Guest Post By Elena Heglund What might The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, Anne Frank the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, The Giver by Lois Lowry, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, all have in common? This […]
literacy
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Rethinking the Literary Canon
There have been countless discussions launched about the need to teach the historically accepted literary pieces included in the canon. Just as controversial as the discussions engendered about the canon, so too is the definition. The “canon” is defined by dictionary.com as “a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine.” The very definition […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
What Do You Do With the Highly Advanced Reader?
As a teacher of gifted students, I’ve come to expect the unexpected. Most students demonstrate asynchronous development. Others are bright but underachieving. Still, other students are not truly gifted, but are bright “teacher pleasers,” with the sort of behaviors that make teachers lives easier. What I did not expect was to find three students in […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education
No Right to an Education: Detroit Schools and the Secretary of Education Nominee
In September 2016, seven students in the Detroit school system filed a lawsuit against Michigan governor Rick Snyder and other state education officials. In their complaint, the students allege that over the last several decades, there has been systematic disinvestment in and “deliberate indifference” to the Detroit schools, which has fundamentally denied Detroit school children […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Literature Circles in Middle School: Assignments & Assessment
Over the course of three articles, I have talked about doing Literature Circles with my 8th-grade students. For a list of the novels we used, check here. To read about the procedures I put in place for my students, check here. And for an explanation of how I used mini-lessons both as a full class […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How to Integrate Literacy into the Non-ELA Classroom
If there is one message that I get when I examine the Common Core standards for reading and writing, it’s this: Share the load. I think that English teachers have often shouldered the burden of literacy. We have felt that it is simply our job to teach students to write and to read and to analyze […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
How To Make Writing a Priority in Your ELA Classroom
For many years of teaching, I would follow the same formula over and over throughout the year with my classes: teach a unit, finish unit, assign paper on that unit. Writing happened, but it was the thing that we did after we did the other stuff. What this means is that writing mostly happened at home, […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum
Why Choice Matters: Reading as a Matter of Social Justice
Once upon a time I was a high school American Literature teacher who believed in the survey method of “these are the canonical works that all students should read before they leave high school.” I spent years patting myself on the back for getting struggling readers to love The Crucible, Of Mice and Men, and The Great Gatsby. We […]