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My Robert Frost Book is #1 Bestseller in the US

My Robert Frost book just hit #1 on Amazon’s list of bestsellers in the United States. Not too bad for a high school English teacher.

Poetry Bestsellers in the United States - this particular edition is in Kindle format.

Looking for your Grades?

A view from my lectern after class today

I’m no longer maintaining the online grades. They proved to be more than I could handle. Teaching is a full time job that cuts into every aspect of my life. Even when I’m home I’m working. At school, I am teaching classes, meeting with students (before and after class, and during lunch), counseling with other teachers, administrators, and staff, attending various meetings, meetings, meetings. At home, I am planning lessons, reviewing curriculum and working on this blog, plus Twittering. Year ‘round, I am either teaching or thinking about teaching or preparing to teach.

In other words, I’ve got to let a few things go. And since the district provides online grading, I’ve decided to use it exclusively. However, if my students want me to email them their grade, i will do so. Just send me an email request to the email I gave you.

Amazon Kindle Commercial

I love this commercial especially since I love my Kindle. By the way, the song featured is “Fly Me Away” by Annie Little, who is also the woman in the commercial. You can download the song for free here.

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Making a Pledge

About five years ago I had a student who absolutely refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. He said it was something he felt he couldn’t be compelled to do. Legally, he was right. A student cannot be compelled to say the Pledge. However, he does have to stand because that’s considered a school function, like getting out of your desk when the bell rings. But concerning the Pledge, what he took for granted was that I was like the vast majority of teachers in this country who have never served a single day in the military. (Why the white middle class has abdicated its duty of military service is another subject.) The fact is I’m a veteran and proud of it, and I wasn’t going to let this snot-nose kid think our patriotic rituals are optional. But my attempts to get him to stand for the flag were futile. He simply refused. And that was that.

I got an Assistant Principle to intervene, but he was worse than useless. The kid seemed more adamant in his determination to defy me. He remained seated. I called his mom. She was furious and read her son the riot act when he got home. He remained seated. So I had a talk with him outside. I explained that one day he’d come to understand that school was just a game which some students have figured out how to play it to their advantage. I told him he was playing the role of a fool because the game was now turned to his disadvantage. One day, I said, he’d come to understand the words behind the Pledge. He thought I was crazy.

As it turns out, I recently received an email from him. He’s now in the military, stationed in Korea. He wrote the following:

Maybe to help you remember i was a blue-haired punk rocker who wouldn’t stand for the flag. Ha. Anyways , it’s funny . . . I’m in the United States Army serving as infantry stationed in South Korea. Life is full of irony, isn’t it? Anyways, you were a great teacher, you were. Thanks a lot. I wish I would have paid more attention in class. Ha, but that’s life. Thank you, Mr. Fasano.

Bits of Summer – 01

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This summer I spent some time in Paso Robles, visiting the wineries, and I had the dubious pleasure of driving State Route 46, a major crossing of the Coast Ranges, which essentially connects Cambria and Paso Robles with the San Joaquin Valley farther east. If this stretch of highway isn’t one of the ugliest in California, I don’t know what is.

A Concise Guide to MLA Style and Documentation

Cover of my MLA book

Okay, I’ve written a small book to help my students write their research papers. In the thirty years since my undergraduate days in Florida, there has been a seismic shift in the way students conduct research, find primary and secondary sources, gather and store information, and write their papers. I’m certainly grateful I had the MLA Handbook back then, and I cannot imagine completing a research project in today’s computerized world without the careful, concise Seventh Edition.

My experience as a teacher, however, is that many students struggle with understanding even the basics of MLA style. That’s why I wrote this book, and students using it to help them write their research papers can rest assured that it was teacher designed and student tested in the classroom. My eleventh-graders are never shy about revealing their confusion, and their input helped me see immediately what needed improving. Because of their involvement, the strengths of this book are theirs; its weaknesses, mine.

The book should be available by the end of August, just in time for the upcoming school year. And believe me, I fully intend to use it as a textbook in my classroom. When it comes to my students and teaching them to write research papers, I can’t think of a better book to use.

Last Full Day of School

Mr. Fasano jumps for joy.

You can tell it’s the last full day of school. Only two exam days (half days) left to go till summer.

John York playing “Mr. Tambourine Man”

Today Sandy and I had the pleasure of seeing our friend John York, formerly of The Byrds, give a free concert at Rhino Records in Claremont. What’s great about John is that he still has a tremendous amount of creative energy.

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Clang, clang, clang went the trolley

I was in the Claremont Village today and used my Flip Video Camcorder to capture the trolley. It’s fun to ride the Claremont trolley, but at a cost of over $300,000 a year the city has decided that’s money better spent somewhere else. What they should have done is devised a better route than the limited Village-only one. Oh well, by June 30 the trolley will be history.

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Will Crutchfield – Opera Conductor

Ah-ha! Will Crutchfield argues his point during a debate in Ms. Hunley’s class period. The class was also used for research, note-filing, and practice before tournaments.

I found this photograph in the Warwick High School yearbook of 1975. A friend of mine way back then in Newport News, VA, was Will Crutchfield, who grew up to be a famous opera conductor — that is, after a stint with the New York Times as the youngest opera critic in that paper’s history. Will’s an amazing person who has to his credit the discovery of a lost and unknown Donizetti opera, Elisabeth, the manuscript of which he found in a basement of London’s Royal Opera House. Sometimes in life one meets someone who’s destined to break away from the herd; of all the people I’ve met, Will took the lead.

What follows is a video clip of Will rehearsing “Ecco ridente in cielo” from Rossini’s Barber of Seville at the Polish National Opera of Warsaw. The tenor is Blagoj Nacoski.

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