Literature
The Day Flannery O'Connor Screwed Me
Someone really smart once said, “Kids seldom misquote; in fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn’t have said.” That person might actually have been sitting in my classroom the day I taught Flannery O’Connor’s short story “A Good Man is Hard to Find” to a bunch of 11th graders….
Now About That Winner
I am thrilled to announce that the fabulous Julie C. Gardner author of the blog By Any Other Name was the person…
A Literary Interview With You
Today I am interviewing you about your favorite and least favorite books of all time. …
How I Tricked My Book Club Into Writing
My neighborhood book club has been going strong for nearly three years. This time I was the host, and (gasp) I made them write….
The Giver: Thirteen Years Later
It’s happening. My son is currently reading the first piece of literature that I ever taught. He is reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, the story of a young boy named Jonas living in a highly controlled community some time in the future. The novel fits into a larger genre of cautionary tales called “dystopian literature.” If a utopia is a society in which everything is perfect, a dystopia is the opposite: everything has gone wrong. But my son doesn’t get this. Yet….
If My Kid Writes One More Book Report…
I get it. My school district clearly wants our kids to pass the standardized test.
They want a slice of the pie.
But our kids are dying of boredom….