April 5, 2010

An Inaugural Post

So, in this inaugural entry for this blog, I’m presenting signs of the course I’ve already decided upon — the application of deductive reasoning and Socratic questioning for seeking evidence about language — and trusting that this logical approach to language learning will augur well for the teachers and others who visit it; that it will augment the reader’s understanding of how English works by applying rigorous methodologies from the august science of linguistics.
April 6, 2010

Seeing is Believing but Moving isn’t Proving

In the professional development I've offered teachers for the past 15 years, I've cited experts plenty. When something didn't make sense to a student or a teacher, or to me, the only response I had was to cite the person or the resource that had said it was thus and so. Now, however, if something about written language isn't immediately clear to me, I've learned to investigate it: the evidence is right there, waiting to be discovered! I've stopped taking resources at face value, and started interrogating them instead.
October 30, 2010

Raising Consciousness

You know how sometimes a certain word will keep popping up over and over?  By the time the same word has appeared three or four times, […]
March 21, 2011

A Measured Respose to Crazy Rumors

I’ve been a bit of a lunatic about the moon this winter.  Its bright fullness through my unadorned windows, especially “on the breast of the new-fallen […]