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Cultivating Young Writers
Last week at a homeschool gathering, I found myself between two mothers who were discussing writing curriculum. Neither of them knew I have an advanced degree in English, have taught at several colleges,…
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Piranesi
I left this book out of my roundup. Written by Susanna Clarke, Piranesi came out in the fall. I was so excited by the prospect of another book 16 years after Clarke’s astonishing…
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Keeping Company
I’ve kept company with some old friends, and some new ones, in the pages of books over the last few months. Though I’m not sure I’ll remember them all, I’ll try to record…
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Smarts, Big Tech, and Faustian bargains
Do digital tools make us smarter? It’s a question raised by some who study technology and its effects on cognition. In my freshman writing classes, we usually explore this topic through essays like…
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Good or bad? Time will tell.
This week, my daughter asked, “What would we have done during the shutdowns without technology? How would you still teach college? How would people work remotely? How would kids do school? How would…
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Summer Reading
Most of my reading this summer has consisted of rereading — the lion’s share of it on my Kindle. I may have forgotten something, but here’s what I remember of what I’ve read…
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Church in a pandemic
Like most churches, mine has adopted a strategy to preserve business as usual through a season of state-enforced shutdowns of venues where people gather to minimize spread of coronavirus. First, they tried to…
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A bigger, better story
Looking around at the irrationality and destruction and rage tempts me to despair. But I drew some encouragement from C.S. Lewis this morning. It wasn’t current events that prompted me to pick up…
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Am I dreaming?
Last week as I walked the dog, I noticed more houses with flags displayed. When I got home, I took ours out of the closet where it sits except for Memorial Day and…
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A hypothesis tested: homeschooling brings real gains
A friend asked me recently about homeschooling in those areas in which I don’t have noteworthy expertise — like chemistry, which my younger daughter has been taking this year, or pre-calculus, which she…
