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The Beatles were all about this
For Meg The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work...
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The 10,000-hour rule of thumb
Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Closer, let me whisper in your ear . . . —“Do You Want to Know a Secret,” from Please Please Me, 1963 By the time the … Continue reading →
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Grading essays to the Beatles
[Playfully creative upbeat tunes: astonishing productivity and musical sophistication.] That is you can't, you know, tune in But it's all right That is I think it's not too bad —“Strawberry Fields...
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Combating the comma splice
[Warning: This memoir contains comma splices!]Right now in the semester, I’m buried in student essays. Hour after hour goes into grading—sometimes over six hours at a stretch, and then there’s reading...
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Six quirky posts
I saw a black man with a bible and a sparkler in his hand. He was holding a tent revival and running a firework stand. He said the end of the world is coming, you better get on your knees. Today...
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My essay in Assay
On teaching Baldwin & Lethem: two approaches to parental loss. [James Baldwin (1924–1987)]The fall 2016 issue of Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, online today, includes my essay “Classics...
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