Thoughts about writing, and the universe.
Earlier this week, earth crossed the equinox. Days in the northern hemisphere are longer than the nights now. Here in Norway, the sea change between winter and summer is always so dramatic, and around the equinox daylight change is the fastest. We're headed into sun and light. We've had a smattering of beautiful clear days... Continue Reading →
The school where I teach in Norway is part of the United World College movement. There are eighteen UWC schools around the world, united by a common mission, to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future. In these last seven years, I've been lucky to get... Continue Reading →
Spring keeps burgeoning out. Already the crocuses are a distant memory. Daffodils are fading now. In the woods, anemones and cuckoo flowers are everywhere. In our yard, a volunteer patch of forget me nots has sprung up. I'm used to forget me nots being a beautiful purple-blue, and a few of these are, but many... Continue Reading →
In my English literature class this term, we have been working on writing theme statements. When we read the two novellas in Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen, we wrote something like this: "Yoshimoto expresses the idea that we can move towards healing from grief by forming human relationships and seeking acceptance." The theme statement helps us wrap... Continue Reading →
The last few weeks, my bedtime reading has been another novel I found in the marvelous book storage room at school: Untouchable, published in 1935. It was Mulk Raj Anand's debut novel, written in English, and it marked the beginning of Anand's use of literature to argue against the British colonial presence in India as... Continue Reading →
Yesterday evening, students gathered together for the annual Poetry Slam event. It isn't really a poetry slam. It's something brilliant and beautiful in a different way. Our students come from about ninety countries, and the vast majority have learned English as an additional language. Unfortunately in an English-medium school, the staggering linguistic diversity of our... Continue Reading →
The last part of this week, I have been participating in a virtual teacher training workshop about conceptual learning and inquiry. Nine teachers and the workshop leader have been gathering on Zoom for in-depth discussions of how to reframe learning to promote a deeper conceptual understanding (rather than memorized content) that better enables students to... Continue Reading →
My junior year of high school, I took an elective English class entitled Philosophy in Literature. We thirty teenagers and one brilliant, grandfatherly teacher crowded into that classroom to sift our way from Bishop Berkeley to Plato's Cave, Bertrand Russell to Kierkegaard to Kant's Categorical Imperative. All of these thinkers were brand new to me,... Continue Reading →
This post is part of the monthly Author Toolbox Blog Hop. Check out other Hop participants' posts to learn about more aspects of writing craft and business, the third Wednesday of each month except for November and December. If we are writers who care about social justice, we have to interrogate our work. How do... Continue Reading →
This summer and fall, my reading list has been conscripted. I inherited two literature classes from a colleague, and in short order I had a list of thirteen books to be prepared to teach, about half of which I had read before, about half of which were new. Among them were a few wonderful new... Continue Reading →
Words like trees 