I made my own book using the app. Here it is. Now that National Poetry Month is half over — and with the school year winding down, too — it’s a good time to think about ways to publish your students’ poems. Did you know students can make a professional book for around $8 usingContinue reading “Make Better Poetry Chapbooks with This App”
Tag Archives: English
The Magic of Memorizing for High School Students
Memorization creates meaning I’ll admit it. There was a time that I disdained memorizing. For some reason, I believed that memorization was no more than something one did in order to regurgitate information later. And I had experience to back up my prejudice. For example, I remember as a high school student memorizing dates andContinue reading “The Magic of Memorizing for High School Students”
ChatGPT and the Numbing of a Student’s Mind
No, I won’t be embracing ChatGPT I’ve held off on writing about OpenAI’s ChatGPT because… well, it exasperates me. Frustrates me. Angers me. It makes me angry that software developers with little experience or interest in the provision of education have created a “tool” that replaces the very human activities of thinking and writing. InContinue reading “ChatGPT and the Numbing of a Student’s Mind”
The Anthropocene Reviewed Essay for High Schoolers
Use John Green’s classic for awesome student essays One of my favorite book purchases of 2022 was uber-popular author John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed. This book contains about forty-four personal essays on events, objects, and/or people chosen by The Faults in Our Stars author as examples of how humans have helped shaped our current age.Continue reading “The Anthropocene Reviewed Essay for High Schoolers”
Frederick Douglass Final Project: The Graphic Essay
A fresh way to reflect on Douglass’ heroic life and text Back when I taught middle school ELA, I assigned graphic essays (essentially a dressed-up one-pager) to my eighth-graders after they finished reading Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. This incredible book, which provides Douglass’ first-hand account of the horrors andContinue reading “Frederick Douglass Final Project: The Graphic Essay”
The Web, Student Focus, and Ralph Waldo Emerson
Five Allusions to Emerson in The Shallows by Nicholas Carr Today, we mostly know Ralph Waldo Emerson, the popular nineteenth-century transcendental philosopher, through a handful of quotes that have filtered down through the centuries. Three examples: Beyond Emerson’s many well-known sayings, however, the larger ideas behind his writings ring few bells in the collective mindsContinue reading “The Web, Student Focus, and Ralph Waldo Emerson”
On Tap for 2023: Gatsby, Inspiration & Insights into Student Focus
Plus: my top ten posts of 2022 I savor these last moments of the holidays. They’re the perfect time to reflect, rethink, and redirect my site’s content to better serve you, my dear readers, in the coming year. In doing so, it’s always interesting to learn which posts resonated most strongly with readers throughout theContinue reading “On Tap for 2023: Gatsby, Inspiration & Insights into Student Focus”
Beautiful Sentences in The Great Gatsby
Great Gatsby, anyone? Celebrate the language of Fitzgerald by studying ten of the novel’s beautiful sentences.
The Sonnet for High School (part 2)
Use these student-written mentor texts inspired by Terrance Hayes Two weeks ago, I posted about a unique sonnet writing exercise inspired by poet Terrance Hayes that I tried with my junior-senior poetry class. Click here to read that post. This new exercise took repetition to an extreme degree, and in so doing, demonstrated the literaryContinue reading “The Sonnet for High School (part 2)”
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”