On a recent roadtrip, I listened to a biography of Thoreau by Laura Dassow Walls. As she recounts his survey of Walden Pond in 1846, the deepest pond in Massachusetts, I draw connections to his love of the deep.
The Deepness of Thoreau’s Walden
The Coincidence of “Curly” in Two American Novels
Something unique happened to me at the end of this past academic year. I taught John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men at the same time I was teaching Jack London’s The Call of the Wild, two novels that seem wildly different at first glance. At some point, while my students and I made our way …
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Doing Time with Captain Ahab
Moby-Dick; or The Whale by Herman Melville was published on November 14, 1851, which makes the book 173 years old. Such a rascal of a novel, to be sure. To celebrate, here’s a quick story. Last year, for Halloween, I spent the night before rustling up a likeness of Captain Ahab. I had given one …
Order is a Virtue, Wrote Mr. Franklin
It’s the new year, although we’re already into February, and like many others, I often start with good intentions, resolutions so to speak. We have in our hearts the desire to change for the better, to “drown our muskrats” as Henry David Thoreau says in the final chapter of Walden, though the task is certainly …
#WhyIWrite
It begins in high school. It begins with music. It begins with songs by Metallica, Slayer, and Black Sabbath. And it begins with a band, original music, writing lyrics. And yes, it begins in high school, but really it begins earlier. This Friday, October 20, is the NCTE’s National Day on Writing, which celebrates the …
The White Whale 