As a 17-year veteran English teacher, I have seen many improvements and changes in the way that technology is incorporated into the classroom. Gone are the days of using the overhead projector, of rolling an outdated television set into the classroom, and of feverishly rewinding an old video cassette. Surprisingly, the days of grading papers […]
Literacy
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Teachers, National History Day Needs Your Help
This past week, the National History Day program announced that it lost one of its biggest benefactors. Though National History Day (NHD) doesn’t announce the benefactor’s name, it does reveal how much it’s going to hurt the program — a total net loss of $800,000, annually. If you don’t know what the National History Day […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Six Books for Secondary Teachers on Teaching Students to Read
Teaching how to read used to be considered the job of elementary teachers. They would teach the students to read; secondary teachers would teach students literature assuming students know how to read it. However, it has become clear that teaching students how to read doesn’t end when students enter junior high school. In fact, since 50% of […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Ways To Discover if ‘Fake News’ is Actually Fake News
Journalists are vital in making sure that a democratic country stays democratic. They are tasked at keeping the establishment accountable for the people in order to avoid a corrupt government, and for the people to make logical and rational political decisions. There is no other profession mentioned in the United States Constitution because the Founders […]
Posted inLiteracy
The Power of the Right Read
The power of the right read is indisputable to me. It always has been. I mean, I LOVE to read. I have been an avid reader for as long as I can remember. Even as a teenager, living in a foreign country, I read religiously. And I have always believed that the right book can […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy
How to Create Reader Response Prompts
The response to my posts about using Response Notebooks rather than Reading Logs has been wonderful! The most common question I get is how to create quality reader response prompts for students to respond to after they do their individual reading. I’m pretty confident that my students think the prompts I give them are random; although, maybe […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Using Literature to Teach Math: Five Great Books to Use in Middle School
I’m always trying to come up with different ways to teach math that will grab the interest of my students. If you’ve ever taught math or been taught math, you know there are some students that just don’t like math, but love reading. So, what if you incorporate literature in math instruction? I’ve got five […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Gatsby for the 21st Century Student
I told my Freshman High School English teacher that even though I loved to read, I didn’t care for English class because we never read anything “cool.” A year later, I returned to her classroom to recant my previous statement. I fell in love with English class when I read The Great Gatsby. As a […]