Do you tire of the played out teen movie scenario which ends with the climactic prom scene? Or the nerd gets the girl? Or the kids mesh old-school and new-school? Well, fear no more! The Onion made my eyes water and I laughed out loud as I read this satiric look at the dance that changed [...]

Everyone deserves a dance. And, everyone deserves a chance to dance. This story is one of those which reinforces why I love working with educators and why I have faith in our youth. Students, alongside teachers and parents, made an often overlooked group of young people feel as lucky as the Prom King and Queen. [...]

How about this allusion (scroll to the bottom) to the Last Supper? Not only do I love the allusion itself, but I love that sci-fi show. April 4 can’t get here soon enough for the final installments of Battlestar Galactica!

I work with the Academic Teams at my high school, and we had a semifinal match in a quiz bowl event today and we had a fortuitous coincidence today. Each day I put a “Useless Factoid” on the board for my students. Today’s was, “A slug is essentially a snail without a home.” This sounded better [...]

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 am very excited to teach The Tragedy of Julius Caesar this week. I love this play! We finished up quite a bit of historical context last week and will begin Act I on Wednesday. The opening scene is so dense introducing some of the play’s major themes while injecting humor, word play, and emotion into [...]

Eureka! I created a way to keep my bulletin boards changing frequently without increasing my workload. I know it’s not rocket science or a monumental unearthing of educational knowledge, but I got the students to do the work. I copied off a lengthy list of events, people, and items dealing with the 1920s in preparation for [...]

I finished the final grades in two of my classes, and for the first time ever, not one of my senior Mythology and Writing students failed the class. I know that sounds odd, and I’m not sure if it’s more of a commentary about my current or former students (or me then and now), but [...]