Remember cameras? I’m talking about 35 mm, the kind you had to buy film for, and then roll it out and stretch it across the teensy knobs under the plastic flap. Remember how you were afraid you’d screw up and get your fingerprints all over it and waste your first few pictures? Remember how you [...]
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As a teacher, I try to find poetry and prose that will really resonate with students. It’s a skill not unlike writing, in which you have to know your audience, use cultural references to persuade them and connect with them. I often turn to the poet Anne Sexton to help me do this, since her [...]
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When I teach the play, A Raisin in the Sun, I think a lot about dreams. How much do they weigh on a person? Does everyone have dreams? And is it true, as Langston Hughes says, that a dream deferred ends in an explosion? “Harlem” or “A Dream Deferred” What happens to a dream deferred? [...]
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My favorite poem might be surprising to you. It’s from Snoop Doggy Dog, a man whose lyrics continuously take my breath away. “Bow-wow-wow.” Mm, wow. “Yippee-yo-yippee-yay.” Notice the alliteration? Not easy. Okay, so I had to throw in a lame April Fool’s joke. Moving on…. I first published the following post last April, but in [...]
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Today we celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and life. One of my favorite things to teach is the Civil Rights Movement. While I am often brought to tears by the brutality of so many racist crimes in America, I am also similarly moved and inspired by the stories of nonviolent protesters, who endured beatings [...]
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I’m going back to teaching in a couple of weeks, and there’s one thing I’m dreading. Since I had my second child, I’ve taught only night or weekend classes, which means I get a good, motivated group of adults who are serious about their education. They are usually working full-time and raising families, and school [...]
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A couple of early observations about the new series on A&E, Teach, starring Tony Danza: Tony Danza is ripped. He also cries a lot. When I heard about the new series where Danza takes on a sophomore English classroom in my beloved Philadelphia, I was intrigued, just like I always am when a new movie [...]
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Yesterday, I was stuck in traffic with, no doubt, people going to work. I “go to work,” too, I suppose, though staying at home with children has only been considered work for about a decade or two. And you don’t get paid for it. As I gazed out of the window at rows and rows [...]
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