In my brain lives a little monster. I know I’m not alone. We all have little monsters lurking in our skulls. They hate anything rest related and love to do things like leap up and down and shout, “DID YOU SET THE ALARM FOR 5???” …right as sleep is about to overtake you. At the […]
Literacy
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Keep Kids Writing All Summer
Summer Learning Loss is the bane of every teacher’s existence. We work tirelessly to teach students reading and writing strategies, grammar concepts, vocabulary building techniques, critical thinking skills, and more and it seems that by September they have forgotten what Venn Diagram is and how to find a noun. I know I do endless work […]
Posted inCommon Core, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Celebrating the Genres in Anne Frank's Diary
Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl transcends the labels of genre. Yes, as the title suggests, it is a diary, but it is also a memoir, a narrative, an argument, an expository journal, an informational text, and much more. Yet, these genres listed are treated as separate and distinct in the reading and writing standards of the Common Core (CCSS). The […]
Posted inHigh School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Surviving those Five Stages of Writing Curriculum
Who wants to rewrite curriculum this summer? (Anyone? Anyone?…..) Let’s be honest. Writing or rewriting curriculum is a ongoing process that, while necessary, is not always seen as the most positive experience. Moreover, the suggestion of spending summer days writing curriculum (paid or unpaid) may trigger range of emotions, some strangely akin to the model offered by Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On […]
Posted inFeatured, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Parents
Parent tip: Beyond Sounding It Out
Your child has started to read a little. You are so excited and want to encourage him to read more. So you buy him books or go to the library. You sit next to him on the sofa and expect him to start reading away. Instead he gets stuck. The most common thing for a […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Information in Google Doodles Build Background Knowledge
That letter “O” morphing on your search engine for Mother’s Day?That spinning Globe for Earth Day?Those jigging leprechauns for St. Patrick’s Day?These are all the Google Doodles from 2015 to celebrate holidays. There are also Google doodle tributes to individuals. Emmy Noether (physicist), Laura Ingalls Wilder (author), and Anna Atkins (botanist) have been featured in doodles this […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, School Improvement, Social Studies, Technology, Uncategorized
Planning the Last Unit
This is the time of year in which students’ impetus to volunteer, join clubs, school wide activities, and community drives overrides the necessity to finish out a school year. Many justifications are given for not being in class — and how could I blame them? A record cold winter and delayed spring bloom kept students pent up […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Turning Reluctant Readers into Life-Long Readers
Reading should not be presented to a child as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift. ~Katie DiCamillo One of my biggest challenges for the past thirteen years as an English teacher has been getting my students to read, and I know I am not alone in this frustration. Getting teenagers […]