Successive generations of middle-class parents used to foist their own favourite books on their children. But some time in the late Eighties it began to wane - not because children had lost interest in adorable animals but because most of it was avai...
Every time I hear a politician mention the word 'stimulus,' my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch.
When I turned thirteen and took a typing class, with typical early teen enthusiasm and total lack of critical ability, I started sending my stuff to publishers once I'd babysat long enough to earn the postage.
Gretchen: Um, where do I sit? Karen Pommeroy: Sit next to the boy you think is the cutest. [the class gasps] Karen Pommeroy: Quiet! Let her choose.
Army physician: [about Klaatu] He was very nice about it, but he made me feel like a third-class witch doctor.
Jenny Curran: Have you ever been with a girl, Forrest? Forrest Gump: [nervously] I sit next to them in my Home Economics class all the time.
Mr. Ray: Okay, class. Optical orbits up front, and remember, we keep our subesophageal ganglion to ourselves. That means you, Jimmy. Jimmy: Aw, man!
Missy: I hear they've got an assertive training class for southern women. [looks puzzled] Missy: Of course that's a contradiction in terms.
Jamal: Man, what am I DOIN' in here, man? This ol' ghetto ass class got people in here lookin' like a bad rerun of cops!
[after being "attacked" by Buckbeak the hippogriff] Malfoy: You're going to regret this. Hagrid: Class dismissed. Malfoy: You and your bloody chicken.
Indiana Jones: Archaeology is the search for fact... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.
Clarence: I'm Clarence Oddbody, AS2. George Bailey: Oddbody... Hey, what's an AS2? Clarence: Angel, Second Class. [the bridgekeeper, overhearing it, falls backwards in his chair completely spooked]
Mathilda: I am writing here the name of a girl in the class who makes me sick. If things get hot, she'll take the heat.
Slevin: How did you find out about us? Mr. Goodkat: I'm a world-class assassin, fuckhead. How do you think I found out?
1st German: Who... What are you? Erik Lehnsherr: Let's just say I'm Frankenstein's monster. And I'm looking for my creator.
Robert Graysmith: I just want to help. Ken Narlow: What are you, some kind of boy scout? Robert Graysmith: Eagle Scout, actually... First class.
I remember an article, I can't recall who by, it was after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which said that now the Wall was down, there could be no more class war. Only someone with money could ever say such a thing.
Rwanda was considered a second-class operation; because it was a small country, we had been able to maintain a kind of status quo. They were negotiating, they'd accepted the new peace project, so we were under the impression that everything would be ...
Besides the actual reading in class of many poems, I would suggest you do two things: first, while teaching everything you can and keeping free of it, teach that poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition.
My science teachers always encouraged their classes to 'go out and discover something' because all scientific endeavors depend on observation and experimentation. Through such pursuits, anyone can find something new to science, and if it's truly nove...
I have no formal training as a writer at all, not even a single English class in college. However, my adult books are all science fiction, which has some similarities to YA.
