Semicolon Enthusiast
ostrichsocks.bsky.social
Semicolon Enthusiast
@ostrichsocks.bsky.social
Catholic; English teacher
That’s the hope though, right? That each sentence is a step towards where you need to be? (And that each sentence you re-write makes you just a bit sharper than you were before.)
January 11, 2026 at 12:34 AM
In my 11+12 classes, we have deliberate discussions about pros and cons of AI in the classroom. Several juniors wrote personal narratives this fall discussing how AI has affected - for better and worse - their relationship to reading and the learning process.
December 31, 2025 at 2:59 AM
High school, grades 9-12. We restrict genAI as a form of fabrication rather than plagiarism - analogous to making up lab results rather than copying another student’s homework in a chem class.

My syllabus permits using genAI to find other relevant sources and check grammar; no other use allowed.
December 31, 2025 at 2:57 AM
A1: …opens up a lot of room for great interpretations - and adaptations! It immediately opens up the question of how much the witches influence Macbeth vs. merely enable him. (Some adaptations, like the Great Performances version w/Patrick Stewart, give the witches much more emphasis b/c of this.)
November 30, 2025 at 2:11 PM
I find it useful to include Shakespeare in 9th - the kids I’ve talked to in 10th say it sets them up to do better with Shakespeare in their Brit/world lit units as sophomores. But another Shakespeare play might do just as well. Winter’s Tale or Much Ado might be a replacement, or a condensed Lear.
November 24, 2025 at 2:22 AM
I’ve taught R+J in 9th grade the last couple of years (my first two teaching high school) - inherited it from a previous teacher. I like it as a way to talk about family dynamics and adolescent behavior with that grade, but I wonder if it might fit better in 10th or 11th for that reason…
November 24, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Suit alors!
November 9, 2025 at 6:51 PM
If Schmitt really thinks America a ‘Christian homeland’ - and thinks this opposed to the universal freedoms laid out in the Declaration - he ought to visit Dred Scott’s grave at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. (A grave, it should be noted, that was only found and marked in the last few years.)
September 10, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Semicolon Enthusiast
CALL A REP.
Here is a list of GOP House members (h/t @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social) who should be targeted with calls about the MAGA Murder Budget ASAP.

Script included.
docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...
OPPOSE HR1 - HOUSE OF REPS SHEET
docs.google.com
July 3, 2025 at 2:44 PM
But, in something like a response to the kids in “We Real Cool,” the speaker here doesn’t cite examples of life or hope in the world *around* the young person. The source of hope is the young person themselves.
July 1, 2025 at 2:04 PM
The phrase “this certain day” stands out to me. The speaker doesn’t promise a long life, or even better days ahead. Death is still present, just not imminent. (We see a similar connection between youth and death in Brooks’s famous “We Real Cool.”)
July 1, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Additional context: some of my colleagues at other local (largely Catholic) schools in this ACC program teach it as a lit class, just keeping the required common assessment (a Dissoi Logoi-style essay). I include some literature - e.g., Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own - but it’s still rhet/comp focused.
May 29, 2025 at 2:07 PM
We have a similar model - I teach ACC comp to juniors, who then take an ACC American lit class as seniors. (Non-ACC students take a different American lit class as juniors.)

Aside from AP forcing this curriculum on some schools - do you see any downsides to less lit in a given year of English?
May 29, 2025 at 2:05 PM