By the time I get to our office, lunch is already in full swing. I catch bits of at least three different conversations as I walk past the large table and plunk my things at my desk in the corner. Backpack, Chromebook, tea mug. Then I plop myself into my chair and take a deep ..read more

Once again, I forgot it was Tuesday. This is odd because yesterday I knew that today was Tuesday, and, frankly, today I knew it, too. I had planned to write something last night, but then I didn’t because… I can’t remember, but there was a very good reason. This morning I even set aside some ..read more

It’s the second week of classes, and we’re all slowly settling in to the familiar rhythms of school. In grade 12 English, we’re already reading our second short mentor text for our narrative argument unit. (This is a new unit for me; I wanted something a little different from the personal essay, and here we ..read more

I gave myself the summer off, mostly. From blogging, from prepping for classes, from worrying about who can or cannot read and what needs to change or stay the same. I tried to actually relax – or at least not to be actively stressed. I attend zero conferences. I abandoned books I didn’t like. I ..read more

The day before the last day of school, a student turned in a (very) late assignment. Since I was about to email their parent (again) about the various things they still had to complete in order to earn their credit, I opened the doc to see what “complete” meant to this student. Hmm… fancy words, complicated sentences, didn’t *quite* follow the directions, didn’t *quite* sound like the student. Suspicious. I opened a keystroke tracker to view the changes in the document, but there were no keystrokes to track – only one giant copy and pasted chunk of text. Seconds later, an AI detector declared ..read more

“Miss, are we done with that thing?” He’s caught me in the hallway between classes. I hesitate, not quite sure what to say. He bulldozes ahead, “You should come get me from class today, like maybe thirty minutes in.” Ah-ha! He wants to continue our reading comprehension sessions. Or rather, he wants to get out of his science class for twenty minutes. “I kind of figured you should stay in class and work on your summative project,” I say.  “Nah,” he scoffs, “I don’t understand any of it. I’m just making stuff up.” I relent. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”  So, about thirty minutes into ..read more

I’m helping a former student write a personal essay for his Grade 11 English class. We’ve talked it through, and planned a little; his next step is to write it. Reading and writing aren’t his forte – he’d much rather be on a playing field than in any classroom – but this story is important to him, and he wants to get it down on paper. So here we are, sitting in the upstairs lobby – currently one of the coolest places in our very hot school – and he’s writing. This kid has my heart, as many of them do. Last year, he didn’t do particularly well in our first semester English class, so he agreed t ..read more

I’m walking towards the library in the middle of my prep period when movement in the stairwell catches my eye. A black t-shirt stretches across a broad back and muscular arms. A black hijab tilts upwards. Two faces come together briefly, then separate. I keep moving. I don’t want them to know that their moment was observed. I want a world where kids can cherish a stolen kiss, hidden from other eyes, weeks before high school comes to an end. When I return from the library, the stairwell is empty ..read more

This morning was dreary: gray, rainy, and far too chilly for mid-May. On the drive to work, the spitting drizzle was too sporadic to merit even the slowest setting of the windshield wipers, but too persistent to be ignored. I rotated the on/off knob back and forth, back and forth. In the classroom, only dim light filtered through the high windows, making the space too dark for reading. I was forced to flick on the harsh fluorescent lights. Students groaned. Even inside the building, the air felt heavy. No one wanted to be at school. Heads nodded towards desks during period 1. Half-lidded eyes ..read more

Way back near the beginning of my teaching career, one of my regular classes was grade 11 American Lit. I think I taught it for seven or eight years, and by the end I had developed some pretty good activities. This is one of my favourites – though I could never get away with it now, both because I doubt my students could access the texts and because, well, you’ll see… First, the background. We read some of Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” and both the Introduction and Chapter One of “Nature”. Students loved lines like “Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist” and “Trust thyself: every heart vibr ..read more