Author Archives: englishparsons
Mr. P’s Senior Speech 2018
Dear Seniors, Welcome to your last high school class. Ever. Welcome to a new kind of school life, where you will have much more choice about where to go and what to do. In minutes, your classes will all be … Continue reading
Getting to Students interest with Playlists
This year I picked up a new elective course called “Personal Branding.” Modeled off the ideas of my good friend Jason Shaffer, the course is designed to help students get their own ideas out into the digital world — and … Continue reading
Parsons’ Senior Speech
Dear Seniors, Welcome to your last high school English class. Ever. What’s coming up s a period of exams, studying at home, and saying goodbye to the people and spaces that have been an enormous part of your life. I’ll … Continue reading
Blogs of the Week — From the Seniors
The Seniors produced some truly interesting and creative work this trimester. There have been wonderful examples of original thought connecting the four works we have studied this year: Death of a Salesman, The Importance of Being Earnest, Waiting For Godot, and … Continue reading
Highlights from the Seniors’ Blogs
Here are some exemplary blogs from Trimester 1 of the IB Higher Level year two class. Happy reading! Jordynn Lurie created a truly wonderful music video that combined many of the contradictions and equivocations that the witches use Macbeth. It’s … Continue reading
Thanks for the Memories, Mr. Bajger!
“Bajger is retiring.” Cue a chorus of high school girl awwwwww noises. That’s what I got every time I mentioned John’s imminent close to this chapter of his biography. Since we’ve worked together for quite a while, I thought it appropriate … Continue reading
My Senior Speech
Welcome, Seniors, to your last English lecture, which will be the first in a long series of lasts. Welcome to exam limbo, a three week purgatorial drift. You will drift into school for exams, drift out for lunch. You’ll study … Continue reading
Walls as Learning Space
Another unit, another wall. This wall was assembled by 12th grade students to capture characters, symbols, and mock-artifacts related to Toni Morrison’s A Mercy. The more I use this approach, the more value I see in it. Students put their … Continue reading
Three Weeks in English Teacher Heaven — Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre
What happens when you bring together 25 passionate, talented, and eager teachers of English and Drama? What happens when that diverse group of people works nonstop in and around The Globe Theatre — one of the most significant performance spaces … Continue reading
Publicly Centered at the Student
We can talk about having a “student-centered” classrooms all day, but how do we prove it to our students? Over the past five years or so I’ve been looking for ways to make my classroom show that it’s a room … Continue reading