Category: Essay
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The Adventures of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It’s halfway through the second quarter of the school year and I’ve finally reached my favorite part of 8th grade literature, the beginning of an extended unit on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. First we read his short story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band”, which serves as a warm-up to third quarter when we take…
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The Harsh Reality of Truth
A few years ago, on “club picture day”, my good friend and colleague stood with me and the students in the after-school club that we jointly moderate to take our photo for the yearbook. Weeks later, the photos arrived and we were each given our copy. Later that day, when we were looking at the…
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What’s It Like Being the Mother of the Pied Piper
After graduation, I decided to stay in the town where I had lived and attended college for four years. I started working for a Kelly Girls temp agency and eventually landed a full-time position as a receptionist at a busy downtown law firm. At the end of the summer, my younger brother, Tommy, moved into…
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The Scariest Drive Home Ever
When I first started driving alone in a car my father told me some basic things to always remember. Never drive on an empty tank. Get your oil checked regularly. Be sure your tires have air in them. Don’t fiddle with the radio or air conditioning while you are driving. Don’t drive through bad sections…
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The Nitty Gritty of Grammar
My eighth grade students took an English quiz on Friday. This came after a solid week of “reviewing” the basic rules of punctuation and capitalization: the comma, the period, the colon, the semicolon, the exclamation point, the question mark, the dash and the hyphen, and when to use quotation marks and italics. All of these…
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October: A Libra’s Day in the Sun
I am a Libra. I’m not really into horoscopes or astrology, but a brief research of my “sign” reveals it fits me like a glove. The sun sign of Libra covers those born between September 23 and October 22, and is represented by the scales, symbolized by the Scales of Justice held by Themis, which…
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When Best Friends Become Enemies
In April I flew home to Louisiana to help my brothers with my dad, who had been in and out of the hospital and nursing home due to his worsening heart conditions. After we worked through all of the issues with bringing him home to my brother Tommy’s house, I was able to cook a…
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Love Never Fails
It’s midday Sunday and I am just sitting down to write this week’s essay. It’s been a busy weekend. Friday night was the wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner for one of my colleagues, a third grade teacher at my school. Months ago, after announcing her engagement, she stopped me as I was coming in to…
Michelle Blanchard Ardillo 