It occurred to me this week that as my blog approaches its third birthday, quite a lot of content is buried in the archives that might actually be useful to new readers of the blog.

• Instructions for making a comparison/contrast graphic organizer that I like better than the Venn diagram.
• While not precisely useful, I really enjoyed analyzing the effectiveness of various Hogwarts teachers.
• While computer programs exist, if you prefer not to use them, can’t use them, or just like Power Point better, I provided instructions for creating a Power Point Jeopardy game.
• In this post, I discuss the perils of teaching The Great Gatsby and other books I love.
• Grade Inflation: A Student and Teacher Dialogue was written with Anthony Ferraro, a high school student (not one of mine) who happened by my blog and engaged in some healthy debate about grading as a means of communication.
• My article on pairing the Judaic concept of cheshbon hanefesh (“accounting of the soul”) with Ben Franklin’s quest for “moral perfection” as described in his autobiography appeared in English Journal in July 2006, and I shared my thoughts about the article and the process of writing in this post.  If you have an NCTE membership and want to download the article, you can get a PDF version by going to their web site, logging in, and going back through the EJ issues online to July 2006, which is Vol. 95.6.