Clik here to view.
B
The Girl tomorrow will be getting the first B she’s ever made on a report card. It’s in social studies, and it weighs heavily on her. “I got an A on the study guide,” she told me this evening, “but I...
View ArticleUpdated B
The Girl got her report card today, and much to her surprise, she didn’t get that B. Turns out it was on the second quarter reporting period — which means she has a hole to dig herself out of. But at...
View ArticleLost Stars
E and I were lying on the bed in the master bedroom, reading. He always gets a book from school for his daily reading log, and often the book is leveled just right for reading with a parent: a few...
View ArticleInterpretation
My English I Honors students have just finished up a four-week poetry unit, which is in a way one of my favorite units we do. It’s not just that I love poetry, which I do, or that I hope to instill in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
On the Proper Use of Time
1 At times, the school year seems to extend endlessly, a pile of days that stretches beyond our sight, under which we all seem to be crushed slowly. If there’s a class that’s an inordinate challenge,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
The Lesson
There’s a lesson I share with my students every year that I both look forward to and dread. It’s at the beginning of the Anne Frank unit, and what I try to do is simple: make them empathize with the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Tempers, Tacos, Chess, and a Church
A day of contrasts. At school, the kids in eighth-grade English as working on performances of small excerpts from The Diary of Anne Frank, the play based on Anne’s diary. Most of the groups are doing...
View ArticleEnemies
Sometimes, the Boy can be his own worst enemy. It’s true of all kids his age — and older. He’ll get upset about something, fuss about it, then escalate it when the resolution doesn’t appear to be going...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Wednesday Virus
The Boy wanted to go to school today. He really wanted to go. Mainly because they weren’t going to be in school — it was field trip day to the local science center where they have a Tesla coil, explode...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Clik here to view.
Three Photos from School
The Books I am fortunate to teach three honors classes. This means I work with kids who, by and large, do everything I ask of them. So when I said, “As you read the chapter on Tom Robinson’s testimony,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Frog and Toad
The Boy performed with all the other first graders this evening. They put on a small musical about Frog and Toad, about whom we’ve read in countless books. All the parents were thrilled to watch their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
End of April
It’s difficult to believe that April is over, and when I look at my school calendar for May, I realize that the year is, for all intents and purposes, over. We have no single week of school remaining...
View Article
