What Makes Something Compelling?
Read. Write...and now CREATE and SHARE...Few of you would bake a cake and not eat it. Most of you, especially if you are proud of your cake, would want to share your cake.This is basically the idea behind your Odyssey Portfolio. Create something awesome. Share it.A...
Thanksgiving
https://youtu.be/V9H1ItMXuLQ Thanksgiving I am surprised sometimesby the suddenness of November:beauty abruptly shedto a common nakedness—grasses deadenedby hoarfrost,persistent memoriesof people I’ve lost.It is left to those of usdressed in the hardbarky...
Me & Rocky…
Take your foot off the brakes, but keep your eyes on the road~FitzOnce, back in my days as a logger, I cut through a big white oak. I didn't realize that the trunk was mostly rotten and hollow until my chain saw was most of the way through the monstrous tree. After...
The Uses and Abuses of Rhetoric
So What’s Your Point?The Uses and Abuses of RhetoricKnowing that you do not understand is a virtue; Not knowing that you do not understand is a defect. —Lao TzuNobody likes to be wrong, and for that matter, most of us “like” to be right. Few of us walk around...
It’s time for a change…
https://youtu.be/6W7xnYQGlg4 Let the chips fall where they will...My entire adult life has been spent writing personal essays. I fact, whenever I write anything else—a song, a poem, or a story—I can trace its birth to some essay I have previously written. Personal...
Passion…
Does this video really have anything to do with English? It was posted by a friend--who is easily the most talented musician I know--so I watched, more out of a shop teacher's curiosity of "how things are made." What strikes me most is not the skill of the violin...
The State of Maine
I wrote this short story about twenty years ago after hearing an old folk tale retold by Jerry Bell. I took the gist of the story and remade it as a story set in a prison in Maine to retell myself as a story. Eerily similar to The Shawshank Redemption—though Hollywood...
The Power of Simplicity
Years ago I wrote in my journal that my goal in life was to be small, be simple, be wise, be happy, and above all be ready. I cannot honestly say that I have achieved all of these goals, but these are still the “ideals” I strive to live in my life. These are my...
Appophobia
Appophobia: A lingering fear and distrust of apps Always do what you are afraid to do. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson We have evolved into what we are because we have somehow learned to balance mistrust and wariness of danger with a counterbalancing willingness to explore and...
Ah, grading…
I am just about to sit down, sip on a cup of tea and grade your essays. Sometimes it is daunting to look at the list of submissions--then look at all the other things in life I need to do--and find the energy to begin...but it is what I have to do. I trusted you to do...
The Gift of Words
If you want to learn to write well, start writing and do not stop. If you do not want to learn to write well, this will be a wasted class—empty time leading towards a deeper emptiness. We are all born communicators. We all feel angst when our words are misunderstood,...
Creating a Digital Workflow
So much of school can—and often is—hard, but what should be easy, should be made easy. Finding, creating, and submitting assignments should be easy. Receiving timely assessments and grade updates should be an expectation of every student and a practice of every...
A Better LMS
Finding the Right Learning Management System A fight worth fighting An LMS is simply an online or app-based learning management system—an all-encompassing term for how and what a school (or a business) uses to create and manage its online courses, including:...
The Silver Apples of the Moon
The most powerful and enduring connection we share as a human race is our desire and need to share stories. We engage in the art of storytelling more than most of us ever realize; whether we are describing our kids’ soccer games, critiquing the latest HBO series, telling a ribald joke, or remembering a long lost friend, event, memory, book, or experience.
Tell your story. Tell it well.
Some thoughts from the trenches... Not everything can be put into a box. For years I have been trying to teach middle school and high school age boys “how to write” by using a series of extremely detailed rubrics that leave little to chance, but maybe (I...
Reflecting on Literature
I am constantly asking my students (and myself) to reflect on the literature they, and I, read. As I have grown older—and not necessarily wiser—I find myself only reading literature that I am sure will prod me out of my intellectual and emotional torpor, like a...
Reflect
Close Your Eyes & See A lot of things in life fall short of the mark, but thoughtfulness has never let me down. For some forty years I have faithfully kept journals of the wanderings of my mind—most of which is lost in some way or another, but the...
The Paradox of Rubric-Based Writing
What a boring title…rubric-based writing…I am sure this would be a big seller on Amazon: “Buy Now and Save on Fitz’s Narrative Paragraph Rubric!” Frustration guaranteed! Used by hundreds of angry students…And I could on and and on because I have heard it all,...
The Yankee Cannonball
I stood in a long line waiting with Pipo for his first ever ride on a roller coaster. Things that move in strange ways are a big deal to him. When he first came to live with us, he was eight years old and had never even been in a two story house. On his second day...
Read…
Read... The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity. They seem as solitary, and the letter in which they are printed as rare and curious, as ever. It is worth the expense of...
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
https://youtu.be/v3JaosE-gZE The Night They Drove Old Dixie DownVirgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train'Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks againIn the winter of '65, we were hungry, just barely aliveBy May the tenth, Richmond had...
Masters of War
https://youtu.be/h2mabTnMHe8 Masters of War~Bob DylanCome you masters of warYou that build all the gunsYou that build the death planesYou that build all the bombsYou that hide behind wallsYou that hide behind desksI just want you to knowI can see through your...
WW Fenn Week
It is hard to imagine a more perfect weekend for memorizing your WW Fenn piece!The class presentations will start on Thursday, [Monday for ninth grade] so please be ready. Those with shorter pieces will be asked to go first.By now you should have posted your WW Fenn...
Iambic Dimeter Poem
Iambic DimeterWhen you combine two iambic feet, (ba-booms) you can create poetry in iambic dimeter. These poems are relatively rare, but are extremely effective for a short observational poem.NOTE: sometimes the rhythm is more ba-ba-boom [unstressed-unstressed...
I Will Not Let a Test Result Determine My Fate
https://youtu.be/D-eVF_G_p-Y
WW Fenn Publick Speaking Contest
I want you to choose your WW Fenn performance piece this week. We will begin the memorization and performance process immediately--and it is a multi-step process! Performance implies mastery, not simply memorization.This contest originally started out as a poetry...
A Simple Poetry Assignment…
"Good writers don't always make great poets,but great poets always make great writers" ~fitz Don't let anyone tell you what makes a poem. Like a good meal, you know it when you taste it. If I were talking to a farmer friend of mine and he said, "Ya know Fitz, so...
The Power of Slam Poetry
https://youtu.be/e0_67VDQG_Q Listen to Kali's poem. Post your response as a comment. Be sure to answer, "What does Kali try to "do" as a poet to make her poem effective?
8th: Star Wars and You
Book XV is no the most exciting book in The Odyssey, but it "sets up" the next six books in an important way. I was thinking of this as I left Star Wars tonight (which, by the way) is a masterful retelling of The Odyssey). I liked the movie, but I did feel like I was...
9th Grade Mid Year
1. Walden Essay: Post and to your blog and to iTunes:15 Points 2. Literary Analysis Paragraph: Read "Ulysses" and during the exam time write a paragraph using the rubric that explains theme in that poem. You may use the rubric in class, and you may use any notes...