Skip to content

CARITA GARDINER

What to Read When You're Avoiding School Work

Menu
  • Home
  • About
  • Writing
  • “Why”…Wednesdays
  • GrammarLove
  • Contact/Subscribe
Menu

“Why”…Wednesdays

176. Why Keep Learning

Posted on May 11, 2022May 10, 2022 by caritagardiner

I took the photo above from a SocialWorker.com article about some social workers’ bad attitudes about mandatory continuing education credits. To be clear, social workers aren’t in the only profession that requires continuing education nor are they the only ones who sometimes get bad attitudes about the “extra” work. I have to admit that I…

Read more

175. Why “Yes…And”

Posted on May 4, 2022December 17, 2022 by caritagardiner

I’m not the first person to realize that the rules for improvisational theater work well as rules for life. I got the image above from the Rep Man website, which will happily sell you this poster. I don’t do improvisational theater, but I’ve been thinking about what a great rule for life “yes, and” is….

Read more

174. Why Now

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

This morning, I took a Peloton Yoga class taught by Kirra Michel, pictured above. (Screenshot from her Wellness Rebellion website.) Wow–check out that balance, strength, and flexibility. I did not get into this pose, am not able to move as she does, but I can listen to and appreciate her words just as well as…

Read more

173. Why I’m a Real Writer

Posted on April 20, 2022April 19, 2022 by caritagardiner

Rachael Herron is an amazing author, who’s written romance, mystery, memoir, and nonfiction about writing. She’s on the NaNoWriMo board. She also hosts the weekly How Do You Write? podcast, of which I’m a big fan. On the show, she interviews authors about their writing processes. I’m pretty sure that someday, she’s going to want…

Read more

172. Why a Poem

Posted on April 13, 2022April 12, 2022 by caritagardiner

I selected the image above from the results of a Google search for “out of your comfort zone” (a phrase I don’t love). The photo appears in a sale-pitch-type article on the Successful Culture International website. (If you’re a CEO who wants help being a better leader, you might read the article and/or hire the…

Read more

171. Why I Can’t Even

Posted on April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 by caritagardiner

[I took the image above from the teacher-starter website.] We all know the joke about the kid who answers only questions 1, 3, 5, and 7 on the math test, and when the teacher asks why, the kid says, “I can’t even.” Well, I’ve been feeling that joke has some kind of cosmic connection to…

Read more

170. Why Tropes

Posted on March 30, 2022March 30, 2022 by caritagardiner

I don’t know why I was surprised to see that an image search for “comfort food” came back with so many cheesy photos. Yum. I took a screenshot of part of the screen, which is the thumbnails you see above. We had a guest speaker a few years ago at Hotchkiss, back when being a…

Read more

169. Why Not “At the End of the Day”

Posted on March 23, 2022March 22, 2022 by caritagardiner

What you see above is a screenshot of my Google image search for “at the end of the day.” I never noticed this expression much until the last year or so. Now, I’ve heard it so often I decided to stop to think about it. When I dug down into what it stands for, I…

Read more

168. Why I Love the First Few Pages

Posted on March 16, 2022March 16, 2022 by caritagardiner

I took the image above from a post with writing tips about how to create a terrific opening chapter, and it’s got important advice for writers, but I will approach today’s post as a reader. I love reading the first two chapters of every romance novel. We all know how romance novels will end –the…

Read more

167. Why Look Up and Look Around

Posted on March 9, 2022March 9, 2022 by caritagardiner

I took the photo above as I walked up from my house to the building at Hotchkiss that houses most classrooms, the dining hall, the library, the auditorium, etc. (We call it the Main Building, but I’m guessing that if you donate a lot of money, you could get it named after you…or after me.)…

Read more
  • Previous
  • 1
  • …
  • 34
  • 35
  • 36
  • 37
  • 38
  • 39
  • 40
  • …
  • 54
  • Next

WHAT I DO

I serve as a class dean and teach English to high schoolers at a boarding school in Connecticut. 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 deaning, 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

Follow Me

  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Contact Me

  • cgardine@hotchkiss.org

Read my recent “Why” Wednesday Blog Posts

  • NetGalley Review of Villa Coco
  • 388. Why Not “Could Potentially”
  • NetGalley Review of You Won’t Forget Me
  • NetGalley Review of The Valencia Expat Club
  • 387. Why Give Speeches
© 2026 CARITA GARDINER | Powered by Minimalist Blog WordPress Theme