An anti-prescriptivist English teacher friend sent this to me. It speaks to our collective fear of making mistakes in emails, as well as our sometimes misplaced anger at students for "text-speak."

One of my favorite grammar bloggers--his catchphrase is "Prescriptivism must die!"--posted this about apostrophe use with possessives. Our junior PLT continues to disagree, and it sounds like the Associated Press disagrees with the MLA. WILL IT EVER END?

Oh. My. Word. Such a fun tool! Students can create custom cartoons of, like, anything. Giant time-waster? Sure. Useful review tool for low-level readers? You betcha! Possible resource for end-of-unit analysis? Maybe.

Thinking about punctuating some of my (kind of musty) British poetry lessons with some modern applications of poetry. Louder Than A Bomb is awesome. They're also coming out with a documentary later this month.

A poetry explication is a relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem. Writing an explication is an effective way for a reader to connect a poem's plot and conflicts with its structural features.

A fairly clear explanation of sonnets (with differences between Bill Shakespeare and Eddie Spenser)

Simple, to the point. Just the way I like my grammar!

Whether it be uptalk (pronouncing statements as if they were questions? Like this?), creating slang words like "bitchin' " and "ridic," or the incessant use of "like" as a conversation filler, vocal trends associated with young women are often seen as markers of immaturity or even stupidity.

Shared from one of my math teacher buddies of yore. Could be really helpful for teaching differences between correlation and causation in research paper, or historical background on literary eras.

And part of that "Detox" program is addressed by students here. I haven't fully explored either of these, but I'm getting some interesting ideas for next year!

Have you guys been here? Heard of "Detox"? Just found it...interesting.