On a test given on The Crucible during my first year of teaching high school English, I asked my juniors to name the time period of the play. Now, I'm sure I mentioned this several times while we read it, and — call me crazy — but I'm also fairly certain Miller specified that his play is set in the 1600's, what with his bonnets and "Goodys" and the fact that the Salem Witch Hunt took place in that century. I assumed that this was enough information to answer the question correctly.

O, foolish young teacher! Among the responses I received: "The Civil War," "American times," "Long ago," "the Colonial Era," and, my favorite, "the Early Twentieth Century." Continue reading...

My Juniors are beginning research papers this month, so last week, I broke the news to them, as I do every year: For their papers, they'll have to get up from their computers, go to an actual library building, and do some of their research with old-fashioned paper sources: newspapers, magazines, books. The horror in their eyes grows stronger every year, for each subsequent class I encounter lives more and more enmeshed in the online world. Yet, like my fellow teachers, I persevere with my insistence, for we know that research is a skill best learned in a library. Continue reading...

"Blancmange?" one of my students said. "What's blancmange?" And suddenly, we weren't talking about themes and relationships in Little Women anymore, but instead about a foodstuff that no one's enjoyed for 200 years. Continue reading...

I confess, I'm a word nerd. When I was a kid, I didn't keep a diary (grasping even at eight that the exploits of an introverted bookworm with a peaceful home life were perhaps not the stuff that formed a fascinating read), but I did keep a list of words that I liked: Burble. Murmur. Placate. Superfluous. Chaos. It's the specificity that got -- and gets -- me. My mom isn't just "kind" -- she's compassionate, altruistic and decent.

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