I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I assigned a personal narrative essay. I just thought it would be easier for my students to write about their own lives than to make something up, so I gave them two prompts to get them started. One was to write about a time when they took a chance t...

I’ve hit an emotional stretch of teaching time. Last week,I attended the funeral of my student “Melinda’s� mother. Melinda has been through hell this year. Shortly after her grandmother died, her mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She was put into the care of her aunt. The aunt, who is...

The Superbowl always has a few film trailers and this year was no exception. Straight off the first one to catch my eye and I consider the winner over all the trailers (Up and Transformers a close second) is the G.I. Joe teaser. Have a look at the trailers below and tell us which one gets you more e...

Filed under: Site Announcements, Reality-Free The folks at our sister site Cinematical are working hard to give you news and reviews of the best -- and worst -- the silver screen has to offer. Here are some of their musings on the latest blockbusters, indies, and everything in between: It's super co...

Quote of the Day: "Kick your mother in the ass and tell her to send her brother an e-mail." - my uncle Stan (who is nuts) Today I forced myself to stop worrying about the upcoming unit test and writing simulation and read Tennyson's "Ring Out, Wild Bells" with my students. I pretended to be a foreig...

It’s been bugging you for months now. You got everything done except for that last piece. Maybe it’s writing the thank you. Maybe it’s putting the project in the mail. Maybe it’s putting the knobs on the door. Maybe it’s throwing the scraps away. Maybe it’s decidi...

Just when I've gotten my second period class to settle down, respect me, and do their work, we have an incident that blows my mind, and I don't know if I will be able to trust one of my students for a long time. I've been using Cynthia Voight's Dicey's Song as a read-aloud with half of my classes (t...

There's a possibility that thessalian might accidentally give a flying shit about this one, since it takes place in her hometown or somewhere with the same name. July 16 [Aberrant] Montreal city councilman Marcus Smith, a known proponent of Quebec's faltering Anglophone movement and of the United Ca...

Sorry for the delay. July [Aberrant] This month's issue of Science Explorer announces that next month, 10 patients at the Triton Foundation's Atlanta Mediplex will be test subjects for an artificial kidney. This is probably in Aberrant: Project Utopia, but I'm disinclined to dig for where. Turns out...

Many of you know that this year has been my foray into the world of comic books and graphic novels. I’ve grabbed as many as I could, ones I’ve gotten as recommendations, others I’ve taken upon myself to learn about. At first it was hard to even determine what was “good”...