Dear Graduating Class of 2020, I hope this letter finds you well. I hope this letter finds you. It’s been awhile, since we were all together. Friday, March 13, 2020, to be exact, the last day of our pre-pandemic world. That night, New Jersey’s governor closed our school for two weeks. Two weeks became five, …
(fifth in an occasional series on BOOKS THAT MATTER & THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM) Lorita Foster and I met late August 2003, when she interviewed for a position in my district’s English department. It had been a chaotic summer. Our principal was out on an indefinite, health-related leave and my six-member department had been …
(WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.) I wish I could remember her name. Tallish, thin, with pixie-cropped gray hair and sky-blue eyes framed by glasses, she taught the gifted program (as it was then called) at Northside Elementary when I was in sixth grade. Once a week, she escorted me and …
Approximately two weeks after my mother-in-law was granny-napped and installed at her oldest daughter’s family-owned care home, her daughters arranged to escort their mother to her bank and lawyer’s office. Her son (their brother and my husband), who at the time was her POA and property caretaker, had been seen on numerous occasions stealing furniture …
(part one) At some point after the 2020 election, my husband’s oldest sister had to find a new hairdresser and was terribly upset. COVID restrictions had been somewhat recently lifted, and she’d been looking forward to her cut and color ritual, the meandering and soothing chitchat that typically accompanies such salon appointments. However, instead of …
(Warning, the following contains spoilers for Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.) If I hadn’t retired, I’d be hanging kites in my classroom and prepping my Kite Runner unit, which I taught to my seniors every spring. I don’t miss being a teacher, but I miss teaching, and I miss spending spring with Khaled Hosseini’s glorious book. …
No teacher training ever covered teaching during a pandemic. Since Covid closed schools mid-March 2020, we’ve had to adapt on the fly. Overnight. Constantly. Repeatedly. My district’s students and staff endured nearly a dozen “first” days of school as our schedules continuously changed, gradually increasing remote instruction time, gradually welcoming more student cohorts into the …
(second in a series on teaching media literacy in high schools) So I’m glad you’re here today. Have a seat. Cameras on, if you don’t mind. Thanks. You may be wondering why I invited you here. Good question. I’ll get to that. But first I want to tell you a story: My daughter is an …
(First in a series on teaching media literacy…) I’ve been told I’m weird. I love teaching writing. (Grading writing, not so much. But that’s a topic for another post.) I particularly love teaching research writing. Forget all the formatting and college prep stuff–though that’s part of it, yes, and important–what I love about it is …
…And my feet are killing me. First thing I did when I got home was kick them off. Second thing, exchange my big girl clothes for sweatpants, a fat, fluffy sweatshirt and socks. Fuzzy socks. See, I’ve been teaching remotely since before Thanksgiving, meaning at home in my family room, thirteen steps and two hallways …
My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann 