New Year’s Rolling Resolutions
Some of my resolutions roll over form year to year. Any decent habit can be improved. See what I did this year to make more room for reading in my life.
English
Five Recommended Reads when Teaching the Iliad
Teaching the Iliad is epic, but this background reading can do much to bring it alive for an interested teacher who doesn’t know Greek.
Scribd: A Teacher’s and Parent’s Review
Scribd claims to be the “Netflix of Books,” but is it worth it? I’ve sub-scribd for over a year and share my thoughts here. It fills a few good needs for me as a parent and teacher, and it may work for a certain type of student, but it isn’t worth it for everyone. Read on to find out if Scribd is a good fit for you.
Three Hilariously Obscure Words from Dryden’s Translation of Plutarch’s Lives
Word-nerds are always delighted to come across words they don’t know and can’t even figure out in context. Check out a few I picked up from reading all of the Dryden-Clough translation of Plutarch’s Lives.
How (and Why) We Should Stop Multitasking
We kid ourselves when we think we’re multitasking. Studies have now shown that, especially when media are involved, we’re getting less done with our time and wrecking our ability to do deep, creative work in the process. I finally admitted this over the course of the last year and have been detoxing ever since.
Seeing Dragons
Dragon has an intriguing etymology that has to do with sight and traces all the way back to the Homeric epics. Can you stand the sight of a dragon?
The Ways We Read: Ruminating
In my final post on reading, I delve into the most formative part of reading, which I call ruminating. I believe this sets our students up for the real work of creative and critical thinking, the ability to contemplate—impressive and elusive but also necessary in this age of Snapchat and the selfie.
The Ways We Read: Reading
This is my third post on regular, vanilla reading. I think it’s important for us to remember that we are models of reading as teachers and parents, and so I give some sobering statistics about the state of reading in America as well. Be the change you wish to see!
The Ways We Read: Scanning
This is the second post on the ways I encourage my students to read. I extend the analogy and we catch some fish.
The Ways We Read: Skimming
I try to teach my students to read in four basic ways. This post covers the first and introduces the analogy of texts being like a large body of water (I prefer the ocean, but you can think the Great Lakes if you’d like).