Are your students moaning and groaning over taking another test or writing another essay? While these are tried and true methods for assessing many skills, I have been on a mission to find more innovative, unique ways of assessing student growth and learning.
One of the best ways to teach students how to integrate literary and rhetorical devices into their writing is to imitate the style of great writers. Here are 20 Great Literary Quotes to use as Mentor Sentences in Secondary ELA...
The Writer’s Notebook is the heart of the English classroom. It is the place that holds a student’s reflections on literature and life...
Contrasting literary movements as a pedagogical approach to teaching literature is a debatable method, but I have found that juxtaposing literary movements...
This winter season, I found myself missing the snow for the first time in my life because we made a big move from a cold climate where we have lived for the past six years to a warm climate where there is no snow. I never fully realized...
The first five lessons of a secondary ELA class are essential for setting the tone for the rest of the year. It’s also a stressful time to readjust to school hours, meet new students, and get back into a routine once again. That’s why I’ve put together your first FIVE lessons of the school year. All right here, done for you.
Starting a new semester— whether at the beginning of the school year or calendar year— is a time of tough transition as we begin to restart our minds and work habits. It’s a difficult transition for both students, teachers, and administrators— but I don’t have to tell you that. You know that feeling of dread at the beginning of a new term, and there’s no way to sugarcoat it.
The beginning of the school year is a time to reintroduce students to routine, classroom procedures, and the habits of homework and studying…. but I don’t need to tell you that! For us as English teachers, the beginning of the school year means reviewing and reteaching skills that our students will SWEAR they were NOT taught “last year.” We know the joke; we know that isn’t true!
If there is one writing assignment that has real life and real world purpose, it’s the college essay. I have never seen my students more motivated to write and more motivated to work on writing than with this particular assignment. And the reason is simple: this writing assignment truly matters to students.
