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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
Dec 7, 20213 min read
3,540 views


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 ...
Nov 26, 20213 min read
302 views


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
Nov 16, 20213 min read
274 views


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...
Nov 11, 20213 min read
373 views


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,...
Nov 4, 20213 min read
495 views


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...
Oct 27, 20215 min read
782 views


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,...
Oct 18, 20213 min read
340 views


Poems about Poetry: 6 Poems that Introduce Poetry
I’ll start my poetry unit this year with poems about poetry to open up the conversation about the potential and power of words. These...
Oct 7, 20213 min read
260 views


Stressed or Unstressed? No Stress
It’s a kind of academic rite of passage to get confused about scanning a line of poetry. It can feel maddening to figure out what...
Sep 30, 20212 min read
199 views


Rethinking the Thesis Statement
The thesis statement: the holy grail of the English classroom. I once had a professor tell my classmates and me to tape our thesis...
Sep 21, 20212 min read
718 views


Voice to Text: The Keys to Great Storytelling
What makes a great personal narrative? In the beginning of every year, I ask my students to write a story that communicates something...
Sep 16, 20212 min read
216 views


The 6 Functions of Language
At the start of every year, I like to talk about the role of language and how it can be transformative. I will ask my students to ...
Sep 8, 20214 min read
145 views


5 Ways to Establish Great Relationships in Your Classroom
If you look back on being a student, I’m sure you remember not the specifics of what you learned, but your teachers, the people tasked with
Sep 2, 20214 min read
574 views


Teaching Shakespeare Using Film: Romeo and Juliet from PBS Great Performances
There is no challenge quite like teaching Shakespeare. Early modern English always poses challenges for teenage readers, and ...
Aug 23, 20213 min read
166 views


5 Ways to Have a Drama-Filled Classroom
No, not that kind of drama. Performance. Few people know how to act, but everyone knows what a good performance looks like. The words...
Aug 17, 20213 min read
188 views


Symbolism Ice Breaker
We are all familiar with the first few days in our classroom. It’s a little tense because our students don’t know us ...
Aug 5, 20213 min read
842 views


The Ghosts of History in Toni Morrison’s Beloved
“The future was sunset; the past something to leave behind. And if it didn’t stay behind, well, you might have to stomp it out. Slave...
Aug 2, 20213 min read
118 views


What is Racial Literacy?
For me, talking about race, or really culture, has always been about love. Schools function to connect people through art, music, sports,...
Jul 29, 20212 min read
160 views


Displaying Student Work
A few years ago, I was the advisor for my school’s student-run art gallery. My district converted an old garage used for storage space ...
Jul 11, 20213 min read
262 views


The Keys to Organizing an ELA Classroom
A well-organized classroom reduces stress and helps everyone focus on what’s most important, the literature.
Jul 2, 20213 min read
676 views


The Path to Easy, Exciting, Excellent Teaching
My school year finished this week, and as I watched my seniors graduate, I felt like we all deserved something special for making it...
Jun 26, 20213 min read
93 views


Graduation 2021: Love and Stories
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...
May 30, 20213 min read
239 views


New Year, New Ideas
It’s hard to imagine that anything positive will come out of this year, but I’ve been thinking about what, if any, lessons I’ve learned ...
May 25, 20213 min read
296 views


A Fun Way to End This Year
We’re approaching the end of a wildly difficult year. We weren’t able to connect with our students like we normally would...
May 12, 20212 min read
274 views
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