Sometimes the best lessons come not from great planning and preparation, but out of desperation and necessity. I had my students create their own essays prompts, and it definitely came from a spot where I felt like my back was up against the wall. However it was one of those
This year I’ve incorporated what I call Find Yourself Fridays. I’m giving my students something inspirational to read or watch. Sometimes it’s something quick, sometimes it takes up a good chunk of the period. But that’s ok. I have to remember I’m hear not just to teach students about literature
Nothing is worse than the sound of crickets in a classroom when you are trying to lead a discussion. This was the situation I faced last year with a couple of my classes. I created thought provoking discussion questions, asked them of the whole class, and was met with silence.
Preschools are hubs of creativity. When my children were in preschool there wasn’t a day that went by that they didn’t bring home some piece of artwork they made. We accumulated a lot of paper rapidly. Once students get into high school, however, a lot of the creative activities that
I know Othello really well. I have taught it for the past fifteen years and can recite entire passages from memory. I have read extensively about it – everything from scholarly articles to blog posts – and have seen at least three different movie versions of it and a stage production. I
Sociograms are visual representations of the interaction of characters in a novel. They are a wonderfully flexible assessment tool and can be used in all grade levels. Best of all, they require the same sort of critical analysis that you would use in writing an essay. If you’re looking for
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
