Sometimes I wad up paper and throw it at my students. Let me explain.

When I was a high school student, we did something called WAD words. Word-A–Day. And that was something. I remember trying to be clever and incorporating them into a speech at graduation. Some of them I internalized. I think we had a […]

I bet you have a story about helium balloons. There was a party, a birth, a funeral, or someone was sucking in the gas and making a funny voice.

Here are two of my favorite:

1. My son was 2 or 3 or almost 4. Somebody gave him a helium balloon at Burgerville. He had seen […]

I wrote a small book a few years ago: The Little Goldenrod Book of Limericks. And every few years we play around with limericks in class. I try to use them to teach other things, and show quickly and easily how you can edit and play around with words. The form gets stuck in my head. […]

I’ve been making the case for learning new words at school. You know, being an English teacher and all. Sometimes it feels like the students are geese that I am going to use for foie gras someday. Gotta fatten up those livers! Foie gras is a popular dish in Hungary… they force feed the geese…

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