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Education

Education

Ten Reasons to Write a Poem

Poetry is far from becoming a cultural artifact regardless of the Information Age’s dry mechanical demands. The discipline serves too many vital functions to be avoided or overlooked for any extended period of time. In fact, everyone should write a poem, and soon. Following are ten reasons why. When you write a poem, you participate

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Making It New (Again)

When the poet and critic Ezra Pound issued his famous literary proclamation to “make it new,” he uttered a phrase that became so identified with modernist literature that it’s difficult to imagine modernism happening without it. Of course, like many fitting pronouncements, over the years this one’s become a cliché, having been extensively quoted and

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Grading and the Fear of God

“Every good manager effectively threatens his players with professional extermination if they don’t give him the best effort that they are capable of giving; Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and Earl Weaver are masters at it, as was Durocher. They are not nice people. . . .” – Bill James, The Bill James Baseball

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Can Shakespeare Save Lives?

I have taught many resistant students: gang members, drug dealers, disaffected kids with no direction, shy introverts, you name it. But the one thing I could always use to level the playing field was Shakespeare. You’d think something more in line with The Outsiders or some other gang-themed novel would have done the trick, but

Read More »

Ten Reasons to Write a Poem

Poetry is far from becoming a cultural artifact regardless of the Information Age’s dry mechanical demands. The discipline serves too many vital functions to be avoided or overlooked for any extended period of time. In fact, everyone should write a poem, and soon. Following are ten reasons why. When you write a poem, you participate

Read More »

Making It New (Again)

When the poet and critic Ezra Pound issued his famous literary proclamation to “make it new,” he uttered a phrase that became so identified with modernist literature that it’s difficult to imagine modernism happening without it. Of course, like many fitting pronouncements, over the years this one’s become a cliché, having been extensively quoted and

Read More »

Grading and the Fear of God

“Every good manager effectively threatens his players with professional extermination if they don’t give him the best effort that they are capable of giving; Casey Stengel, Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and Earl Weaver are masters at it, as was Durocher. They are not nice people. . . .” – Bill James, The Bill James Baseball

Read More »

Can Shakespeare Save Lives?

I have taught many resistant students: gang members, drug dealers, disaffected kids with no direction, shy introverts, you name it. But the one thing I could always use to level the playing field was Shakespeare. You’d think something more in line with The Outsiders or some other gang-themed novel would have done the trick, but

Read More »