Comments on: Is Gaiman A Teacher?

By: Sam

Sam — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:28:07 +0000

I loved this post. I think you’ve captured my thought process almost perfectly. I can’t believe my certification program doesn’t require us to create and maintain professional blogs. It’s a shame that it’s considered unusual for someone in my program to register a domain name or actually even start a blog (God knows we talk about Web 2.0 in the classroom enough!).

Thanks for the good read.

By: Mr. Spurlin » Blog Archive » Blogging and Mistakes

Mr. Spurlin » Blog Archive » Blogging and Mistakes — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:24:20 +0000

[...] days ago and already I’ve been served up a warm plate of good writing. Todd’s post, Is Gaiman A Teacher? elucidates exactly what I’m trying to do with this blog. “Didn’t I write about how that [...]

By: Todd

Todd — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:50:03 +0000

That’s advice for just about any situation: get it over with! Often it’s more difficult to begin that process than the actual process itself.

Though I’ve never read more than a few scattered essays, I love Annie Dillard. A section from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is in our English 3 text and I really enjoy teaching it.

By: Dina

Dina — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:32:44 +0000

Annie Dillard, on writing (or teaching?):

The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years’ attention to these things, you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls; they have to stay, or everything will fall down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it out. Duck.

“Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this [writing] is such fine stuff the work [at large] needs it, or the world. Courage, exhausted, stands on bare reality; this writing weakens the work. You must demolish the work and start over. You can save some of your sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some of the paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves or hard-won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now.”