may need to add to my permanent roster. First, I’ve been meeting with students to look at their first at-home essay. Their essays have to include a discussion of characterization, but it’s clear that many of them are 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
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What Does Learning Look Like?
My “personal narrative” class is going great. We started by reading Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, and they seemed to like it. A lot. Most of them did the reading and participated actively in the group work, and after a little talk to them about “what to do if you HAVEN’T done the reading and 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 