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.
Best Practices, Close Reading, Essay Writing, Lists, Writer's Notebook
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...
Best Practices, Essay Writing, Literature Articles, Reflections on Pedagogy, Writer's Notebook, Freebies
Contrasting literary movements as a pedagogical approach to teaching literature is a debatable method, but I have found that juxtaposing literary movements...
Lesson Planning, Writer's Notebook, Holidays, Close Reading, Poetry, Bundles & Units, Best Practices
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...
When I set out to write the blog article for this week, I didn’t intend on writing about the various acronyms for literary analysis. In fact, I didn’t realize there were quite so many acronyms out there...
The holiday break is OVER, and it’s time to face the reality that we have 5-6 more months left of school. So the question is: How do we get through the next 5 months without getting burnt out?
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 season of Christmas is upon us, and it is a season of the year that has inspired the setting of many iconic pieces of literature. The religious iconography of the holiday symbolizes themes of rebirth, renewal, sacrifice, forgiveness, grace, and the archetypal character of the chosen one...
The solution to taking back your holiday breaks all comes down to buying yourself time before and after the break to do the things that need to get done. In essence, it all comes down to planning...
About three to four years ago, I opened my very first Teachers Pay Teachers account. I figured that since I was already putting the time and effort into creating curriculum content for high school English...
Many teachers, scholars, literary critics, and even students have argued and continue to argue that there is no merit in studying the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. However, there are three key reasons why Beowulf is a valid unit of study in high school English today.
Active and purposeful highlighting and annotating is an important skill that can enable greater success in being able to comprehend a text. Of course, there is an ongoing conversation as to whether or not highlighting in particular detracts from comprehension...
One of the most important skills we teach across all content areas, not just in English class, is how to comprehend complex texts. It is probably the most crucial skill that we can teach in our classrooms because...
First of all, this title has multiple meanings, but the purpose of this blog is to give some useful tips to teacher-authors who need help managing, organizing, and growing their TpT shops...
I always try to have a solid plan for my classes, but sometimes, a day sneaks up on me where I don’t have anything planned, and I’m scrapping to fill it with something enriching and meaningful. And, if I’m being completely honest...
There are hundreds of great Apps out there that support the writing process. This list contains 20 FREE Apps that you can use with your students throughout the writing process, ranging from research support, to editing/ revising, to citing evidence, and to increasing productivity...
I’ll be the first to admit that when I’ve seen other teachers doing interactive notebooks with their students, I thought of them as more of an “art project” than anything educational. But then...
First thing is first with a blog title such as this! I have to admit that it is most definitely a case of calling the kettle black that I am writing this blog article. Why? Well, because if there is a cookie, I will eat it. If there is cake...
The Writer's Notebook is an essential tool for the ELA classroom as a facilitator for the writing process. It makes the teacher's job easier and more efficient to assign and assess work, and it helps...
The Writer's Notebook has become a cornerstone of the ELA classroom as a tool for facilitating the writing process. The Writer's Notebook not only helps students have a central database for their ideas and drafts, but it also...
It took me about four or five years of my teaching career to figure out an efficient system for navigating make-up work. And as the technology got better, so did my ability to keep up with my absent students...
Understanding by Design is one of the most fundamental texts and philosophies for planning a lesson and being a teacher. We all know the importance of planning lessons around the skills objectives and learning targets...