About

This site began as RobGirard.net (now the domain for the larger Rob Girard Network ) and was primarily designed to enhance and supplement my classroom English language, literature, and composition instruction, but I was never satisfied with the limited ways I was able to manage content and deliver information to students, so I broke RobGirard.net into three separate weblogs, this site, Rob’s Blog for my personal musings, Mr. Girard Online for my students, and the Team AZ Travel Journal for educational travel.

My parents were born in Canada, but I was born in Medford, Oregon and raised in Tucson, Arizona. The fact that I was American born, I am thankful, affirmed my American citizenship, because, to be sure, I am not Canadian, though I enjoy Belgian, Scottish, Ukrainian, Russian, and Assiniboine ancestry.

I hold a BA in English with a concentration in British Literature from the University of Arizona , and I’m currently completing an MA in linguistics through Arizona State University . In my thesis I examine grammar and language instruction in its socio-historical context and propose the introduction of linguists’ models of grammar and methods of inquiry as a basis for language arts study in secondary English classrooms; I’ll defend in 2008.

I briefly lived and taught English as a foreign language in Inchon South Korea, and after I took an EFL teaching position at Tomas de Berlanga Escuela on the island of Santa Cruz in the Galapagos Islands . I continued teaching ESL at the Bernard Language School in Tucson after I returned from South America, and taught secondary English at Pueblo Magnet High Shool before I moved to the Phoenix area to study full-time at ASU. I’m now back in Tucson teaching English and AP English Language at Canyon del Oro High School .

Some of my favorite things? Green Lantern Hal Jordan and his corps compatriots; strong coffee with lots of cream; well-done hot dogs and sausages smothered in brown mustard, kraut, and onions; the music of the Beatles , Bob Dylan and Lou Reed (the last great American poets), the White Stripes , Brian Setzer , and the Reverend Al Green ; the work and fictions of JRR Tolkien , Frank Herbert , and Conan Doyle ; the satire of Phil Hendrie ; the movie Casablanca , and the Indiana Jones and original Star Wars films; traveling to far off lands; the apologetics of Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig , and the Bible .

I’m married to a breathtaking woman, Rebecca, with whom I have a son, Debabu, and daughter, Zufan. Our family includes a Pembroke Corgi, Kerbie; a Shepherd-Lab mutt, Otis; a disgusting tabby cat, Wally; and a Sonoran box turtle, Pennie. My gratitude to my family, friends, students, and colleagues who have supported me over the years is incalculable, but I’m particularly grateful to my Lord and God without whom I’d not be the person I am today.

- Rob