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Superpowers
I’ve been thinking recently about careers and jobs, and how we choose what we want to do to make money. If life were like a comic book, it would be easy: “My ability to shoot sonar from my elbows,...
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Overcoming the Fear of Writing
When I was about fourteen years old, I used to write almost every day after school. In one sitting I’d scribble twenty to thirty notebook pages of creative prose; the handwriting was awful, but the...
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Remembering 9/11…Even if You Don’t Remember It
Editor’s note: This is the third article in a series that will run this week to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11. On the fifth anniversary of 9/11, I was a student teacher in an inner-city...
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And The One Thing Harder Than Writing is…
…teaching writing. You can take my word on this–I’ve been teaching writing, in some form or another, for the past five years. Back when I first had my own real classroom, I focused primarily on...
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Grammar Moves on the Dance Floor
Suh-tee-bun! That’s my name (스티븐) pronounced in Korean. Each consonant must be followed by a vowel sound, which means my two-syllable name has three syllables when spoken in Korean. Perhaps I’m a bad...
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The Wrong Way to Revise
Nobody likes to revise written work. No, not even we English teachers enjoy that process, even though we regularly go out of our way to teach the art of revision. “The kids should learn how to do it,”...
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“Walking the Tightrope” on the Last Day of School
Today was the last official schoolday in my district. I woke up this morning wanting to let my kids out early and start summer vacation a few hours early, but I instead spent the time sharing with them...
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The Joy of Burn-Out
“Burn-out has always been one of those things that happens to other people, not me.” As I read these words by fellow blogger Leanne Yong, I got to thinking, “Hey, I’m other people.” And on that note,...
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Life Lessons (and Lesson Plans)
As of June 19th of this year, I am no longer a teacher. I have been a professional educator for seven and half years. Now I have no classroom and no current contract. And this isn’t just a matter of...
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What’s With All the “Giver” Hate?
On my first day of school last year, the students in one of my all-boys classes asked if we would be reading The Giver. Published in 1993, The Giver by Lois Lowry was one of my all-time favorite books...
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Boys and Girls
If I ever have a second baby, I hope I’ll have the patience not to find out ahead of time whether it’s a boy or a girl. Team Green, as they call it these days. You see, when my husband and I found out...
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