I love October and poetry both.  While I don't get to indulge in the poetry realm as much as I'd like (although I believe I'm going to change that now that I have an audience with whom to share that affinity), October's 'bright blue weather" has been especially vibrant this year, by virtue of both weather and an especially gorgeous showing of fall foliage.  While I haven't memorized this poem by Helen Hunt Jackson (as...

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As a footnote to my previous post, Patriotic Teaching Moments, Part 1, and in honor of the 200th anniversary of Francis Scott Key's penning of The Star Spangled Banner, I thought I'd give a bit of the history of our National Anthem and provide the "lost verses" ... as information and for reflection. Francis Scott Key actually penned the poem that would become our National Anthem on September 13, 1814.  It was the War of...

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