andrew plemmons pratt

From Rafe Esquith’s Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire—you can self-assess your reading proficiency at any grade level with the following simple test:

1. Have you ever secretly read under you desk in school because the teacher was boring and you were dying to finish the book you were reading?
2. Have you ever been scolded for reading at the dinner table?
3. Have you ever read secretly under the covers after being told to go to bed?

The point being that you can do a bang-up job of teaching students the technical skills necessary to absorb and comprehend what they’re asked to read, but real success means helping students cultivate a life-long hunger for knowledge and stories.

I think the current version of this test for myself would go something like this:

1. Have you ever been reading something on the bus, then kept reading as you went up the elevator into the office, and then kept reading after you turned on your computer and were supposed to be working, and then kept going to refill your coffee mug and taken your book along to the kitchen?
2. Have you ever been too engrossed in what you were reading to bother fixing yourself dinner and instead eaten vegetarian hot dogs wrapped in tortillas for the second time in a week?
3. Have you ever wished that you had a reason to read under the covers in secrecy and done it anyway, perhaps using one of those silly travel book lights that someone gave you for Christmas years ago and for which there really isn’t a proper use besides this?

Removed the croissant dough from the fridge and prepared for baking this afternoon.

Was not sure how much the Sur la Table recipe would make so I attacked the whole batch. Twenty-two in all, half of which I made as chocolate.

Working with the dough is not a fast process. With a whole batch, the second half had started rising on the counter by the time I had the first dozen prepped. Should probably try to chill or freeze the other half next time.

Baking is absurd. So much butter just spills out of the croissants. Good luck that I used two pans with lips on the edges.