There are different types of priorities during a change process, and I have been thinking recently about how to make them manageable and understandable. For me, it makes sense to think in terms of TWO-FIVE-TEN.TWO: “The Non-Negotiables”I believe there is room for two priorities that are non-negotiable. These are the goals that, if not met, […]
Differentiated Assessment of Student Writing in an English Class
[In order to align myself fully with the vision of the school, I will need to improve my ability to differentiate instruction. As part of my self-reflection on this topic, not only am I thinking about areas where my teaching practice may be deficient (or more generously, ready for rethinking), but I am also thinking […]
Ecclesiates 1:18 …Wisdom and Vexation, Knowledge and Sorrow: Bidding Farewell to An Essay Prompt
[In searching for some old documents related to our study of poetry in my English 9 class, I stumbled (can one stumble into an old computer file?) into an old exam question I used when I taught AP Literature. I like the question, and I used it in slightly varied ways over the course of […]
The 9/11 Seawall and the Figurative Seawall: The Empathetic Community
My mother posted the YouTube link I attached below on Facebook last week, and combined with a ‘thank you’ for a good faculty meeting last Tuesday, I forwarded it along to the High School faculty thinking that some faculty members might want to show it to their homeroom advisories at some point. “Boatlift”, the story […]
Using Welty and Hayden to Create A Poetry Mashup in Ninth Grade English
In my ninth grade English class we are heading into a study of poetry in the first half of this semester. In order to make a transition from our work with novels (Purple Hibiscus), plays (A Raisin in the Sun), and short stories last fall, we started this week by reading the short story “A […]
A Surprise Purchase and An Unexpected Buckhead Connection: Five Gallon Kline & Brown Churn
At one point just before the crowd started to thin out toward mid-afternoon, the auctioneer, Greg Peters (no relation), had one of his assistants turn on the air-conditioning in the big room that had become stuffy enough for people to start using their xeroxed auction catalogues as fans. Having recently moved to Atlanta from Cleveland, […]