Here’s how I’ve used graphic essays and what I’ll tweak for next time. My junior English classes recently read the short story, “In Another Country” by Ernest Hemingway as a follow-up to reading “The Old Man and the Sea.” Because they had just completed a traditional written thematic analysis of the novel, I opted toContinue reading “Teach Theme with Graphic Essays: The Old Man and the Sea”
Category Archives: Miscellaneous
Dear Teachers: The Church of Scientology is one click away from your students
Be careful: the church’s Youth for Human Rights lessons are now available online. A lot can happen in two years. Two years ago, I wrote on Medium.com about a variety of educational materials offered by Youth for Human Rights International, a Los Angeles, Calif.-based human rights advocacy group. Back then, after doing some quickContinue reading “Dear Teachers: The Church of Scientology is one click away from your students”
Teaching transitions in writing, part 1 (updated 6/2021)
Don’t teach just transition words… teach transition ideas as well. Note added on June 5, 2021: I often go back to my previous blog posts and see the details of how I taught a certain book or writing mini-lesson. In fact, I recently did that with this post. In April, I was working with myContinue reading “Teaching transitions in writing, part 1 (updated 6/2021)”
Slice-of-Life Writing: The Anti-Instagram Narrative
These short narratives celebrate the ordinary One result of a three-month summer break? Students out of practice with writing, especially creative writing. To remedy that last week, I decided to introduce my high school students to slice-of-life writing, a fairly new genre within the world of narrative non-fiction. In my former middle school ELA teaching position,Continue reading “Slice-of-Life Writing: The Anti-Instagram Narrative”
When Anxious, Depressed Students Stare into Space
Don’t assume they aren’t listening Last spring in my middle school language arts classes, I taught the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave for the eighth year. It’s the autobiography of Douglass, who was born into slavery. In his formative years, he experienced an epiphany: literacy equaled freedom. As a result,Continue reading “When Anxious, Depressed Students Stare into Space”
A boy, a bird, and a bus station in Athens
Slice of Life writing is one of my favorite genres to do with young writers. Here’s a slice I wrote while waiting in a bus station in central Athens last week. It appeared first on my personal writing blog.
A big fat Greek vocabulary lesson about the word “Sporades”
I teach kids it’s okay to be rejected
Rejection proves that my students are indeed writers I teach kids it’s okay to be rejected. I teach them it’s okay to fail and That it’s good to receive a rejection letter because That’s what writers do: They get turned down. I teach kids it’s okay to be rejected. I teach them to risk itContinue reading “I teach kids it’s okay to be rejected”
My top three movies for the last week of school that will let you keep your teaching integrity
Walter Mitty starring Ben Stiller Rated PG; 114 minutes long; Reason to watch: To see a movie that advocates living life to the fullest; Bonus: Great for graduating students. In fact, I show this to my graduating 8th-graders as they transition to high school. Sully: Miracle on the Hudson starring Tom Hanks Rated PG-13 forContinue reading “My top three movies for the last week of school that will let you keep your teaching integrity”
My attempt at teaching kids how to add narration into their dialogue
Here’s a mini-lesson I created a few months ago Kids love to write dialogue, but it often ends up being just a series of spoken words… a lengthy showcase of spoken words followed by any one of the following: he said, she said, he replied, she stated. This year, in my AOW and EOW assignments,Continue reading “My attempt at teaching kids how to add narration into their dialogue”