The Novels I Use to Teach Secondary English There are lots of wonderful things about teaching high school English. One of those is that I get to use a lot of fun novels to help my students reach the standards they need to achieve. To make it fun, I tried to pick a wide variety […]
english
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Putting Books in Student’s Hands: How to Make the Right Match
Last week school started and a whole new group of 8th graders filled the desks in my classroom. Besides talking about the syllabus, creating a social contract, and handing out all of the many things parents have to sign, my biggest goal was to get a book in the hands of each student. [bctt […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
The Whos, Whats, Wheres, and Whens of Teaching Grammar to Younger Children
I love to teach grammar to my second graders, and they are usually very eager learners when they figure out that the grammar they are learning ties in to the writing that they enjoy. I introduce grammar by engaging students in a ‘hunt.’ We are always searching for parts of speech, punctuation and proper sentence […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Using Literature For Relevancy
Many English classrooms have gotten away from using classic literature, opting for more current material, which seems to ring truer across our youth. Although current material is important to teach, it’s amazing to see the relevance that classic literature parallels with today’s world. Material like The Picture of Dorian Gray is a perfect example. We […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy
Controversy: Addressing Challenging Topics in Your High School English Class
On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, was killed in the streets of Ferguson, MO. On August 11, just two days later, school was scheduled to begin. As I watched the story unfold over the weekend, I was met with an anger and frustration I had not experienced since Trayvon Martin was […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How to Build a Classroom Library on a Barely-There Budget
After attending a Penny Kittle workshop in spring 2014, I decided to set up a Reader’s Workshop in my twelfth-grade English class to radically change the reading/literature instruction. In order to do that, I needed a classroom library—an extensive one if I wanted the RW to work. The problem was I had 104 titles—many out […]
Posted inFeatured, Professional Development
8 Social Media Must-Follows for English Language Arts Teachers
Since it’s the end of the school year, I am starting to look back over the year and evaluate what went well and what I would like to change or improve upon for next year. One of the first things I like to do each spring is to take inventory of my social media “follows.” […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy
Make Them Laugh: Why We Should Teach Shakespearean Comedies
I love Shakespeare. I would love nothing more than to teach Shakespeare all day long. One thing I dislike about Shakespeare (and it is not his fault), is that we only teach his tragedies in high school. When I was in school, Shakespeare’s plays were taught in this order, freshman year was Romeo and Juliet, […]