The Complete Class Notes

A blog about the art of teaching by Paula Marantz Cohen, a distinguished professor of English at Drexel University and the author of the novels Jane Austen in Scarsdale or Love, Death and the SATs and What Alice Knew: A Most Curious Tale of Henry James and Jack the Ripper.

• Telling Stories about Teaching
• You’re in Denial
• Class Therapy
• Winning Isn’t Everything
• Still Lives
• Staying Up to Speed
• The Milk of Human (Un)kindness
• Home Schooling
• Ugly No More
• Escaping America
• In Memory of a Great Teacher
• Men in Tights
• Family Ties
• Evil, Evil Everywhere
• The Rich Are Not Different
• Just Ask
• Brilliant
• Painful Separation
• Self-Justification
• A Question of Worth
• Godless Art
• The Art of Obsession
• Study Abroad
• Dickens Down the Years
• Learning to Lose
• Talking in Class
• Bring on the Masseuse!
• Titles
• Academic Tumbleweeds
• Talking Television
• An Exemplary Academic Life
• “Greater Than Our Brother Is Our Chastity”
• Playing for Keeps
• Making Excuses
• Magic Pills
• In Defense of “Like”
• On Being Awesome
• Be Careful What You Wish For
• They All Want Mr. (Ms.) Darcy
• Love Thy Students
• Of Love and Learning Online
• Mission Impossible?
• Germ Theory
• Counterculture Culture
• Too Much Information
• Keeping Score
• It’s Academic
• The Teaching Cure
• Existential Teaching
• Love the One You’re With
• Hidden Meanings
• The Search for Wonder
• Teachers of the World, Unite!
• Urban Encounters
• How to Do What You Do?
• Tastemakers
• Going Non-Native
• Mother-in-Law Studies
• Teaching and Suspense
• A Workout for the Mind
• Giving Away the Store
• The Lopsided Bias of Unconditional Belief
• Based on a True Story
• Beyond Words
• Major Decisions
• Vocational Crisis
• Returning to Matthew Arnold
• Christie and Obama’s Romantic Plot
• The University as Welfare State
• Confucianism in China Today
• On the Road
• Inside the NFL
• Working Lunch
• Master of the Examined Life
• Writing Addiction
• Critical But Kind
• Agelessness in Academia
• Money, Leisure, Death
• Yiddishisms
• The Hobart Shakespeareans
• All Doctors Should Teach
• Not Einstein
• Reading Caliban
• Hate Email
• Why I Hate the College Application Essay
• Chumps at Oxford
• Finally Teaching King Lear
• Parent-Teacher
• Teaching vs. Mentoring
• Changing Places
• The Nostalgia of the College Student
• Devil’s Bargain
• What Makes a Good Enough Education?
• Tri-teaching
• Teaching The Wire
• Death of a Salesman—Seen vs. Imagined
• The Ladder of Craft
• Stand-Up 101
• The New Curated Self
• Against Educational Reform
• The Seven Ages of Teaching
• Byte-sized Life
• Crash-Course America
• Lessons from The History Boys
• Montaigne on Education
• Tune Out, Turn Off
• Education and Brainwashing
• Teaching and Mental Illness
• Giving Diversity Its Due
• Dr. Johnson’s Profession
• Tracking
• Teaching Creative Writing
• Social vs. Private Good in Education
• Nature, Nurture, Fortune, Will
• John Dewey
• Life Coaches
• The Globalized Recipe for Education
• The Esthetics of Teaching
• Teaching the Domestic Novel
• Orson Welles on Reading Shakespeare Aloud
• Some Thoughts on the Marriage Plot
• Chinese Starter Course
• As You Like It
• The Vocation of Teaching and the Penn State Scandal
• Writer’s Block
• Teach for America
• Learning from My Mother
• Food and Learning
• Older Students
• The Small Orchestra Class
• The Tidal Wave of the New
• Teaching with Peter
• Learning and its Limits
• Habit
• In Pursuit of the Headless Horseman