Apr 8, 2026
🎧 Listen Here “Respect for a person’s conscience does not mean accepting moral relativism.” ~ John Paul II, 1993, para. 32-34 Ask yourself a couple questions: Are moral standards culturally-defined making it impossible to determine what is truly right or wrong? Or, is it true that each person created “in the image of God” and so possess both the capacity and responsibility to seek moral truth and follow it? Where do you land and why? These questions matter because...
Apr 1, 2026
She heard her father’s voice, a tiny voice talking in a warm comfortable past. “Gentlemen, if there’s one slogan in this world, I believe, it is this: equal rights for all, special privileges for none.” ~ Go Set a Watchman 🎧 Listen Here There is a moment in Go Set a Watchman that most readers never reach, that you might not have reached, where Jean Louise Finch stands in the balcony of the courthouse in Maycomb, Alabama. The same balcony she sat in as a child. But now,...
Mar 24, 2026
🎧 Listen Here “Deep within his conscience man discovers a law which he has not laid upon himself but which he must obey. Its voice, ever calling him to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, sounds in his heart at the right moment…. For man has in his heart a law inscribed by God…. His conscience is man’s most secret core and his sanctuary. There he is alone with God whose voice echoes in his depths.” (CCC, 1776). Welcome to the overview conversation that kicks off...
Jan 21, 2026
🎧 Listen to Teaching Here A deep dive on the journey of analyzing a memoir: Value, Structure, Plot Prefaced by a medical report summarizing her mother’s various hospitalizations, this heartbreaking memoir reconstructs the sad and turbulent events of Lauck’s childhood, which was overshadowed by the illness and early death of her mother. In 1969, five-year-old Lauck stayed with her mother at their home in Carson City, Nev., preparing her mother’s breakfast, helping her get...
Jan 10, 2026
🎧 Audio Teaching Here “Lauck has constructed a riveting narrative from the awful mess of her life.That she has managed to do so fills me with an admiration for which I cannot find words. The best I can do is to suggest that you read this book.” ~ The London Times The Creation of Blackbird: 1995-1999 Thirty or so years ago, I unearthed the astonishing story of my adoptive mother’s illness and death, and then my adoptive father’s sudden death from a heart attack eighteen months...
Dec 3, 2025
By Becky Ellis “As happens with the frightened and unprepared, we scattered. Some of us would be caught. Some of us would be killed. Probably some of us would go crawling back. Sadie, Lizzie and I made it north to a town we were told was in Iowa.” – Percival Everett, James 🎧 Click to listen here Narrowing Down James: Which Plot Structure Fits? One of the most interesting questions about James is also one of the most puzzling: what kind of story is it? Is it a story of transformation and...
Nov 19, 2025
By Becky Ellis “The more I pretended, the more I understood that pretending was the most honest thing I could do.” ~ Percival Everett, James 🎧 Click here to listen Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn presents Jim through Huck’s perspective—filtered, limited, and often patronizing. Jim speaks in dialect, acts the role expected of him, and remains quite one-dimensional to readers. Percival Everett’s bold retelling does not merely shift perspective. Instead, Everett creates a wholly new...
Oct 14, 2025
“They said he was a p’fessor in a college, and could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything… They said he could VOTE when he was at home. Well, that let me out.” ~ Pap in Huck Finn 🎧 Listen Here Examining the Three Faces of Authority Huck Must Escape How does Mark Twain and his relationship with Father play into what Huck experiences with Pap? This question arises, naturally when we understand the five key archetypes in all story as Booker lays out in the...
Oct 7, 2025
You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. ~ Opening, Huckleberry Finn 🎧 Listen Here From Banned Book to Literary Classic: The Power of Authentic Voice The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Mark Twain’s 1885 novel that follows 13-year-old Huck Finn who escapes an abusive father and rides down the Mississippi River with Jim, an...
Sep 10, 2025
Welcome into the Studio for 2025 Studio class. This post will help students give the best feedback during workshop. Three handouts that you’ll need to watch this (and to bring into class) are here: Naked, Drunk and Writing by Adair Lara with my comments written in margins Edit Mark Meaning Sheet Writer Feedback Checklist Looking foward to seeing you in class soon. And you are passing through and want more information on the Studio, please fill out the form here on the site. I’ll...
