Posted inESOL

Utilizing Writer’s Workshop with Newcomer ELLs

By Samantha Azatova, M.Ed. Samantha Azatova is an elementary EAL teacher at International School Nido de Aguilas, a US-curriculum international school in Santiago, Chile. She holds an M.Ed. in ESOL Education from University of Maryland- College Park and a B.A. in Linguistics. She loves supporting newcomer ELLs so that they can become fully integrated into […]

Posted inInstruction & Curriculum

Painless Poetry: A Road Less Traveled

Painless Poetry “Gross!  I hate this stuff!” “This is too hard, I don’t wanna do it!” “It never makes sense to me, it’s all so weird.” Then the calm voice of reason speaks-  “Ladies, we have to teach it,  it’s part of the curriculum.”   What is this dreaded standard?   Poetry. That single word would often […]

Posted inInstruction & Curriculum

Rebranding the Dreaded Essay: How to Demystify Essays and Make Them Meaningful During COVID-19

Whenever students hear the word “essay,” they groan, eye roll, and plead for something, anything else.  Similarly, most adults I know remember high school or college essays they grudgingly finished just under the wire; late-night coffee, obsessive word counting, and a fair amount of teacher-specific bs-ing. It’s clear “The Essay” gets a bad rap, and […]

Posted inEnglish Language Learners

Return to Panem:Teaching Possibilities with The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

When the original Hunger Games series was released, with its conclusion published in 2010, I was busy teaching 8th grade English at a suburban/rural middle school in Tennessee. I immediately saw possibilities in the book and was encouraged by a colleague’s work with the first novel at another middle school. I began using the first […]

Posted inInstruction & Curriculum

COVID-19 Has Made Me Rethink My Instruction: 5 Online Tools to Use in Language Arts Classes

We’re a week away from returning to in-person teaching for the new school year and the obvious anxieties and fear about being back at school, where the spread of COVID-19 feels inevitable and is on everyone’s minds. This year, teaching will take on new challenges and risks, and no amount of mental preparation will make […]