55 Thoughts for English Teachers

May 27, 2014 | 1 book mentioned 31 6 min read








Students can sense a lot of things.




Create a space for safe confusion.


Show them that poetry is about being surprised.

Remember why you are doing this.

Your students are not data.



Politicians will misrepresent you. Vote.



Students have a reason for everything they do.


You will make a hundred decisions within a single class period.


Thomas Pynchon is worth teaching. Often confusion breeds later curiosity.
















Create meticulous plans for each day.

But be alive in the classroom.









Read aloud. Every day.






This is not supposed to be easy.

Remember that you, also, are not data.


For some students, you are their only light.

Image via Jayel Aheram/Flickr



  1. I especially love 12 and 13. Possibly disagree slightly with 14–part of my role is being an activist and showing them how a political activist reads the news, thinks about it, does something about it–this doesn’t mean giving them my point of view. But no one has taught them how to be citizens. If we don’t, no one will.

    I think they already get way too much of #11. That means they’re given third-rate poetry and novels because of the content or the background of the writer. Give them only the best–they can be totally confused about every single line of a great poem, yet still “get it” better than some academics will.

    Your students are lucky. This post is helping me face the dreaded first day of summer school.

  2. Excellent article, I envy your students. I’m amazed you can keep such a positive attitude with your governor scapegoating teachers and blaming them for the budgetary mess In New Jersey. I live in Ohio but I read the StarLedger every day. The comments there concerning ‘greedy’ teachers are breathtakingly ignorant and offensive.

  3. I would love to know more about how to run a writing workshop with 27+ children. It sounds really interesting. We have large class sizes. Is it even possible with large groups?

    If you have any resources I would love to see them. At first when I saw this post, I thought TLDR, but it was brilliant and I will be re-reading it.

    Thanks for taking the time to publish it

  4. Nick:

    As someone who is contemplating becoming a teacher, I found your article inspiring and motivating.

    (Also: I’ve greatly enjoyed your other articles, on becoming a pastor/writer, on sentimentalism, and many others. Keep it up! I was especially grateful for your posting Bryan Doyle’s essay on hummingbirds.)


  5. #38 homeboy. You and I talk about that all the time but never in those terms. That one, to me, spoke the loudest. Good job, bruh.

  6. Bless you! Finally, comments about teaching English that include writing, by writers, about writers, for writers. Specifically notes 23, 34, 52, and 55. Students will learn to write in such classrooms, from such teachers. The mantra has to be: Listen to the writers.

  7. Thanks for sharing the thoughts Nick. I personally like 11, 19, 29, 35, 50.

    In 19, sometimes its hard to show attention to each individual as the class sizes are different in different countries & sometimes you handle multiple classes.

  8. I aboslutely loved #5. It is one of the many reasons why I enjoy reading good poetry.

    I hadn’t realized how true #43 is until I realized that my last English teacher did this often. It helped me realize that silence really does reveal a lot.

    And as for # 55, I absolutely agree. Even today, I look back at some of my favorite teachers that were amazing (all in their own ways) and allowed themselves to be my light.
    Wonderful post! Thank you.

  9. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! As a high school English teacher of many years, this beautifully articulates what I strive for in my classroom each day, admittedly, sometimes in vain. Effective teaching isn’t a mechanical skill (as many want to make it). It is an organic art. It shapes itself according to its environs; it grows because it learns to adapt; it gets pruned and shaped by responses, positive and negative, and it grows again in a natural but often unpredictable and unconventional way; its roots grow deeper as it weathers storms and droughts; but even still it grows! If it were mechanical, it would have broken long ago, and someone would have offered, once again, the newfangled “fix-it” gadget, but instead it compensates and adjusts and finds its own instinctive way not just to survive but to thrive! So thank you for this bit of water and sunshine at the end of our season. Here’s to a rejuvenating summer for all.

  10. I needed this. Our school year is over, and my students have graduated. They were a challenging group, and I left my classroom feeling completely exhausted and unusually depressed, wondering if I made a difference at all. There is so much negativity surrounding the world of education lately. Usually I ignore it all, but this year, I let it get to me, and I shouldn’t have. This article reminded me why I became an English teacher in the first place. I saw so much of myself in it. My smile grew and my spirits lifted the more I read. Thank you so very much.

  11. Great timing, Mr. Ripatrazone — this is the last week of classes where I teach, and you have provided important reminders.

    Thank you.


    “We cannot know what precisely the student will do with what we have offered, but we can think with the student about the experience of the offer itself.” — Paul Lynch

  12. I had Mr. Ripatrazone for AP English Lit senior year of high school.
    Can’t say I always understood what he was getting at or shared his taste in literature, but I can say that he taught me a lot.
    He taught me how to close read. How to pick apart a 14-line poem and find a thousand things to say.
    He taught me to take a second look at writing that I thought i didn’t like or understand.
    But most of all, he taught me that you can have fun in the classroom while still accomplishing a lot.
    Also, No Exit was awesome!

    Thanks for everything, Mr. Ripat!

  13. Yes, so true. We have to inspire them to want to read, to write, to learn. Every class is different every day; our time with them is relatively brief so we must do what we can to give them a love and passion for books to be readers for life. Their lives will be richer for knowing Flannery O’Connor, Sylvia Plath, Vonnegut, Eudora Welty, Caldwell, Fitzgerald, etc. The list goes on and on!

  14. I too was a high school English teacher for 3 years for most of the reasons you cited…It is beautiful, strange and magical environment to be surrounded by words and print, and the emotions they evoke. I was glad I was able to inspire a love of reading and writing. We even celebrated Shakespeare’s 409th birthday with T-Shirts printed, a small Globe Theater erected in our study area and a complete love of Romeeo and Juliet. Forty years later these students still seek me out to tell me what animpact this all made on their lives…..

  15. What a wonderful, beautifully written “explanation” of teaching. I lead much younger students in an afterschool writing program — and these same guidelines apply.

    You are surely a light to your students. Thank you.

  16. Thank you. You are an inspiration to me, even in my retirement. (Thirty-four years in special education)

  17. Good list of female authors, but I would add Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, Maile Meloy and Elissa Schappell.

  18. As a teacher myself, though of littler ones (4th grade), this list made me cry.

    The one about being the only person to read their “sonnets” and “dystopian novellas” totally got me.

    Great work.

  19. I needed this today. I teach 8th graders and I’ve taught 5 years. I’m grateful that I had excellent ELA teachers and professors who modeled this to me. I’m finally figuring out the individual/undivided attention thing–I’m learning that 1 minute of real conversation, without interrupting to look around the room or say something to another student, is far more valuable than it sounds. A well-timed, genuine compliment, taking a question seriously–those work, too.

  20. I was in Mr. Ripatrazone’s Creative Writing class my Junior year of high school, and in many ways I credit him with inspiring me to take my love of storytelling seriously enough to make a career out of it. He strikes a sort of balance between dealing with the logistical demands of day-to-day life, while still respecting and adhering to the equally critical creative process. It’s a difficult lesson to teach, and one that I think any writer in any capacity struggles with, but I feel grateful to have been introduced to it at such a young age. Thank you for all the encouragement and wisdom, Mr. Ripat!

  21. I especially loved 34 and 35. While not all my students have the passion or inclination to become professional writers, most of them have the potential to actually enjoy writing and what it does for them personally.

    I have at countless times experienced the joy and privilege of reading what they have put their sincerest of hearts and minds to. Thank you for sharing and writing this. :)

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