If you weren’t a weird little kid, then you were never a little kid. Even so, I was a weird little kid. Anxious and awkward, I felt more comfortable with books than I did people. Once, in elementary school, when the power went out, I asked the teacher if I could move my desk over […]
Tag Archives: @Polking
July
23
Complicit by Stephanie Kuehn – Review by William Polking
posted by CBethM
Many think pieces have been written this summer (I’m defining “summer” as any point after my school year ended, which was May 20—don’t hate me) about young adult (YA) fiction. Pieces trying to define the genre, pieces addressing a lack of diversity within the genre, pieces analyzing the popularity of the genre, pieces asking whether […]
A Repugnant Smudge by William Polking
posted by CBethM
I recently covered a class for a colleague who needed to be gone. Not a colleague in the English department: a colleague in the Industrial Technology department. (Full disclosure: Our school isn’t that big, so my colleague IS the Industrial Technology department.) So for second period on a Friday, I was in charge of a […]
An Abundance of Paytons by William Polking
posted by CBethM
Study hall. After four years of teaching a full class load, study hall was Brigadoon, a magical land hidden behind the mists. I know some high school teachers dread study hall (I have to corral how many students in the small commons?), but to me the notion of study hall was almost like love. An […]
The Trouble With Cybils by William Polking
posted by CBethM
I should not be talking to you now—I should be reading. I should not be writing this now—I should be reading. I should not be watching this football game now—I should be reading. I have always battled the impossibility of reading everything that matters, and I thought I had a handle on this particular neurosis, […]
Nerdy Book Club 