Posted on February 21, 2024 by Roffino
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I didn’t hear it often, but when I did, it broke me a little: this giant of a middle schooler was crying, overcome with rage and worry. He had been acting out, as usual, earlier that day in a different class period. Juan, we’ll…
Posted on February 22, 2023 by Roffino
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In my Comp 2 classes, I have started letting my students select a reader and one of my classes picked a great one. (This originally evolved from an issue/worry with Florida’s Governor Ron Desantis’s new restrictions on classroom topics, but in the end, it…
Posted on August 15, 2022 by Roffino
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After teaching writing classes for more than 11 years with Dallas College, I have resigned from my full-time position to light out for other endeavors. It’s a family move, but I also love adventure and growing. At first, I wasn’t sure about Florida –…
Posted on August 6, 2022 by Roffino
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Want some thinking about how to find calmness in the middle of a chaotic day, week, month, summer, or life? (More about MY chaotic summer soon…) Try reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. I always feel a bit like a kid out…
Posted on April 1, 2022 by Roffino
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Pranks and jokes are fun. They can lead people to laughter and high emotions. But there can be a right way to create the best pranks. For those who may not be aware, April Fool’s Day every April 1st is a tradition where people…
Posted on December 30, 2020 by Roffino
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Horrible, Haarible I once knew a pastor, an amazing and life-changing gentleman, who occasionally showed his Boston roots with a hint of an accent. I will always remember the way he described the brutality of the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s…
Posted on August 12, 2020 by Roffino
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Civil Rights leader and US Representative John Lewis recently passed away. People who do not think of John Lewis as a hero are missing something. Either they don’t know how tirelessly he fought for equality and justice, without throwing an insult or a punch….
Posted on June 10, 2020 by Roffino
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People often ask me where to get started to learn more about race and the situation with institutional racism in the United States. These two articles are almost always discussed in my college writing classes for a number of reasons, but not because they…
Posted on March 14, 2020 by Roffino
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In this political landscape where so many stories one could tell are traps for this side or that side, it’s refreshing to hear a positive story about politics. This week in Stafford, Virginia, a Muslim man who is running for congress got some hate…
Posted on October 26, 2019 by Roffino
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Have you ever been really sad? Have you ever felt not the basic “we’re out of ice cream” sad (though that is really bad) but feeling something like “I’m alone in an ocean at night and these waves suck and I don’t know how…
