One day, in my first year of teaching high school, I made (as one does in their first year of teaching high school) a huge mistake. I told my students they could use the first person singular in their papers. “Really?” they said, going goggle-eyed and slack-jawed. “We can? We’ve always been told we can’t!” … Continue reading Just Because You Can…
Tag: clarity
Case Study: The Board Game Rulebook
Today we’re going to combine a couple of my hobby horses - good writing and board games - into a bizarre hobby horse chimera that might be distressing to look at, but will show us how, in addition to its many other benefits, good writing helps us have fun with our friends. We’re going to … Continue reading Case Study: The Board Game Rulebook
Active Voice Was Taught By Me
Back when I taught at Fancy Pants University, my writing courses were very popular (for reasons I have never completely figured out) with engineering students. I loved teaching the engineers: they were funny, geeky, and had a different, more concrete way of looking at literature than humanities-focused students did. Yet the engineers (and the pre-med … Continue reading Active Voice Was Taught By Me
Build Your Vocabulary (And Then Don’t Use It)
The other day, as I was about to hand back some lit analysis essays my students had written, I asked them a question that had been on my mind for some time: what do you guys have against the word people? I had noticed a pattern across their papers that, when discussing characters in books … Continue reading Build Your Vocabulary (And Then Don’t Use It)
Dr. Albert Teaches Writing 