I want my 8th-grade students to learn more than just the standards – I want them to learn strategies to learn, and how to utilize the best tools to show their learning. I remind them that in high school, college and careers they will be responsible for making decisions about how they create projects, and […]
Common Core
Posted inAsk a Teacher, Common Core, From the Front Lines, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Middle School
Maybe It's The Time Of Year: Taking Another Look At Confrontation In The Classroom
It was just a lesson on folktales, really. We’ve been reading a variety of stories from around the world in my 8th grade English classroom – sometimes with partners or small groups, but yesterday I asked my students to tackle reading “Davy Crockett” alone. Their essential question was familiar at this point: “What do folktales […]
Posted inCommon Core, Educational Apps, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Technology
BrainPOP: A Te(a)cher's Best Friend
Think you’ll have 5 or 10 minutes left in class? Need an engaging way to start a lesson while you take attendance, grade a few papers, or call a parent? Looking for something simple to drive home the core idea of a lesson? Want to find a place to have formal assessment with students at […]
Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, Opinion, Uncategorized
What President Obama Didn’t Say About Standardized Testing
On Saturday, October 24th, President Obama came out with a wholehearted message about his concern about how much schools, teachers, and students were focusing on standardized testing. He began his speech with a pop quiz, asking parents what school options they would like to provide students who had more time to learn and what they could […]
Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School, Uncategorized
Why Data is Important
There were eight of us gathered together early Wednesday morning: 8th grade teachers of History, English, PE, Math, Science, Spanish, a para educator and a counselor. Our task? Analyzing data from last year’s SBAC scores. To three in the group, this was an impossible task. Immediately the environment became toxic. “Maybe you like data, Jennifer, […]
Posted inCommon Core, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School
Creating Utopia: How Kids See The World
This month, my students are learning to see the differences in the world. They’re reading The Giver, a dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry  in the 1990s. The Giver relates the story of Jonas, a 12 year-old boy living in a community of sameness, a community in which there is no color, no differences, no […]
Posted inCommon Core, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School
Are You Using Interactive Student Notebooks? You Should Be!
Teaching full-time English and AVID found me drowning in papers – you know the feeling? A weekly stack of hundreds of papers to check off or grade left me frustrated, tired and unhappy most weekends. In an attempt to cut down on the overwhelming, mind-numbing amount of papers submitted to me by my middle school […]
Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Languages, Opinion
My Experience with TNCore – the Tennessee State Standards
Tennessee’s State Department of Education adopted standards labeled TNCore, modeled after the controversial Common Core. As an English and Language Arts (ELA) teacher of nine years, I would like to share my experiences with these standards at the high school level. Common Core (CC) was created with good intentions. Its creators wanted to ensure that […]