Sitting at the breakfast table, the repast now over except for the steaming mug of dark-brewed coffee, I am surrounded by books. On the table itself, 32 volumes arranged in six piles corresponding to various projects Sherry is working on. Hundreds more in the bookshelves hugging the walls, even more set aside in boxes on …
Category Archives: Power of Words
Read it again!
Little kids love to hear the same story over and over again. Even when they know the words by heart, they cry out for some beloved adult to read some treasured narrative over and over, and woe be unto anyone who forgets a word or tries out a new version. Growing up in church, we …
Abomination/Aberration
You say potato; I say pimiento. Close? Right? Wrong. As an instructor of first-year college writing, I’m used to this kind of mistake. We’ve come to blame the “Whole Language” fad that somehow is ubiquitous in the lower grades. It’s likely ubiquitous becuase it’s easy. Rather than force students to read the right word, it …
