Talking to Strangers

Two weeks from today will mark the one-year anniversary of this blog. In the past 351 days, I’ve written more than 50,000 words and published forty-six blog entries. I’ve chronicled rooftop views, European adventures, teachable moments, and moments when I was utterly unmoored. I’ve narrated doldrums and delights, butterflies and heartache. I’ve written in, around, and through the challenges, failures, and triumphs of this past year – and it has been transformative. Elizabeth Gilbert, of Eat, Pray, Love fame, has…

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Last week, I sat down with my senior students and asked them to circle up. I have small classes, so it’s easy to rearrange the furniture to suit my lesson plan. They dragged metal across tile, forming an oblong circle of desks, put their technology away, and took out Mrs. Dalloway – a difficult text I love teaching and many of them struggle with. This year my teaching of the novel has felt particularly rushed. Thanks to scheduling anomalies and…

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