Fostering Textual Ownership: Passionate Teacher Explores Literacies & Strategies. Periodt. 📚

Passionate cisgender gay teacher encourages student engagement & creativity in literature. Explore diverse literacy forms. 

My students often tell me, "Mr. Roselli, you make us do stuff." They mean I encourage leaving our fingerprints on texts. As a passionate and caring cisgender gay teacher, an inhabitant of this planet, and a member of the home sapiens species, I deeply appreciate literature—especially adolescent literature. I love reading students' creative writing and introducing them to diverse forms of literacy, including film, lyrics, art, primary source documents, and more. I'm dedicated to sourcing mentor texts to enrich my teaching. Other teachers describe me as funny, intelligent, and curious. I'm eager to experiment with new strategies based on evidence, always learning and adapting to engage students across Bloom's taxonomy. I draw inspiration from ancient texts like Plato's "Apology," connecting past and present to enrich humanities teaching. Encouraging students to speak and express themselves is crucial—I incorporate podcasts and discussions to foster accountable talk and solidify thoughts in writing. Speech offers immediate engagement in the classroom, enhancing learning experiences. This video documents my teaching journey as a builder, always seeking to innovate after thirteen years in secondary education. As a quirky humanities teacher from South Louisiana, I find inspiration in New York City's vibrant art scene, using it as a palette for creativity and expression. Living in NYC fuels my passion for teaching and exploring new ideas.

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Zeus Ammon at the Met: A Greek-Egyptian Syncretism in Stone

🏛️ Museum Musings 🏛️ I'm at the Metropolitan Museum of Art today.

Just laid eyes on the fascinating 2nd-century bust of ‘Zeus Ammon’ and I can’t help but marvel at the blend of cultures captured in stone. As expected, you’ll find the grandeur and aesthetic of Classical Greece, but what truly captivates is the god’s syncretic figuration as the Egyptian god Ammon—notice the distinctive ram’s horns!

With the great temple of Zeus at Olympia lost to time, pieces like this offer a glimpse into how the supreme ruler of the Olympians was once revered. It’s an extraordinary testament to the interconnectedness of ancient civilizations. 

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Exploring Cuneiform Tablets at the NYPL: The Ancient Roots of Homework

Hey, y’all. I’m at the 42nd Street Stephen A. Schwarzman Library on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, discovering the treasures within. 

Today, I’ve found some intriguing tablets written in cuneiform. As many of you know, I’ve been a teacher for 13 years, and every year, I get a question that’s especially popular among middle, but also high school students: “Who invented homework?” 

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 A fascinating answer might be the Mesopotamians or Babylonians. The tablets we’re talking about were used by students for writing practice, likely within the home of a scribe or a master. The pieces you’re seeing now are mainly literary texts that the students were required to copy and submit as demonstrations of their skill. There’s also a tablet featuring mathematical equations among them. Yes, the New York Public Library has a significant collection of these cuneiform tablets. 

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Pro tip: The Morgan Library on Madison Avenue also has an impressive collection of these ancient educational artifacts. So, indeed, do your homework, kids.

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