When I taught high school English, I worked hard to help my students avoid and move beyond the five-paragraph essay. In fact, I almost went crazy trying to pull better-than-five-paragraphs-essays out of my seniors. I was apt to tell students, “you are stuck in a five-paragraph box! GET OUT OF THE BOX!” I swore I would […]
9-12 ela tncore
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 […]