Author Archives: Don Yorty

Vegetable Soup with Great Northern Beans

… It’s gonna be a busy week. No way around it. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I am busy from morning till night. I have to be careful that I don’t get tired and hungry and decide to go to … Continue reading →

Home Movies: Roll with the Punches (Christmas at Rockefeller Center)

5 Dec ’10

… December 4th on our first anniversary, Akram and I went to see Harry Potter at the Ziegfield, but got there late. I could’ve sworn it said 3:15 on the Internet. Instead of getting upset, we took a walk to … Continue reading →

a mouth sewn shut

24 Nov ’10

… I want to begin making little videos of poems that I’ve done. Here is the first one. I wrote it when I was 21. It was for a friend who had put me up for a while and I … Continue reading →

Life by Daniel

14 Nov ’10

… Life is a big book on whose edges we write down comments. … … …… … Daniel was a student of mine the summer of 2008. The night before I flew back to the States, I took Daniel and … Continue reading →

First Take: I sing a song

7 Nov ’10

… I discovered my favorite American artist, Charles Burchfield, at the age of 16 while I was reading a Time Magazine in the library at Cornwall High where I used to have to wait for the bus to take me … Continue reading →

The Rabbit and the Turtle: ESL Lesson Three: Writing a Story and Using Correction Marks

2 Nov ’10

… Introduction: If we want students to write well, it’s good to emphasize correction marks. When students use them, it helps them to focus on the writing and to think about punctuation and syntax. All correction marks are pretty similar. … Continue reading →

The Rabbit and the Turtle: ESL Lesson Four: Discovering Parts of Speech

2 Nov ’10

Introduction: Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, and shortening compound sentences with the correlative conjunctions neither, either, so, and too. The first four lessons in The Rabbit and the Turtle are pre-reading, designed to get students used to working together writing, … Continue reading →

The Rabbit and the Turtle: ESL Lesson Two: Writing Simple Sentences

26 Oct ’10

… Objective: Students will understand the simple structure of a sentence by writing four kinds of sentences using the completed Venn diagrams from Activity One as prompts: affirmative and negative sentences, and Yes/No and explanation questions. Students will write explanation … Continue reading →

143

22 Oct ’10

… Goldfinch balanced on the sunflower’s head Flies off swaying the plant just like the wind. The sun comes up the trees and lies down in The field where a red hawk begins to spread Its great slow wings breaking … Continue reading →

The Rabbit and the Turtle: ESL Lesson One: Similarities and Differences

14 Oct ’10

… Introduction: Because a fable like the Rabbit and the Turtle deals with essential human truths everyone understands, it’s a good place for ESL students to start to work together. This lesson is geared toward High Beginners/Low Intermediates, but it … Continue reading →

106

5 Oct ’10

… Today I picked Uncle Al’s tomatoes for the last time. Many were over ripe rotten, had cracked or fallen. I was tired but constant and making an effort to exercise, bent holding my abdomen in reaching into the vines … Continue reading →

104

3 Oct ’10

… Swallows gather on the electric wire One after the other in a row. I Approach as some fly up and swarm the sky Hundreds of them sweeping out. I’m inspired Watching them burst and swoop and blend and flow … Continue reading →