I am a big fan of work smarter not harder, but I am not a fan of technology. Technology is fabulous when it actually works like it should. That being said, here are a few apps and websites that I have used and had a pretty positive success with. Of course, they may not always […]
Alice Trosclair
Alice has been teaching for fourteen years. She currently teaches English I, English III, English Language and Composition AP, and English Literature and Composition AP. She lives with her husband and son in south Louisiana. She also has hundreds of "adopted" children.
Posted inClassroom Management, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum
6 Solutions for Challenging Classes
We have all had that one class. You know the one. You pray before they arrive and you pray after they leave. You have cried and cried over them and even imagined throwing things at the expensive Promethean board that cannot capture their attention. These challenging classes are the ones that we learned the most […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum
Five Ways to Increase Student Engagement
Not everything in life comes easily, we know this and we harp and harp on students to “try harder” while sometimes they are giving it all they got and it is not good enough. We all have those moments where we feel like nothing we do is ever good enough. Imagine how it feels to […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, From the Front Lines, Literacy, Opinion
Celebrating the Little Victories in the Classroom
This morning, I was listening to Joel Osteen and I felt that the sermon was directed towards me. It was about celebrating small victories. As teachers, we want to change the world. We have big dreams for our students and we lose sight of the little things. While the big successes are wonderful, they are […]
Posted inFeatured, Opinion
A Teacher’s Thanks
Thanksgiving has come and gone. I wish we could have had a few more days, goodness knows we all could have used them, but I am happy to get back to my students. I have missed them. Life has been a tad quiet without them. We are coming to the end of the year and […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies
What Makes a Great Unit?
With so many skills and so many concepts, units are a necessity. We can become overwhelmed with the amount of material we have to cover in a short time. I have learned I only focus on one unit at a time. A unit is a set amount of skills or concepts tied to a literary […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, From the Front Lines, High School, Literacy
Different Teachers, Different Pressures
There is a certain about of pressure that comes with being a high stakes teacher, okay, it is a ton of pressure. A high stakes teacher is a teacher whose class performance on a standardized test is directly tied to the School Performance Score. At a small school, this means there are only four or […]
Posted inFeatured, Opinion
Five Important Habits for Teachers
There are so many tasks to accomplish as a teacher – important issues, small duties, and everything in between, but there is never enough time to accomplish them all. Then there are those important habits to develop, even when we don’t feel like it. The world doesn’t stop if you do not do them, but they […]