Many of us will present “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry’s tale of gift giving and self-sacrifice in December, and friend of the blog Kate McCook just shared a link to a 15-minute film that beautifully modernizes the classic short story. “I came across this lovely short film set during the Greek economic crisis,” she emailed this week. “I’m thinking of showing it to my class for a little treat and exposure to world culture.” Thanks, Kate, for sharing the good stuff – this one’s definitely going into my rotation, too. Continue reading
I’ve started reading again. After a moment of unpleasant reflection when I publicly admitted I’m an English teacher who doesn’t actually read much, I decided to make a change. The uncomfortable truth is that we give our time to the things that matter most to us. Reading and thinking about books? Yup, that matters to me. Instagram […]
What is America’s favorite book? This summer, the good folks at PBS have decided to take on this question and I’m thinking some of their materials might be useful for the 2018-2019 school year. Continue reading
Warning: This post includes explicit language. If you’re not comfortable discussing curse words that appear in the texts our students read, you might want to skip this one. Continue reading
Did anyone else in our English teacher tribe get goosebumps last night when President Obama evoked our favorite Maycomb attorney in his farewell address to the nation? Continue reading
If you teach Fahrenheit 451, you might be interested to know that I just posted three great tools that’ll make your job so much easier. Continue reading
In honor of author Harper Lee’s contribution to literature and our classrooms, I’d love it if we shared our favorite lines from To Kill a Mockingbird. I’ll go first: “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for…” – Judge Taylor, as he addresses the courtroom Which line speaks most to […]
