Tag: reading

2 Ways to Analyze a Passage From Literature

All ELA teachers want to develop their students into good readers. That not only involves building the love of reading but also involves developing critical reading skills in the classroom. We want our students to be able to read critically and analyze a passage, which involves taking a passage apart

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The What, How, and Why of Close Reading

I begin class by with a short story. An extremely short story, in fact —it’s called “The Birthday Party” and it’s only three paragraphs long. Reading it with a class is an opportunity to see what my students do when they are asked to do a close read. We’ve trained

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classroom library

Adding Free Choice Reading to Your Classroom

In a previous post I discussed the reasons why you should add free choice reading to your English class – even if you teach upper level AP classes like I do. There’s a good chance that over the course of their high school careers they have lost a lot of

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What Makes a Book Great?

If you’re a high school English teacher – especially of the AP variety – it’s easy to get smug about books. We believe that some books are better than others and that every student should believe that Hemingway is a better author than Sparks or Rowling. We may not believe

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