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CARITA GARDINER

What to Read When You're Avoiding School Work

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“Why”…Wednesdays

193. Why Seek Help

Posted on September 7, 2022September 7, 2022 by caritagardiner

I screen-shot the above from an article in Psychology Today about asking for help. I like that in the image, it’s not clear if the person on the top also had help or if the person on the bottom couldn’t manage the climb alone, but it’s clear that the person above is helping. Over the…

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192. Why Treating isn’t Cheating

Posted on August 31, 2022August 29, 2022 by caritagardiner

The photo above is a screenshot of the Google image search I did for “treat.” I’m amused that (1) all are edible and (2) a couple pictures show dogs’ treats and the rest are human desserts. When I had the idea for this post, I wasn’t thinking only about food, but the message works nonetheless….

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191. Why Diversify

Posted on August 24, 2022August 27, 2022 by caritagardiner

When I did a Google image search for the word diversity, the top twelve images (above) all showed people with different color skin. I was thinking about the idea of diversity for a different reason. When I first got to Hotchkiss, twenty-five years ago, the school assigned my newlywed husband and me a couple of personal…

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190. Why Quit Now

Posted on August 17, 2022August 16, 2022 by caritagardiner

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…

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189. Why Romance 2.0

Posted on August 10, 2022August 10, 2022 by caritagardiner

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…

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188. Why No Tests

Posted on August 3, 2022August 3, 2022 by caritagardiner

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…

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187. Why Embrace Childhood Snacks

Posted on July 27, 2022July 26, 2022 by caritagardiner

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…

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186. Why Names

Posted on July 20, 2022December 15, 2022 by caritagardiner

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…

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185. Why Candlelight

Posted on July 13, 2022July 13, 2022 by caritagardiner

[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…

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184. Why Deposit

Posted on July 6, 2022July 6, 2022 by caritagardiner

[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…

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WHAT I DO

I teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. I read AP English Literature and Composition exams and serve as a teacher mentor for the University of Pennsylvania Teaching Fellows program. I’ve earned a Bachelor of Arts (Amherst College), an Education Master in Learning and Teaching (Harvard University Graduate School of Education), a Master of Arts in English (Bread Loaf School of English), and most recently a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a certificate in the online teaching of writing (Southern New Hampshire University).

As a writer, I hope to capture the complexity and joy of life in the New England boarding school world. On this site, I share what I know about trying to write fiction while teaching English, coaching, and doing the other tasks associated with helping to raise over six hundred other people’s children.

WHAT I CAN DO FOR YOU

Teach                    Tutor

Revise                   Edit

Entertain             Enlighten

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Contact Me

  • cgardine@hotchkiss.org

Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • 213. Why Read Banned Books
  • 212. Why Acknowledge the Ocean
  • 211. Why Surf
  • 210. Why MJ
  • 209. Why Learn to Bake
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