In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. Ralph Waldo Emerson It is grey November, a Thursday afternoon,…
Tag: Literature
Knowledge of Good and Evil
The epilogue of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible hangs in silence in the last minutes of class, images of haunted farms and wrongly-executed non-witches dispersing like smoke into the sunny Friday afternoon. I congratulate my students on finishing the first book of the year, and ask them what they think. The reply is nearly unanimous: We don’t like…
Of Books and Places
“So, do you like English?” I know that the question, directed at the future eleventh grader beside me, is a long shot. All questions related to school seem distant and unreal in this first week of summer. Like half a dozen others, we’re working at the new middle school in Sitzenkirch, prepping it for painting tomorrow….
“I’m Not in the Book!”
Supplies: Pen or pencil Journal TEXTBOOK! “Wait, what?” Students filter in slowly from the hall, rummage around in backpacks for pencils and journals, then do double-takes. “What’s this textbook business about?” “Can I go get mine? It’s at home.” “Um… we have textbooks?” I nod and start to pull the class set out of the…
The Way Home 