Titanic was my favorite film when I was a kid. Well, one of them at least. It holds my personal record for number of times I have seen a film in the theater—four. Titanic (Cameron, 1997) was released when I nine years old. I was truly obsessed—ripping every nuance to shreds and talking to my…
Tag: education
The Writing Group: No Single Authors
Writing is often seen as a lonely journey. Whether you’re a content creator, a novelist or the author of a journal article. Imagine having to hide in a cubicle the whole day, not allowing yourself to get out, eat or drink, go to the washroom… Or picture yourself getting up painstakingly early just to write…
Make Literary Analysis Personal: The Rose
I have always had a fondness for the personal literary analysis. The kind you see in novels. Someone is talking about a work of literature, but they’re really talking about themselves. In my opinion, all literary analysis is personal. Nobody picks a subject of study unless they’re not just interested but invested in it. Yes,…
Rebirth: The Day I Became a Writer
We often mark time in our lives with rituals and rites of passage. Moments of birth and rebirth. Baby showers, weddings, funerals. There were a couple of years in junior high school where many weekends were taken up with b’nai mitzvot for friends or family members, followed a few years later by sweet sixteens. We…
The Nazis are Getting Worse
The Sound of Music was my introduction to Nazis. I can remember watching that scene as a small child, and feeling frightened. I can remember asking about what the flag meant and my mother explaining it. Even without seeing the clip I can recall how chilling the anger is in the scene. The only thing…
Peek inside the Rare Book Room
I want to talk for a bit about what was truly magical about being an academic: the rare book room. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I feel a bit dismal about my own PhD journey. Huge swaths of American Academia are a scam. I’m not alone in thinking this. But. But! There…
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law: Outlawing Openness
Conversations we Can’t Avoid There are a lot of conversations we have to have about things that are uncomfortable or difficult to talk about. We try and avoid things like sex, politics or religion–we label them as “out of bounds” and find less controversial things to talk about with people, but there are always going…
“A Good Teacher is Hard to Find”
Foreword Recently, I have been thinking about my role as a teacher. Inside and outside the classroom, I sometimes have doubts about what I should do and what I should not do. Well, I have always wanted to be a good teacher. I have had so many good teachers that I feel it would be…
Managing Student Behavior: A Class Under Control
Learning vs. Classroom Management Teaching elementary school involves managing student behavior. In fact, managing the kids is most of the job. You can plan the best, most engaging lessons in the world, have all your materials ready, and then bomb the actual lesson if you can’t quiet the class down, and keep the class clownery…
Language Pet-Peeves
This won’t be one of my more structured pieces. Let’s call it language pet peeves, but instead of my language pet-peeves, it’ll be YOUR pet-peeves that I, in turn, am peeved by. If you need a minute to reread that sentence, I’ll wait. Let’s dive into it, because there are some fun ones. Peeve the…