As our last project for the school year, my Dual Credit US History students were placed in groups of three or four and assigned a music genre to research. The final project that they turned in was a video history (a documentary of sorts) for their given genre. The History of American Music. Because it … Continue reading Classic Rock
As I've mentioned a few times already, I signed up for a six week online creative writing class a few months ago. Our original instructor quit halfway through (red flag?), and the new instructor was less...well...she was just less. I didn't actually finish the last few lessons, but as a whole, the course was at … Continue reading Elaborate
Last school year, I was asked to teach AP Seminar. It's a relatively new course (less than ten years old) that requires students to analyze others' arguments and create their own arguments through research papers and presentations. Teaching AP Seminar was a big change for me after more than two decades in the classroom since … Continue reading Shades of Gray
Several years ago, I was chatting with some of my students about my time in high school. One of them asked me what position I played in football. My sarcastic response. Bench. That answer wasn't completely true for most of the time I played, but it also wasn't a lie. It got a good laugh … Continue reading Decisions
I mentioned a few months ago that I took a creative writing class. The class wasn't exactly what I'd hoped for, but a couple of the assignments were thought provoking, if nothing else. Our very first assignment was to write about a window. That was it. That was the assignment. Oddly enough, the first thing … Continue reading The Window
I've written previously about some of the history of my blog. In a nutshell, I started this mess in 2015, and it has changed over the years as I have changed. I would say evolved, but that may be a stretch on both accounts. At any rate, I keep thinking I should do more with … Continue reading Name Change…Again
For the creative writing class that I took a couple of months ago, we were asked to write a short bio to introduce ourselves. I decided I didn't want to just start with "My name is Mike, and I teach high school social studies." That's too normal. But what I did write surprised me a … Continue reading A Short Bio
I had a student this year who is originally from Columbia. One of the nicest kids I've had in a long time. Smart too. But since he'd only been in the country for a handful of years, he had some issues with comprehension, especially when it came to interpreting old primary source texts. That's mostly … Continue reading English is Hard
(Author's note: I decided to take an online creative writing class recently. The class itself was "meh," but a couple of the prompts were fun. One of the weeks we were told to make a list of five things we dislike and then choose one to write about. Here's what I wrote.) One of the … Continue reading Grape Jelly
Just under a year ago, we decided to buy a small travel trailer. It's nothing special, but it does the job. I was more than a little nervous about pulling a large trailer over long distances, since, up to that point in my life, I had never pulled a trailer of any size for any … Continue reading Adventures In Camping…So Far
Reflections Of A Middle Aged Nobody 