Directions to English Teachers

Abstract

Having recently been presented with Jonathan Swift's Directions to Servants and having thereupon been seized with the irresistible urge to provide a similarly definitive guide for members of my profession, forthwith penned the following rules. I. A lways act self-assured. Four words as strange to your lips as the grossest of obscenities should be I do not know. In dealing with unsolicited questions, for example, you have several options, depending upon the questioner, the class, and your mood. You can check your watch and murmur, I'm sorry. There's just no time to go into that. You can look annoyed and snap, That's a ridiculous question! You can seize the chalk and exclaim, Wonderful! would like you all to look the answer up for homework! For why questions, you can always smile sweetly and say, Because said so. This surely will endear you to your students as you merge in their minds with past authority figures. A change of pace may help as well. Slowly intone, An extremely interesting thought ... and follow with a swift, Page thirty-two, please. Your best tool, however, is your imagination. First repeat the question to buy thinking time. 'Why do question marks and exclamation points go outside quotation marks when they're not part of the quoted material, while periods are never placed outside quotation marks?' Ah, that change took place in the reign of Queen Anne, whose hobby was issuing edicts. No sooner had her scribe put the final dot on one that ended, as always, with the period outside quotation marks, than her beloved pet poodle had a coughing fit