Hexagonal Thinking and The Great Gatsby

My first attempt with hexagonal thinking Dear Teacher-Friends: If you’re here for Part 2 of my “Teaching the Sonnet” post, please bear with me. I am still in the process of obtaining permission from a few students to post their wonderful sonnets. As soon as I have those permissions rounded up, I will publish thatContinue reading “Hexagonal Thinking and The Great Gatsby”

Movie Captions and Text Create Unique Poems

When text passages from a novel mingle with captions or subtitles from its accompanying movie, interesting things happen. Here’s what I mean: I always watch movies with the subtitles on. It helps me catch every word of dialogue and also catch every nuance given through the sound effects.

Writing Contest #9: NCTE’s Promising Young Writers

An any-genre writing contest just for your 8th graders Full disclosure: this is a contest I have NOT tried with my students… yet. I’m a member of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) and for some reason, I just found out about the group’s Promising Young Writers contest a few days ago while surfingContinue reading “Writing Contest #9: NCTE’s Promising Young Writers”