Jim Burke's Profile

Under Construction

I am taking advantage of the extra time over the break to begin work on my blog. The goal is to consolidate all my online content to this one site under the URL of englishcompanion.com, but for now, this... Ignore... Continue reading

Posted Dec 27, 2012 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Freedom From Fear

When I wrote and posted my recent blog in response to the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday, I could not imagine that I would, only hours later, that Sunday evening, while preparing my lessons for Monday's classes,... Continue reading

Posted Dec 18, 2012 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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The Monsters in Our Midst

Last week, prior to the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, as part of our discussion of Dr. Frankenstein's "wretch," his "monster," we discussed what I called the "inflection point," that point in the trajectory of the story when everything changes. My... Continue reading

Posted Dec 16, 2012 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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The Common Core State Standards---Wordled!

This wordle gives us a different way to look at the Common Core State Standards. I just created it using Wordle which, in this case, offers us a useful view about what the Common Core values most at least according... Continue reading

Posted Dec 8, 2012 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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2011 Edublog Award Recommendations

It is that time of year to reflect on whose online work or which digital tools have helped me or the profession the most in the last year. The Edublog Awards are especially meaningful and important as they come from... Continue reading

Posted Nov 21, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Acceptance

The ultimate senior moment: Our son's first college acceptance letter arriving yesterday. Continue reading

Posted Oct 28, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: We are all Hamlet

My senior classes are just beginning to read Hamlet. The play opens with Barnardo demands to know, "Who's there?" It is a question Hamlet will spend the whole play trying to answer. This morning, I asked my seniors in class... Continue reading

Posted Oct 6, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Who I am, was, and will be

Today my senior students spent the morning in the computer lab with the counselors completing surveys, starting the process of applying to college. Our son is going through the same process. They are struggling with how to answer the question:... Continue reading

Posted Oct 4, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Celebrating Arrivals

Seventeen years ago our son Whitman, our senior son, arrived. He came early. Perhaps he knew he had to: a month before, his grandfather Melvin (Susan's father) had lost his year-long fight to cancer; a week later, his grandfather Jerry... Continue reading

Posted Sep 29, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: In the Garden

Today, I would see, at different times, Ann out in the garden, sitting under the apple tree, or on the deck of the playhouse, later on over on the swing seat under the rose arbor. It was as beautiful a... Continue reading

Posted Sep 18, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: The Application Process

High school seniors across the nation (and in all my classes...and at home) are beginning the process of applying to college. Many of our friends whose parents are aging, especially those in declining health, are beginning the process of applying... Continue reading

Posted Sep 15, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Obstacles

Sunday I went for a long bike ride out along the California coast. While taking a break, I saw these stones, one kept apart by a police barracade, and on the other side of that, waves, and past that, dense... Continue reading

Posted Sep 14, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Know Thyself

In the summer of 1985 I sat here at Delphi, where people like Alexader the Great would come to consult the oracle. What is to come? they would ask. Will we be victorious? he would ask. Or, in Oedipus the... Continue reading

Posted Sep 12, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Fleeing the Parents

My seniors are just beginning to read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone, which are about many things but very much about the moment when we see our parents (or, coming from the other side I now know too well, our... Continue reading

Posted Sep 7, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Changes

When you are a senior, things change---or are about to---and often in big ways, though we do not always know this at the time. Senior year in high school two things happened that would change me in ways I am... Continue reading

Posted Sep 6, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Leaving Home

This weekend we were up at the Russian River, the whole family, including Ann. We had two cars. Whitman, our high school senior, asked to drive the 90 minutes home by himself, as we were not leaving till later. I... Continue reading

Posted Sep 4, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Vulnerability

A new book out, This Beautiful Life, by Helen Schulman, has been getting a lot of attention lately for the story it tells. In the book, a high school boy and his family lose all they had worked so hard... Continue reading

Posted Sep 1, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Permission

As I watch the seniors in my class and at home, the young seniors and the elders, and consider my own place on that continuum, one word comes to mind again and again: permission. We cannot reach or teach those... Continue reading

Posted Aug 30, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: The Work of Men

During my senior/18th year growing up in Sacramento, I pumped gas, washed cars, parked cars, waxed and rented skis, photographed properties for my uncle's real estate business and girls at my high school who needed photos for their modeling portfolios,... Continue reading

Posted Aug 28, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: What Do Seniors Want?

An article in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Millennial Generation (which includes current high school seniors) would rather have a cell phone than a car. When I was a senior in 1979, I wanted a car the way... Continue reading

Posted Aug 23, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Where the Past, Present, and Future Meet

Friday night and most of Saturday morning, I read the essays my seniors wrote on the theme of separate worlds. Yet all weekend I could only think how impossibly connected these worlds we live in and move through are. This... Continue reading

Posted Aug 22, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Separate Worlds

The summer reading assignment for one of my senior classes (AP Lit) was to find two books that somehow explored the idea of separate worlds. This turned out to be a much better assignment than I even realized as seniors... Continue reading

Posted Aug 18, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: The Dinner Table Test

First day of the semester in all senior classes: described the year as a "conversation with yourself" about the future. To begin that conversation, I put up Friedrich's The Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog and asked them to generate... Continue reading

Posted Aug 16, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Reaching Out

The opening minutes, hours, days of any class are crucial for the teacher, but also the student. Thanks to the frequent use of school management platforms like Schoolloop, this window of opportunity extends to the days before school even starts... Continue reading

Posted Aug 15, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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Senior Moments: Declarations of Independence

For most seniors, including my son who lounges in the next room on the last evening before beginning his senior year, independence is a bit like a car they inherited but must learn how to drive, often, it seems, by... Continue reading

Posted Aug 14, 2011 at Jim Burke: The English Teacher's Companion

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