Frank McCourt as Teaching Inspiration

In a New York Times article by Eric Konigsberg about the passing of the great Frank McCourt, one of his former students said this:

“Frank had us sing salacious folk songs, he had us write courtroom defenses of inanimate objects and recite recipes as poetry,” said Susan Jane Gilman, a former student who has published two memoirs. “Stuyvesant was largely for math-science types, it was learning by rote. Frank’s class was an intellectual freefall. I looked forward to it every day.”

I love that idea that a class taught in school could be an "intellectual freefall." I mean isn't that what we talk about when we speak about building a writing life? Writing for the sake of writing whether you know where it will take you or not? I love the idea that you could build this into your classroom and take your students along for the ride.