Teaching Tip: Fail Early, Fail Often

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently” Henry Ford Your midterm grades are in (I hope) and some of your students are about to get a wake-up call about their performance in your class. You may be somewhat depressed about the number of students who are failing or close to [...]

What’s “Critical Thinking” in Your Discipline?

In an article for Education Week Teacher, high school principal and world lit teacher Daniel McMahon notes the Orwellian “sheer cloudy vagueness” around the term “critical thinking” despite wide consensus that it’s critical for student success.  He defines critical thinking as a series of skills that move well beyond memory and recognition, those staples of [...]

Listening to an Apologist for–Ugh–Passive Voice

When I ask profs in our WI workshops to list their top five grammar/mechanics peeves, passive voice always ranks near #1 for me. Specifying who did what to whom forces writers to clarify their ideas and usually livens their prose. Of course, our workshop also acknowledges disciplinary differences since the sciences often favor passive voice [...]