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 […]
English Language Learners
Over 11 percent of students in the United States—more than 4.8 million kids—are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.
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 […]
Posted inElementary School
The Instructional Programs and Curriculum are Fatally Flawed
By Guest Writer: Jill Jackson Imagine this: You are a teacher who shows up to professional development at the beginning of the school year and are told that the district has chosen the new English Language Arts/Math/Science/Art/P.E. program after a year-long pilot. (I use the word “pilot” very loosely because typically the curriculum pilots have […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
Fellow educators, do you care about other people’s children? How about migrant children?
Fellow educators, you have made a career centered around giving to children. You have worked diligently to become an expert in your curriculum, designing dynamic lessons while connecting to the whole child. You might even call the students on your rosters, “your kids.” With your compassion for other people’s children as a focus, I ask […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Teaching Romeo and Juliet to Beginning Level English Learners
Guest Writer: Karissa Knox Sorrell Teaching English Learners who are new to the country and are non-English speakers is a challenge at every grade, but it can be particularly challenging at the high school level when students have to earn credits, pass multiple state end-of-course exams, and engage with complex texts on a daily basis. With […]
Posted inAdult Learning
American Values In the Classroom and Community: Where do we stand as a nation today?
As a teacher and American citizen, it is difficult to discern what values we stand for as a nation today. It seems that our government has blurred the lines between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, equality and discrimination, and honesty and scandal. In the pendulum swing from the “post-racial” Obama years to the quasi-authoritarian […]
Posted inAdult Learning
The Royal Wedding: Why Should We Care? One American Teacher’s Perspective
The news broke this morning: another school shooting, this time in Santa Fe, Texas. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to entertain the thought that this most recent massacre is the 22nd school shooting this year. I can’t bear to think that ten more families will be planning funerals and that […]