My class was doing small group work, focusing on a challenging passage in Emerson’s Nature, when a student called my attention to a fiery red sunset outside the tall 19thC windows.

I turned out the lights, and in the glow of their iPads, I could see the looks on the students’ faces as they took in the sunset.

The assigned text was on their iPads, so I kept the lights off, and they kept working and admiring the sunset.