The Gift of Reading: Bugs of Christmas Past
In a season of mistletoe and merriment, the only thing missing from the holiday is mutant bugs.
The Gift of Reading: Romancing the Fruitcake—A Tale of Two Genres
For the past two weeks on my morning runs, I’ve been listening to the podcast Christmas Wars: A Very Merry Rivalry on the battle for Christmas movie superiority waged by Hallmark, Lifetime, Hulu, and Netflix, which is a bit on the ironic side because I have absolutely no interest in this genre.
The Gift of the Math Guy
Before transitioning away from life as a public school educator, I worked as the academic trainer for English and social studies in a large, urban high school in San Antonio. I partnered with English and social studies teachers on strengthening the literacy skills of their students.
The Gift of Reading: We Three Books
On the day after state testing, one of my sophomores burst into the room and announced: “Mr. G, I used rule of three on my essay.”
It was a proud moment. Rule of Three is the concept that words or phrases are inherently more appealing in groups of three. It’s a quick and dirty writing trick/tip I...
The Gift of Reading: Of Authors, Words, and Magic
For most of the past year and half, I have spent most of my waking hours querying or obsessing over querying literary agents for my young adult novel The Closest Thing to a Normal Life.
Getting Nothing for Someone
Just last week, my oldest son asked me what I wanted for Christmas. My answer? Nothing.
Native American Heritage Month: An Indigenous Cut to the Bone
In recent months I learned, along with others around the world, of the horrific stories of the mass unmarked grave sites of Indigenous, or Aboriginal, residents of Canada’s Indian residential school system. Wrenching stories of Indigenous students digging graves for classmates, children...
Myth with a Side of Mashed Potatoes
Like most kids ushered though elementary school in the days when the Charlie Brown holiday specials aired on television once a year and if you missed them, you just had to wait until next year, I learned the myth of Thanksgiving like it was the gospel truth.
Native American Heritage Month: Stereotypes Still Unbroken
Not long ago, with work piling up, to-do things needing to be done, and the fate of the free world basically depending on what I did next, I chose what any responsible adult does in these situations: I continued scrolling through TikTok for several hours more.
Hispanic Heritage Month: Three per cent no es Fabuloso
In my first period class of sophomores at a high school on the Southwest side of San Antonio, I had one White student, one Muslim student, and the rest were Hispanic, Latinx, Mexican.
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