Checked Out: Student Disengagement in the High School Classroom
Is thinking deeply a thing of the past? As I mentioned in my 2022 year-end post, I’ll be spending 2023 reading and researching on the loss of focus (and the disengagement it fosters) that we are witnessing in students today. To that end, I’m on a personal quest to read more about the phenomena that…
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High School Students Can’t Focus and Here’s Why
We need to reclaim our ability to focus. Is it possible students are suffering more anxiety and stress because they know deep down inside they’re falling short of their potentials? Johann Hari discusses how to think deeply again in his book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention.
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How to Reignite Your Passion for ELA (Part 5 of 5)
Indulge in literary travel Note: This is the last of five daily posts on how to spark, reignite, and maintain your passion for ELA. Click here for yesterday’s post: Reignite Your Passion for ELA Part 4 of 5: Transcribe a Movie. Other than my first year of teaching, the 2021-2022 school year was my most…
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How to Reignite Your Passion for ELA (Part 4 of 5)
Transcribe a movie Note: This is the fourth of five daily posts on how to spark, reignite, and maintain your passion for ELA. Click here for yesterday’s post: Reignite Your Passion for ELA Part 3 of 5: Learn Something New. Other than my first year of teaching, the 2021-2022 school year was my most challenging.…
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How to Reignite Your Passion for ELA (Part 3 of 5)
Learn something new! Note: This is the third of five daily posts on how to spark, reignite, and maintain your passion for ELA. Click here for yesterday’s post: Reignite Your Passion for ELA Part 1 of 5: Wear Your Reading Passion. Other than my first year of teaching, the 2021-2022 school year was my most…
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How to Reignite Your Passion for ELA (Part 2 of 5)
Wear your reading passion Note: This is the second of five daily posts on how to spark, reignite, and maintain your passion for ELA. Click here for yesterday’s post, Reignite Your Passion for ELA Part 1 of 5: Memorize and Recite Poetry. Other than my first year of teaching, the 2021-2022 school year was my…
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How to Reignite Your Passion for ELA (Part 1 of 5)
Memorize and recite poetry Other than my first year of teaching, the 2021-2022 school year was my most challenging. Out of eleven years of teaching both middle school and high school, students were more disengaged and more disinterested in literature, writing, and school in general, than ever before. It was tough. There’s nothing worse than…
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Enthusiasm in the high school classroom
I can’t tell you how many times students enter my room and say something like “I’m SO tired,” or “Man, I’m exhausted,” or “Mrs. Yung, I’m gonna sleep in class today because I CANNOT keep my eyes open.” This happens not just during my 8 a.m. first hour class, but all day long. I bet…
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“A Sea of Troubles” Offers Text Pairings for Greater Relevance
A Sea of Troubles performs the task touted on the cover: it pairs texts for greater relevancy in contemporary times. However, its untouted task, fostering and teaching civility, is the cherry on top.
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Holy On-Time Homework, Batman!
How I got my students to turn in their assignments on time
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My Slightly Odd Teacher Self-Care Routine
She was just doing what she had to do to generate some positive energy amidst a group of silent, unresponsive, insecure high schoolers.
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You Need a “Why I Teach” Binder
My ultimate self-care tip for teachers Get a three-ring binder. Any three-ring binder will work. And it doesn’t have to be new. Just dig one out from the bottom of your desk or repurpose one that’s full of handouts from that PD conference you went to last fall. Y’know, the one where they taught you…
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“Why Do We Read Such Depressing Stuff?!”
Especially in times like these??? My students have told me the following list of nonfiction books is depressing. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Flesh and Blood So Cheap by Albert Marrin The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 102 Minutes by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn Night by Elie Wiesel…
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Four-day weeks are the worst… said no teacher ever
What a four-day school week means to me Last summer, my husband and I moved to a new city. Since we had learned about our upcoming move way back in January, I began searching for a new position about a month later. The local school district in our new hometown didn’t have any positions…
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The Rubric Rub
Do what the rubric says. And only what the rubric says. And by all means, don’t think too hard. Last week in my high school Language Arts classes, students spent time planning memoirs that they will begin drafting this week. On Friday, a few girls who had already decided on a memory to recount were…
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Dear DailyMail.com: Tom Cruise has never won an Academy Award.
Your fact-checkers and my students should take note; teachers like me over 50 should take heart. This post is based on a story I recently wrote and posted on Medium.com. When I read something that I know is false, I take notice of it. This DailyMail.com article shows kids that not everything they read is true…
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Dear Teachers: Thinking about the first day back at school after break?
So are your students and some of them can’t wait to see you. Even though you love your job, when you think about the first day back at school after Christmas break, you sigh. Ugh, right? Who wants to think about that? The kids certainly don’t. Let me clarify that. Some of the kids don’t want…
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“So are you calling us stupid?!”
Teaching the standards takes time; so does building trust. “So are you calling us stupid?!” a middle school student asked me two months into my first year of teaching. Her eyes bore straight through to my heart. It was 9:15 a.m. on a Monday during my first year of teaching in a small rural school…
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Ten Questions for Kohl’s About This Back-to-School Shirt
Yeah, it’s just a $10 t-shirt (when you buy two of these charmers), but clothing has power. Is this shirt supposed to be funny, Kohl’s? Because it’s really just mean. Did you know that back-to-school should be a time of building students up, not tearing them down? “Nobody cares” has no place in an environment structured…
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How I Start My School Year
What really happens in your classroom before the students get there I drove the twenty minutes to my classroom today to . . . start. There’s always a day or two (or three) before the big day when we’re required to return to school for in-service training. On days like today, when I’m often working alone, I…
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