In my job as a high school teacher, I spend a lot of time thinking about how few teenagers I see reading for pleasure. On the surface, this deeply saddens me, since I always found such enjoyment in reading when I was younger. Beyond that, though, is something even more sobering – I wonder how [...]

Today’s post is a part of the Classics Circuit discussing the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. I had a great post planned for today about teaching an Agatha Christie novel to my grade twelve English class, almost completely made up of inner-city high school kids. The plan was for them to read And Then There Were [...]

Today’s post is a part of the Classics Circuit discussing Alexandre Dumas. Specifically, I’d like to talk about how classic novels and authors can be relevant to our students, even those we consider to be “hard to reach” and who are normally given entirely different curriculum, foregoing the classics altogether. I’m going to be using the [...]

Hour 9 Mini-Challenge: * Pick up a book that you’ve read today, or are currently reading. * Choose a song that goes with the book – could be that it fits the overall feel of it or even a certain scene. * Create a blog post answering the following: Book title Soundtrack song Why you [...]

Yesterday, I wrote a post about an article talking about a man named Ehsan in Afghanistan who has created a system of underground schools for women in Afghanistan, called “Underground literacy in Afghanistan: a man’s job?” While applauding what he has been doing, I also lamented the fact that almost all the stories we hear [...]