Classroom Routines: 5 Simple Hacks
There’s no feeling quite like when you discover a small classroom routine that makes your life easier.
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- Jun 16, 2022
- 2 min
Free Literacy Blocks
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
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- Jun 1, 2022
- 2 min
The Creative Classroom
I start the school year talking about how language is all around us.
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- May 26, 2022
- 2 min
The Hope Project
This year, I designed the Hope Project for my seniors. It ends with a video essay, and I completed the assignment myself. In the video,...
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- May 11, 2022
- 2 min
History and Literature
It is the objective of many novels to bring history back to life. The history in textbooks focus on the powerful, the decision makers.
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- May 5, 2022
- 3 min
5 Musings for Next Year
As the school year winds down, it’s good to think about all the adjustments we’ve made to keep kids engaged and interested in learning ..
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- Apr 21, 2022
- 3 min
How to Pair Film and Literature
In today’s world, it’s just as important for students to learn how to analyze video as it is to analyze literature. They need to think...
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- Apr 6, 2022
- 2 min
Autonomous, Relevant Learning and Good Conversation
This week, I asked students to connect the literature we study in class to the modern world. We had amazing, open-ended conversations ...
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- Mar 25, 2022
- 4 min
The Research Paper Made Easy: 8 Steps of the Writing Process
It’s that time of year to assign a college-style research paper to my seniors and I’ve found myself giving more and more time in class ...
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- Mar 2, 2022
- 2 min
The Hope Project
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...
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- Feb 24, 2022
- 3 min
Happy Teacher, Happy Student
Teachers have a lot on their plate right now. So let’s think about how to scrape some off for the dog ...
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- Feb 17, 2022
- 4 min
Whole-Novel Activities
Early in my career, I remember rolling through a novel chapter by chapter with PowerPoint slides and handouts. It always drove me crazy ...
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- Feb 9, 2022
- 5 min
4 Easy Ways to Talk About Race in School
Some of the most challenging questions I’ve faced in my career have to do with race and culture.
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- Jan 24, 2022
- 4 min
Filmmaking Made Easy: 10 Tips
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 ...
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- Jan 11, 2022
- 3 min
New Year, New Habits: Reflecting on Reflecting
It’s a new year and this will be my 100th blog and podcast, so I’ve been thinking about reflection, the mental process of looking back and t
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- Dec 31, 2021
- 3 min
Teaching Narrative Mode with Short Stories
Narrative mode is what makes fiction different from essays, history, and art forms like video and images. Without fiction ...
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- Dec 17, 2021
- 2 min
How to Make Fiction Relevant
To wrap up my unit on Things Fall Apart, I’m doing what I believe Chinua Achebe would have wanted....
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- Dec 7, 2021
- 3 min
The Best Secondary English Language Arts (ELA) Blogs, Podcasts and Websites for High School Teachers
If you’ve ever listened to a fellow teacher deliver a presentation about their favorite project or unit, you know how creativity and passion
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- Nov 26, 2021
- 3 min
How to Write a Meaningful Conclusion
I’ve long held the belief that we’re doing conclusions all wrong. Traditionally, it’s a moment in the essay where the writer wraps ...
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- Nov 16, 2021
- 3 min
Hourglass Unit Planning: From Large to Small to Large
Every time I sit down to plan a unit, I think about how I can move inward, into the mind of the protagonist. I want to go from the external
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- Nov 11, 2021
- 3 min
What If We Treat Students Like Athletes?
What if we treated our students like we treat athletes? What if we taught like a coach at halftime? What if we could recreate the same...
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- Nov 4, 2021
- 3 min
Simplifying Rubrics, Checklists, and Feedback
Teaching literature has a slew of challenges, including reading the latest great novels, poems, short stories, plays, films, and essays,...
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- Oct 27, 2021
- 5 min
How Students Learn: 7 Engagement Techniques
When we ask our students to pay attention, we’re competing with five to ten second video clips on television and social media apps...
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- Oct 18, 2021
- 3 min
5 Easy Ways to Motivate Students
Every fall my students seem a little sluggish from the summer. Over the course of a few weeks in September, I see their brains turn on,...