I love allusions. They’re one of the numerous reasons why I love language and the language arts. The other day I came across a great one, and I wondered how many people would catch the allusion. I laughed out loud and got a few looks of bewilderment from the people shopping around me. Dorothy Parker’s original: [...]

I use a lesson format I call the fish bowl. Really, it’s a modified Socratic Seminar except that every student is not required to be an active speaking participant. I have 8-9 students circle up in the middle of the room with their notebooks and texts while the rest of the students make a circle [...]

I love tangents in class. Yes, you heard me correctly: I love tangents in class. Sometimes I learn more about my students in these situations than in any other, and sometimes we all learn a bit more about life than we could have done during the normal lesson. Today while discussing the scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where some ...