Students often prefer creative writing over analytical writing.  When students imagine a story, they still demonstrate their understanding of the characters and events.  Instead of focusing on the events in a story, they can write freely about their own version of events. 

One of the most rewarding things about being a teacher is watching my students continue the conversation as they leave the classroom. 

A classroom can be two places at the same time: a place to work hard and learn valuable skills and a place to have fun and make meaning from

Schools and teachers usually organize ELA curriculum by novel, theme, or genre, or some combination of those three. 

I recently opened enrollment for a new online course, Meaningful Project-Based Learning for High School English.  Enrollment closes Friday

July has come to an end and it’s that time when the thought of school starts to plan its seed in every teacher’s mind. What will this year

There are many students that love literature for the world it creates, the brand-new world that exists only within the front and back cover

The end of the school year is the best time to get ideas for next year. All the successful and failed experiments are still fresh in my...

It’s fun to end the year with a project that students will remember. Instead of a traditional final, there are a lot of ways ...

Creating a short film used to be a long and difficult process, so I gave up on it. But then it became much easier to shoot and edit video.

AI is all the buzz lately. No need to teach writing anymore, a computer can do it...

It’s difficult to find a book that every child will love. They like contemporary stories that seem similar to their own ...

Every teacher is familiar with the kind of student who struggles to pay attention for a long period of time...

When I look back on my teaching career, some of my favorite moments actually happened outside the classroom. For some reason ...

I’ve been thinking a lot about all the challenges of this past year, but also trying to learn from it. I tried book clubs for the first time

I start the school year talking about how language is all around us.

It is the objective of many novels to bring history back to life. The history in textbooks focus on the powerful, the decision makers.

This week, I asked students to connect the literature we study in class to the modern world. We had amazing, open-ended conversations ...

I like to end every year with a project on a relevant topic and this year, or at least this spring, seems to be the spring of hope...

Some of the most challenging questions I’ve faced in my career have to do with race and culture.

After I taught the elective Filmmaking for the first time a few years ago, I realized how easy it is for students to quickly create a ...

No, not that kind of drama. Performance. Few people know how to act, but everyone knows what a good performance looks like. The words...

Every year, I complete the final assignment that I give my seniors. I ask them to talk about how it feels to graduate, what they've...

We’re approaching the end of a wildly difficult year. We weren’t able to connect with our students like we normally would...