I took the screenshot above from the Wumo website, whose funny comics you might want to check out. One trope that comes up often in romance novels is the idea that two people are attracted to each other but see too many obstacles between themselves and a relationship. Their “cure” often involves going all-in to…
“Why”…Wednesdays
189. Why Romance 2.0
The image above comes from a Google image search for “the clinch cover.” I’m delighted to find that not every image shows a MF romance of two cisgender white people. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, you saw my post from February 17, 2021 in which I wrote five reasons I love…
188. Why No Tests
The image above comes from a site arguing against the PARCC test. While the article from 2015 is interesting, it has nothing to do with the kinds of tests I’m talking about today. I’ve been thinking about secret tests. For example, if I want to find out if someone will have my back, I might…
187. Why Embrace Childhood Snacks
Last month, I spent eight days in Salt Lake City, Utah reading students’ AP English Literature and Composition exams. The College Board runs the show and does a lot to keep the hundreds of AP readers productive, accurate, and on-task. We all get to work promptly at 8:00am, start lunch at 12:30pm, and leave for…
186. Why Names
I found this cool GIF of the most common assigned-girl-at-birth baby names on The Atlantic’s website. I was born in a year when the odds were pretty good that I’d become a Lisa, a Jennifer, or a Michelle. The Michelle part seems funny because I recently went to an event with two friends, both WAY younger…
185. Why Candlelight
[The image comes from the City of Woburn’s website.] More than usual in composing my weekly blog, I’m acutely aware of the gap between when I’m drafting these words on May 25th at 10:30pm, and when my post will go live, in mid-July. At first, I was thinking that I could start the post saying…
184. Why Deposit
[image from istockphoto.com] If you’ve paid any attention at all to the economy in the past two year, you know that it’s been volatile. By July of 2022, the market is down almost 15% from January (or more, depending on what indicators you’re using). What this means, financially speaking, is that now is the perfect…
183. Why Embrace Dead Ends
I selected the image above from a royalty-free clip-art website because the person in the suit has gone a few steps into a direction that will lead to a closed wall, and I’ve been thinking a lot about dead ends lately. In paper or corn mazes, going into a closed hallway provides a moment of…
182. Why Be Authentic (a guest post)
[Every year, I enjoy meeting English teachers at the College Board’s AP reading. Earlier this month, I got to read essays about an octopus and a baby with English teacher and author, David Berger. I hope you will (1) look at his author website, (2) check out his cool merch website, (3) buy his books,…
181. Why Switch from Participles to Verbs
Sometimes, dealing with things is exhausting. Just ask Tuukka, who regularly takes breaks while we walk. Maybe he gets bored of travelling the same routes every day. One thing I’ve found exhausting recently is the number of times I’ve heard people at my school talk about how every student should feel “safe, seen, and supported.”…