ONE TEACHER’S ALPHABET
C is for a Cottage in the Countryside

I feel like an interior decorator these days, or maybe a British inn-keeper. For the last few weeks, I have been carefully preparing for my upcoming courses in the new school year (which starts tomorrow). I have been charting out the lessons I need to teach, diagramming the way I want things to happen, and mapping out the "menus" for some of the first classes . I’ve been laying in and arranging the supplies my scholars and I will need to make our visits together enjoyable – all the comforts and amenities necessary to turn English class into a rewarding daily sojourn. Most happily of all, I have been bedecking my classroom with the trimmings that will provide a comforting place for our reading and writing pursuits. I’ve tried to make my room look more like a country cottage than a classroom. I want the scholars to come to English class the way they might come to a sociable gathering of readers in an inn somewhere in the English countryside. I’ll even have ice-water and wheat crackers ready to serve my learned guests.