Blog

Jun 12, 2020
2 min

Life’s Interruptions

The first event occurred last Thursday afternoon as I was putting the final touches on my blog posting, which was to appear the next morning. Before I could post it, I suddenly had no internet service. The Friday blog post didn’t happen. (Did you miss it?) It’s not too uncommon in our area for us to lose that connection for a few minutes, but this outage was unusual, lasting until the technician came and fixed the problem (a broken underground cable) Sunday afternoon. It made

Dennis L. Peterson

May 15, 2020
3 min

Learning from Rejection and Failure

Different teachers have different teaching styles. Even students recognize that fact, and they often like (or dislike) a teacher because of his or her style. This fact becomes even more profound when one becomes a teacher. Furthermore, a new teacher often tends, consciously or subconsciously, to imitate the style of one of his or her favorite teachers. We tend to teach as we were taught. That can be either good or bad. The first brick he had me lay were limited to parts of th

Dennis L. Peterson

May 12, 2020
2 min

Remembering William Zinsser

Zinsser was born October 7, 1922. Following service in the Army in North Africa and Italy during World War II, he returned to the United States and fulfilled a life-long dream by being hired as a writer for the New York Herald Tribune as a theater reviewer. When that stopped being fun for him, he quit and became a freelance writer. He also taught writing courses at Yale and later became executive editor of the Book-of-the-Month Club. In addition to numerous articles and revie

Tuesday Teaser: Knowledgeable Volunteers

Dennis L. Peterson

Apr 3, 2020
2 min

The Open Window

Someone (I conducted a brief online search to discover who, but I found no definitive answer) once said, “When God closes a door, He opens a window.” The current (and ongoing for only God knows how much longer) public health crisis has closed not just one but many doors for a lot of people, and I haven’t been immune to that plight. For just a few examples, I speak monthly in the chapel program of a local private Christian school. Now all schools are closed, quite conceivably

Dennis L. Peterson

Feb 28, 2020
2 min

Static: Imprecise Language

That quotation came to mind the other day as I read a short article by Stephen Clay McGehee titled “Words Have Meaning” at The Southern Agrarian http://www.southernagrarian.com/words-have-meaning. McGehee noted how the term gentleman has been used so loosely, without any attention to its true meaning, that it hardly holds any meaning for many people today. The same is true for the term lady. (The greatest compliment anyone ever paid me was when a female coworker referred to m

Dennis L. Peterson

Feb 18, 2020
1 min

Tuesday Teaser: Dealing with Setbacks

Be sure to check out Part 1 of the featured article about this book on Southern Writers magazine’s Suite T blog this Friday at https://southernwritersmagazine.blogspot.com! #writing #teachers #reading #lessonsofhistory #teaching #writers #Militaryhistory #History #education #books #publishing #heritage #perseverance

Dennis L. Peterson

Jan 31, 2020
2 min

Jack or Master?

No doubt, you’ve heard the adage “a jack of all trades, a master of none,” referring to someone who can do a lot of different things but no single thing well. Benjamin Franklin reputedly corrected that misquotation of the adage, saying that it originally was “a jack of all trades, a master of one.” I had read an earlier work by Raynor, Called to Create, a book written primarily for writers, artists, musicians, and other creative types. I enjoyed that book, so when I learned t

Dennis L. Peterson

Aug 23, 2019
3 min

Life Lessons from Louis L’Amour

As readers of this blog already know, I tend to prefer reading nonfiction over fiction. But they also know that I’m trying to break out of that rut and read a little fiction now and then. On Education: “[N]o university exists that can provide an education; what a university can provide is an outline, to give the learner a direction and guidance. The rest one has to do for oneself.” “Education depends on the quality of the teacher, not the site or beauty of the buildings. . .

Dennis L. Peterson

Aug 16, 2019
3 min

New School Year Revives Memories

It’s school time again. You can’t avoid knowing that fact because of all the Walmart aisles crowded with school supplies for sale. (I don’t think we had to have a fraction of that stuff back in the days when I was a student!) But this time of year always brings back a lot of memories for me. This week’s activities provided the initial spark for my memory machine. My wife began in-service training this week at the school where she teaches. As always, however, she actually had

Dennis L. Peterson

Jul 5, 2019
3 min

From Bunk to Benefit

“We want to live in the present,” he said, “and the only history that is worth [anything] is the history we make today.” Sadly, that seems to be the attitude of many (maybe most?) people today, too. And with the devaluing and debunking of our history we see in our schools and media, that situation promises only to get worse. But Henry Ford’s later life indicated that he might have begun to change his mind about history, that he had begun to see benefits of history. As he saw

Dennis L. Peterson

Jun 28, 2019
3 min

Doing It Right

I was impressed the minute the man got out of his truck. My appreciation for him grew by the minute. When the installer arrived, two young boys exited his truck with him. I greeted them and said to the man, “I see you brought plenty of help with you today.” After returning my greeting and shaking hands with me, the installer said, “These are my grandsons. They’re shadowing me today to begin learning the trade.” He then turned to the boys and said in a low voice, “Introduce yo

Dennis L. Peterson

May 17, 2019
2 min

Reflections on a Winslow Homer Painting

But that painting, “Snap the Whip,” was more than a sanity-maintainer for me. It reminded me of three special people: my grandfather, my father, and teacher-author Jesse Stuart. Finally, the painting reminds me of Jesse Stuart, who began teaching in a one-room schoolhouse in which he struggled to teach his students not only the daily lessons of the curriculum but also, and more importantly, the life lesson that learning is critical to success in any and all life endeavors. On

Dennis L. Peterson

May 7, 2019
3 min

Navigating versus Drifting

A number of years ago, my wife and I were returning from a trip up north and were cruising along somewhere down I-75 in Ohio. We had a dinner appointment in Tennessee, but we were making good time and would have plenty of time to get there in time to freshen up first. We exited, followed the truckers (they always know the shortcuts, don’t they?) through a little town, and then came to a red light. On the other side of the light the road split at a Y. The truckers were all goi

Dennis L. Peterson

Mar 15, 2019
4 min

Chivalry Still Lives!

Just when I had about concluded that true chivalry was dead, I saw the living embodiment of that very quality. It wasn’t exhibited by some old codger like myself who was reared to believe that chivalrous conduct was the normal attribute of a Southern gentleman; it was lived out by one of the younger generation whom we older folk so often castigate for their lacking that quality (among others). All that seems to have changed. Now that the legal code and common practice have ma

Dennis L. Peterson

Mar 1, 2019
3 min

The Necessity of Observation

Recently, during one of the brief lulls between ten straight days of rain showers when the sun was making a brief appearance, I was sitting on our front porch proofing a piece of writing before submitting it to the critical eyes of an editor. Trying to think of that elusive “better word” to replace the merely “adequate” word, I was staring off into space, thinking that perhaps the word would jump out of the ether and into my brain. Suddenly, I became aware of a strange odor,

Dennis L. Peterson

Feb 8, 2019
1 min

Show, Don’t Tell

One of the most-often stated maxims of writing instruction is “Show, don’t tell.” For example, instead of telling me that a particular culinary repast was delicious, describe it in such terms that I see and taste it in my own imagination and then reach that conclusion on my own. After all, a conclusion reached on one’s own is more real, more lasting that a conclusion that someone else reaches and dictates. He showed me! #writing #teachers #teaching #writers #advice #publishin

Life’s Interruptions

Learning from Rejection and Failure

Remembering William Zinsser

Tuesday Teaser: Knowledgeable Volunteers

The Open Window

Tuesday Teaser: Individual Effort

Static: Imprecise Language

Tuesday Teaser: Dealing with Setbacks

Jack or Master?

Education Article Published

Life Lessons from Louis L’Amour

New School Year Revives Memories

From Bunk to Benefit

Doing It Right

A Comic Book Education

Reflections on a Winslow Homer Painting

Navigating versus Drifting

Chivalry Still Lives!

The Necessity of Observation

Show, Don’t Tell