This evening my mind has wandered to the parts of speech.

One of the memory triggers was a category on Jeopardy! that had to do with adverbs. Other triggers were a conversation with a friend about books and the recent passing of a neighbor from my school days. These all made me think of Mr. Hill who taught English and Journalism for 21 years at Ashland High School. Since we were a small school everyone took his Freshman and Junior English classes. He had an influence on an entire generation of Ashland students.

I heard many stories from students who graduated before me about how well they were prepared for College English after having Mr. Hill as a teacher in High School.

I would agree that I was well prepared as I was able to take Honors English when I went to college instead of a regular English class. I also attribute many of my writing skills to what I learned in his classes.

One of the things that many of his students will remember is having to memorize the Parts of Speech and their Uses:.

I am sure that many of them can still quote part of them, and if nothing else remember what the parts of speech are.

For Jeopardy! tonight I knew that an Adverb — is a word that modifies a verb, adjective, or another adverb.  It usually indicates when, where, how, how much, how frequently, or why.

Mr. Hill also had a Novel List that he would hand out at the beginning of each year. We could read any book on the list and then take a test for extra credit.

Mr. Hill’s Novel List had more than 300 titles. I am not sure how often he updated the list, but the one I have is from the early 80’s.

I could always count on being able to consult Mr. Hill’s Novel List to find a good book to read, and I eventually undertook a challenge to read all the books on the list.

Unfortunately I was not able to let him know that I had finished the challenge. He passed away in 2002 which was a few years before I finished the list. I had spoken to him after I made it a challenge and was about half-way through the list at the time.

Tucked away somewhere I have a copy of the sentence that students had to write when they got into trouble in his class. Yes, I had to write sentences at least one time 🙂

I also think of Mr. Hill whenever I hear or see the word facetious. I believe that it may have been his favorite word.

I am thankful that Mr. Hill was a great teacher!

Steven