Living Outside the Lines
When I ask the kids to tell me their favorite projects, the newspaper project makes the top ten every time. It surprises me because the development of it generates more questions than any other project. Each time we plan this project I revise the directions, hoping to make them clearer. When we read the Scarlet [...]
“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” — Mark Twain Twain was a genesis story teller but I think he must have understood how much work goes into choosing the right words or else he wouldn’t have made that statement. When I was in school, if I was told [...]
Here at Living Outside the Lines we think reading the classics is fun because we make it fun! There are so many new and exciting modern stories to choose from that the idea of reading an old book might seem dismal. And, you know what, it just might be a dreary experience without a little help to [...]
“My friend brought the bulb to me, a little brown thing like an onion. I doubted it would grow here but it just seemed determined to keep on trying and look what has happened.” Kit Tyler, The Witch of Blackbird Pond The Witch of Blackbird Pond is considered a classic book, but I don’t think [...]
“A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in, not out.“ ~ Virginia Woolf What does Virginia Woolf understand about essay writing that I am missing? When I was in school, if I was told I could choose [...]
Here at Living Outside the Lines we think reading the classics is fun because we make it fun! There are so many new and exciting modern stories to choose from that the idea of reading an old book might seem dismal. And, you know what, it just might be a dreary experience without a little help to [...]
“I grew weary of the sea, and intended to stay at home with my wife and family. I removed from the Old Jewry to Fetter Lane, and from thence to Wapping, hoping to get business among the sailors; but it would not turn to account. After three years expectation that things would mend, I accepted [...]
This month our literature club is reading Gulliver’s Travels. It’s a great book to learn about the writing device, satire. SATIRE as defined by dictionary.com is: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.; a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held [...]
“The point of the essay is to change things.” — Edward Tufte When I was in school, if I was told to write about anything I wanted, it was a signal for my brain to run in circles like a dog chasing it’s tail. Therefore, I like to give my writing students a place to start. [...]
Here at Living Outside the Lines we think reading the classics is fun! It’s because we make it fun. There are so many new and exciting modern stories to choose from that the idea of reading an old book might seem dismal. And, you know what, it just might be a dreary experience without a little help [...]
