Holy Toledo! We have just finished covering short stories in my home school co-op English 1 class. This week I slid into a brief bit of short nonfiction and assigned my students March, Book 1 and Martin Luther King Jr.s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The letter was one of three suggestions of short nonfiction that…
I was torn about whether or not to go with Persepolis for one of the two graphic novels I want to use in a ninth grade English class. It’s a powerful book, very well done, and covers some really important thinking ground. But I was reluctant to commit for a couple reasons and I thought…
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee and published in 1960. I read the paperback Grand Central Publishing version. I read this book, right now, for all the obvious reasons. It is a classic and won the Pulitzer Prize, but I could barely remember anything about my high school reading of it. (It’s also very…
Far too quickly, I am writing yet another biographical eulogy for another literary giant. Maya Angelou died last week at age 86. She was another of my inspirations (I started out as a poet, did you know?) and her name is one even the lay-person would recognize. Not all too often does a writer gain…
the starving artist 