We are so, so grateful to Little Fox Portraits, who donated their photography services to our conference and provided every attendee with a fantastic complementary headshot. Please support their business by considering them for your school or organization! www.littlefoxschoolphotographers.com

NEATE members and English teachers of New England! Our annual conference, "Brave Spaces, Safe Spaces" is coming up in just over a month, and we have a fantastic lineup of presenters. Register here! www.neate.org/conference

"Ich askid Chat GPT." Well, Ich askid the secret soul of everye yeare that hath passid since the sunne appearid, yn the gorgeous panoplye of their tragedye and joye, and thei saide our fixatioun on our own litel technologyes ys an insult to the facte that we are made of stardust.

Good news! Our class got approved! Students can now take Honors Linguistics and Media Studies for an English 101 credit! Thank you to everyone who shared their resources with me.

Happy to report that Ruthie is home as resting comfortably.

Please send good thoughts to Linguistipup (Ruthie), who got onto the dining table and ate a full pack of sugar-free gum. She’ll be staying at the hospital for at least 24 hours. I’d like to say I know she’ll be alright, but all I can say for sure is she is in the best hands.

Never thought I’d say this but I really do love teaching Romeo and Juliet.

On @collegeboard.org @ap-trevor.bsky.social using the "Look at me" passage from my book, Stranger Faces, for the AP Lang exam. The College Board did not ask me or my publishers for permission to use my work. That does not, in my view, fall under "fair use," as it was not being used to teach. 1/

Sending out a bat signal for linguists: I’m trying to get my high school Linguistics and Media Studies class approved as an ENG101 course for early college / dual enrollment. The English dept at this community college keeps sending up roadblocks because there’s “too much linguistics,” (1/3) 🐦🐦

Listen, the teens are really teening right now.

One of my former students came back to sub today. She just graduated from college. I taught her in three classes and she loved reading, linguistics, creative writing, and science. We worked for hours on her college application essay. In August she is moving to SWITZERLAND to start her PhD!

Hot take as a long-time AP Lang and Comp teacher: AP Language and Composition isn’t really about language at all. If it was, kids would be learning about language change and variation, descriptivism, pragmatics, syntax—the actual study of language. #Collegeboard #APLang

In a bit of bright news, I just found out that we’ll have FOUR sections of high school Linguistics & Media Studies next year! This might be a record!

Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.bsky.social? And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?

On this #PiDay, it’s incredibly necessary to remind everyone that the man who named 3.14… “pi,” Sir William Jones Sr, was the father of the man who theorized the existence of Proto-Indo-European, or PIE.

Today, high school linguistics students had to use their knowledge of sound symbolism and semantic associations to create brand names for new products. Here’s what they came up with: A men’s cologne called DUNE. A kids’ toy called BAHVOOS BLOCKS A meal delivery service called FREAKY FRESH

Any linguists following Mr. Lindsay on TikTok / reels? He’s a middle school teacher who makes videos about new slang—what it means, where it comes from, why kids are saying it. www.facebook.com/share/r/168A... 🐦🐦

Did you read THE GREAT GATSBY in High School? Or have you taught it in HS? I’m writing a piece for the book’s 100th birthday and I need your help! What do you remember about how the book was taught? Specific assignments, discussions, exercises, essay prompts? The further back the better!

Thanks in advance for sharing widely, and tagging your teacher + reader friends! CC: @ncte.org, @heymrsbond.com, @annieabrams.bsky.social, @linguistihawk.bsky.social, @duffusmatthew.bsky.social, @tienpham.bsky.social, @mraleosays.bsky.social

I offered one of my HS linguistics classes extra credit to look into their crystal balls and predict next year’s Word of the Year. Here are their guesses: 🔮 Gulf of America Lore GRWM MAGA TikTok(ing) Meta / metaverse N*zi salute

#WOTY2024 winners, according to my first group of high school linguists: Most likely to succeed: aura (see I told you guys) Political WOTY: weird Digital WOTY: brainrot Informal WOTY: yap Most creative: in da clerb, we all fam Fun while it lasted: hawk tuah Most useful: crash out

About to give my high school linguists the #WOTY2024 ballot. Let’s see how mad they get.

Made it home from #lsa2025 and did not get norovirus, so I count that as a win.

Thanks to everyone who came to our #lsa2025 presentation today! Hope to see you at the LiSC mixer! 🐦🐦

Note to self: if your kids suddenly start using a word that seems super “sophisticated” for their age, chances are it’s trending. Case in point: “nonchalant”

I asked my high school students for Word of the Year nominations, and if “low taper fade” isn’t on the ballot I think I’m gonna have to nominate it from the floor. #WOTY2025 🐦🐦

Also hit me up if you’re down for coffee/lunch/dinner. I’ll only be there Friday afternoon-Sunday morning, but I’ll have some time.

77/116 perfect Connections games (and that’s just since they started keeping track)

Are you going to #LSA2025? I’ll be presenting with some other fabulous teachers at 9AM Saturday! Hope to see you there!

Saw Wicked a few days ago and will now be posting about teaching linguistification.

Fabulous audience yesterday at #NCTE2024. Thank you all so much for coming! I’ll be donning the green apron today and working registration. Come say hi!

Going to NCTE? Come see our panel on Friday, sponsored by the Linguistic Society of America!

Who’s going to NCTE this weekend?

I’ve updated my website! www.hslinguistics.com -more recommendations for linguistics-related YA fiction & memoir -streamlined navigation -removed the link to my deactivated account on the bad bird site. Please check it out and share!

Sometimes people ask me how I first got interested in teaching linguistics, and I guess the answer is that I was a social justice-oriented choir nerd who loved to read. Seemed like the obvious choice.🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m presenting! “Lifting Student Voice: Sociolinguistics in the English Classroom” (sponsored by the Linguistic Society of America) Friday, 11:00 (session F) Room 151 B #ncte

Any friends going to #NCTE in Boston next weekend? The Linguistics in the School Curriculum Committee’s panel is happening on Friday at 11:00! Come see us! It’s gonna be amazing!

Today was a roller coaster of a teaching day, but at the end I got to awaken young minds to the joy of the International Phonetic Alphabet.

When the real Tim Walz makes his big appearance on Saturday Night Live it obviously needs to be with Jason Sudeikis and Kyle Chandler.

Since Walz has us talking about free school meals... my secret opinion is that they are good for all the reasons we talk about--nutrition and health, educational development, poverty alleviation, administrative burden--but also because they take a big thing off of stressed parents' plates.

Obsessed with Gwen Walz wearing an English teacher cardigan.

I just pulled a d*ck-shaped paper airplane out of my daughter’s backpack. How did it get there? A story of malicious compliance. Her 5th grade STEM class was making paper airplanes. She is pretty good at it, so her teacher asked her to help her classmates. (1/2)

Student EOY reflection: “I found it surprising how fun and friendly our class was. We had those morning talks, and we would laugh and have fun. We weren’t very uptight and time went by fast. I didn’t think high school English would feel like this.”

My kid on some stupid Tik Tok: Did you know the word “nimrod” was invented by Daffy Duck? Me: I ACTUALLY KNOW THAT’S NOT TRUE AND LET ME TELL YOU WHY

The whole original point of Google was to search for stuff, and yet when I try to find something in my Google drive by typing in the actual title of the document in the actual search bar there is really just a 50/50 chance that Google will find it for me.

Since this is my site and I can do what I want, here’s the link to order Girl Scout cookies from my daughter. Today is the LAST DAY and she’s had a hard time getting to her goal, so if you’re looking to restock or stock up, look no further. digitalcookie.girlscouts.org/scout/myka51...

As the right-handed daughter of the right-handed daughter of a left-handed woman I have absolutely no idea which side of the ironing board I’m supposed to stand on.

It’s only a murder of crows if there’s probable caws

All teachers can benefit from observation / feedback AND there comes a time when seasoned teachers have more pedagogical knowledge, content area expertise, and years in the classroom than their evaluators. What are we doing to differentiate evaluation to make it actually meaningful for teachers?