“Well, my friends, I am on strike against myself. I am at war against my worries. I am picketing my peccadillos.”

Just like my career was born from my resentment of my own education, so was “Pressed Rose Classics” born out of my resentment for cheap re-prints of beautiful works. Now, I am self-(re)publishing beautiful classics in affordable, pleasant-to-read paperback form.

My students as young as 4th grade are now giddy over Shakespeare. So, I thought I would share some Shakespearean moments from class with you.

Some more recent stories from the classroom.

Some short stories from the classroom about how literature brings joy in many and varied ways.

Poetry, with its elegance, efficiency, and brevity, makes for an excellent beginning because it shows the students, in just forty minutes, a sample of everything they have to look forward to in literature class.

I love the start of each new school year, but this year I am more excited than usual.

“[Dickinson] says that it’s not something science can identify, but something that human nature can feel. What sort of thing might she be referring to?”
“Mayonnaise”

In my recent post about “literary immersion,” I talked about how I get students immersed in stories. But, all of those strategies are completely useless if the book we are reading isn’t good enough.

I have come to describe this exuberant, joyful reaction to literature as being a result of literary immersion: complete preoccupation and delight in a novel.