Outdoor Reflection: 1 Year Later
I recently saw Adam Duritz from the Counting Crows perform “A Long December” on Jimmy Kimmel and it got me thinking about last year. When...
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- Mar 12, 2021
- 7 min
Meaning-Making in the Secondary ELA Classroom
It’s easy to say to our students that literature should be meaningful. It’s easy to ask students … what does that line mean?
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- Mar 4, 2021
- 3 min
The Case for Content-Specific Professional Development
After some years teaching, I realized that my love of learning about literature turned into a love of learning about how to teach literature
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- Feb 19, 2021
- 3 min
Magical Realism: Interpretation and Creation
Magical realism goes beyond the place that a metaphor takes us. It goes beyond the realm of comparison.
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- Feb 14, 2021
- 3 min
Why Do You Want to Be a Teacher?
Introduction to Teaching the Magic of Literature: Using Imagination to Shape the Future It was one of the simplest, yet most complicated...
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- Feb 13, 2021
- 2 min
Bite-sized Prose, Buffet Conversations
Because distributing books has been a challenge this year, some of my students have been reading novels on their computer. From the...
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- Feb 8, 2021
- 3 min
Screencast: The New Essay?
It’s pretty typical for a teacher, or anyone for that matter, to feel like they are swimming in new tech tools. But this year, it’s...
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- Jan 31, 2021
- 4 min
Teaching Media Literacy
A lot of what we deal with in English language arts relates to strangers, people we don’t know. We read novels and non-fiction to immerse...
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- Jan 19, 2021
- 4 min
What Makes a Superteacher?
This has been a challenging year for any teacher. Even during a regular year, teachers work hard to meet the many demands and...
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- Jan 11, 2021
- 3 min
Teaching the Novel in a Remote or Hybrid Classroom
I’m trying to get as creative as possible when it comes to being flexible with students. After finishing a few units ...
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- Dec 23, 2020
- 6 min
10 Creative Projects for Remote Learning
My colleagues and I recently had a conversation about the rest of the year and what we could do to keep our students engaged....
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- Dec 15, 2020
- 4 min
Politics in the Classroom: 5 Goals
Even now, an open and honest conversation about politics can quickly turn ugly. Sometimes the conversation doesn’t happen at all because ...
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- Dec 11, 2020
- 3 min
50 Songs to Start Class
This year, the start of class is that awkward time when we’re saying hello and waiting for everyone to virtually trickle in. When...
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- Dec 10, 2020
- 2 min
The Teaching of Writing: Feedback and Revisions
Tomorrow I’ll give virtual feedback on an essay my students wrote on a poem. I usually provide feedback right before I assign the next...
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- Dec 7, 2020
- 2 min
Rethinking Research
I attended the virtual NCTE conference this past Friday and it got me thinking about the research paper, or really, rethinking it. Part...
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- Nov 29, 2020
- 2 min
Self-Reflection and Metacognition
At the end of each quarter, I like to give my students the opportunity to reflect on what they’ve done and what they will do next.
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- Nov 18, 2020
- 3 min
Writing For and In the Present
I recently came across Several short sentences about writing, a book by Verlyn Klinkenborg that I read a few years ago. It’s a must read...
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- Nov 10, 2020
- 2 min
Sketchnoting in the Digital Age
Last week, I told my students to create sketchnotes on the poems we studied in class. I didn't really specify what I was looking for, I...
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- Nov 1, 2020
- 3 min
6 Poems to Read Out Loud
Over the years, I’ve grown to love reading certain poems out loud, so here’s a list of my favorites ...
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- Oct 19, 2020
- 4 min
5 Tech Tools for Small Groups and Presentations
Under normal circumstances, we try to steer kids away from socializing so they can stay on task and so that we can give our assessments and
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- Oct 8, 2020
- 3 min
Homework: Putting Home and Work Together
We need to think about what we’re asking students when we ask them to do homework.
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- Oct 2, 2020
- 3 min
5 Goals for Remote or Hybrid Teaching
Right now, I’m keeping the focus on learning and not on assessment.
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- Sep 5, 2020
- 2 min