Monthly Archives: March 2015

What is implied about race by advertising? (In the New York Times Sunday edition)

Posted on March 31, 2015 by forstegrupp

This past Sunday morning (March 29) I was looking through the New York Times. I picked up this hefty advertisement for fun in the Florida sun and started flipping through it. The producers has pitched this to a different economic … Continue reading →

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Reflection on Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”

Posted on March 29, 2015 by forstegrupp

Since posting yesterday, I have been thinking about what to write about this Donne sonnet. The meaning is relatively straightforward: don’t fear death, since it is only the passageway to eternal life. The poem is more about the narrator, who … Continue reading →

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What does it mean to analyze a poem — Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud” is on the dissecting table!

Posted on March 28, 2015 by forstegrupp

When I work with a poem, I will sometimes read it for pleasure but then will sometimes “pull” at it. Here is a series of pictures for how Donne’s sonnet was atomized. In the post for tomorrow, I will see … Continue reading →

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Reading about Mary Sutter

Posted on March 27, 2015 by forstegrupp

When I was visiting friends in Decorah, I spied Robin Oliveira’s novel My Name is Mary Sutter on a coffee table. I had finished already the YA novel Flora and Ulysses by Kate Di Camillo, which is a delightful magical … Continue reading →

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Traveling Through the Iron Country

Posted on March 27, 2015 by forstegrupp

 This past Monday and Tuesday, I drove back and forth from Minneapolis to Decorah, which is a small town of about 8,000 people in northern Iowa. The night before the drive, a winter storm dropped several inches on snow. Driving on … Continue reading →

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Common Good Bookstore in Minneapolis

Posted on March 26, 2015 by forstegrupp

Garrison Keillor opened The Common Good book shop in 2006 and then he moved it to a larger location in 2012 on Snelling Avenue. This independent book shop does not stock the usual selection of items — no big table of … Continue reading →

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Where is a great local (Philadelphia area) shop to buy quirky, fun gifts?

Posted on March 26, 2015 by forstegrupp

This weekend, my daughter and I are travelling to Minnesota so she can have an overnight visit at a college and I can visit family and friends. In my family, we have this unwritten rule that you must always bring … Continue reading →

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Back to the lesson!

Posted on March 24, 2015 by forstegrupp

Now we return to the original promised posting — interrupted by a passing bunny. I called this lesson “Connect the Poetry Dots,” because the students begin with Shakespeare and end with Rossetti and in between are other poets. The way … Continue reading →

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Bunny hop

Posted on March 20, 2015 by forstegrupp

On my way out on this fine first day of spring, I noticed tracks. Distinctive tracks. They look like a bunny hoped down the walk and when I looked in the yard, this bunny had left a lot of tracks. … Continue reading →

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How does a teacher keep students interested before spring break?

Posted on March 20, 2015 by forstegrupp

Yesterday was a post about technology learning. Today is a post about atechnology learning. Sometimes the students and I need to get away from the computers and instead of creating something in the cloud, create something tactile. And I needed … Continue reading →

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