By Robinson Duffy
Staff Writer
Published May 18, 2007
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Picture a high school English class. Students quietly reading great American literature or writing research papers analyzing the poetry of Emily Dickinson. Is there room in that quiet picture for a quick game of catch?
In Susan Nachtigal’s classroom at Lathrop High School there is. In her ninth-grade English classes, Nachtigal will often take out a children’s ball, about the size of a basketball, with the parts of speech written on the side in black magic marker. The students throw the ball to one another. Whoever catches the ball has to give an example of the part of speech — a noun, a verb, an adjective — that his or her hands landed on.