“What’s Literary Thanksgiving?” they’d asked, curious, seeing the note on this week’s schedule. “You’ll have to wait until Thursday to see,” I replied, cryptic. Then, seeing their expectations, forming like frost on a cold November night, I elaborated. “No, it won’t be food. I mean, you can bring food if you want, but we’ll be…
Tag: Learning
Always Learning
“Hey, Ms. Dahlstrom…?” He begins asking the question as he walks into Period 6 before class starts, and I look up from where I’m holding a stack of finished essays. I’m only here for a moment, really, just to collect the poetry analysis paragraphs my students wrote last night. As soon as I’ve done that,…
Honorably Imperfect
I was an Honors student. Though it’s been well over a decade since my last advanced class, there are still days when I remember my academic roots. The flash of indignation at the suggestion that my performance was just adequate. The hope that somehow my many busy commitments are evidence of an above-average life. The sting…
Roman Holiday IV: Rain or Shine
Having just returned home from an eight-day excursion to Florence, Rome and Venice with the Class of 2014, I have plenty of tales to tell. Rather than try to combine them all into a massive novel-blog, which would test both your perseverance and my creativity, I’ll be posting anecdotes at intervals, saving them for rainy…
Of Hands and Wheels
“Um, I’m not good at this.” She’s hunched over a pottery wheel, the “gumdrop” of grainy clay whirling beneath her beginner’s fingers. This is her third day throwing on the wheel, and it’s not going the way she expected. I know how she feels; it’s only my second day. Knit into the busyness of these…
Running Together
For four kilometers I’m alone, just the way I like it. There are many senses in which I’m not at all alone, actually. There are hundreds running this ten-kilometer stretch of the 2013 Basel Marathon with me today. Among these hundreds are fifteen coworkers and friends, with whom I drove down here this morning from…
Airports
Starbucks vanilla lattes taste the same, everywhere and always. With one sip of sweet, hot, vaguely coffee-flavored milk, I could be fourteen and trying coffee for the first time, or twenty and drinking my first latte of my shift at 5:30 AM as the sun rises. It doesn’t matter that ten years have passed, or…
Last Words, Not Famous
The squeals of accomplishment and relief fill the air as the final bell rings on the last day of school. Finals still loom, but that’s all the way after the weekend. Until then, my juniors can bask in the accomplishment of their penultimate year of school. As has become tradition, I’ve written them a letter,…
Word Choice
Me: Do you want to play a game at the end of class? Students: Is it a vocabulary game? Me: Of course it is. Let’s be honest, pretty much all my games are vocabulary games. We’ve been working on college essays for a while now in eleventh grade American Literature class. It’s a useful way to…
The Way Home 