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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 11h

“Pumpkin history”

John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 11h

Emerson coming through with a quote for autumn: “We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field, goes through every point of pumpkin history.”

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 15h

Not especially original but I really don’t think there’s a better question to ask students than “what’d you think was the most important line or moment in the reading.” Works every time

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 16h

Yes! He’s great. Really helped me understand what’s at stake in reading, writing, the humanities. I think about his classes all the time as I figure out what good teaching can be.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

Woops meant “nooks”. Whatever

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

Feel a much larger sense of accomplishment when I see kids in the hallway, in the cafeteria, in random books kids find in schools reading a book I’ve assigned than I do when kids pass tests. Like when the book spreads around the school like a weird invasive species.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

Also, yes: humanities profs can absolutely convince students to become teachers. Happened to me

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

Been teaching in NYC for 12 years. The literacy data that alarms people is definitely something to tackle. But we’ve designed schooling for everyone around tackling that one issue—leaving a ton of kids out of an authentic experience of humanities/literary education

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

“Today, when the failures of K-12 education are tallied, what tends to get mentioned is not the diminishment of opportunities for rich thought and intellectual exploration at the high school level.”

This is, ironically, the failure that harms the vast majority of kids—great, necessary essay.

Anna E. Clark @annaeclark.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote about the divide between high school and college English, and what we might do to bridge it, for @publicbooks.bsky.social—part of an excellent roundtable on higher ed under Trump organized by @dennismhogan.bsky.social

www.publicbooks.org/toward-the-h...

Toward the Higher- and Secondary-Ed Alliance! - Public Books

The influence of K-12 policy and pedagogy on higher ed can perhaps be seen best in the trickle-up effect of the standards of the Common Core.

www.publicbooks.org

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 1d

Interesting themes chat re Huck/James today—some of the stuff they’re seeing

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Thoreau, 1862

John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Has had me thinking about this book, by a prof who taught me how to read like a serious person

www.hup.harvard.edu/books/978067...

Word by Word — Harvard University Press

One of the cruelest abuses of slavery in America was that slaves were forbidden to read and write. Consigned to illiteracy, they left no records of their thoughts and feelings apart from the few excep...

www.hup.harvard.edu

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Everett didn’t just, like, make up this character out of nothing

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Have read tons of reviews of James for this unit/a thing I’m writing about it, and it’s interesting how often his literacy is talked about without any reference to people like Frederick Douglass. Kids who read him with me last year and are now reading James did not have a hard time seeing it.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Will never forget, after like my first week interning there over a decade ago, cracking open “the melancholy of resistance” on the metro north and being like, Well what the fuck have I been reading before this

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Taking the kids outside for ~transcendentalism journaling~ in the park

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Thank you Nicholas! Ideas downloaded.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 2d

Amazing. Thank you!

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 3d

2016 really was a big year

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 3d

Ah yes the time of year when I remember that Bob Dylan won the Nobel prize for literature

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 3d

Teaching Oedipus and Antigone in a month or so, and want to steep my brain in the most interesting commentary on these plays. Way outside my wheelhouse here. Any recommended books/essays?

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 3d

✨K-16 education discourse✨

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 3d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 4d

Met him once in a bookstore and he helped me decide to get Merwin’s translation of Il Purgatorio since I told him I was going to Italy—not kidding

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 4d

This NYRB edition of Thoreau’s journals is so good! Also a little wild how widely Damion Searls, who introduced and edited the volume, has enriched my reading life—everything from Septology to Anniversaries to this.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 4d

Dropping the deep nerd stuff on them in journalism tomorrow, introducing AP style. Also pray for me as I introduce the phrase “nut graf” to a room full of teens.

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