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”
Tag Archives: Writing
Argument Writing: Stossel in the Classroom Contests
2023 deadline: March 31 Need a real-world reason to assign argumentative essays? Look no further. The Stossel in the Classroom 2022-23 Essay Contest welcomes your students’ arguments. I have used Stossel in the Classroom contests twice with middle schoolers, and even though none of my students won, the contests were valuable experiences. I think wheneverContinue reading “Argument Writing: Stossel in the Classroom Contests”
Poetry Chapbooks for High Schoolers
Have students self-publish their poetry in chapbooks This will be a short post, but I wanted to briefly fill you in on a culminating activity my high school poetry class completed last spring. Our final project of the year was to create a poetry chapbook, a small(ish) book that contained the many poems they createdContinue reading “Poetry Chapbooks for High Schoolers”
Last-Minute High School ELA Christmas Lesson Plan
It would be easy to build an assignment with this article to keep your students busy during these last few days before break. Read on for the lesson plan. Click print at the bottom of the post.
Beautiful Sentences in The Great Gatsby
Great Gatsby, anyone? Celebrate the language of Fitzgerald by studying ten of the novel’s beautiful sentences.
“Mending Wall” for High School
“Mending Wall” suggests that we reevaluate the walls we erect among ourselves, so we can instead draw closer over the values that we all treasure.
The Sonnet for High School (part 1)
The power of repetition in Terrance Hayes’ “Sonnet” If you’ve ever worked with students and sonnets, you know how difficult writing a sonnet can be. In a word, it’s complicated. In fact, these little box-shaped poems offer all kinds of challenges for young writers (and their teachers–ha!). For example, when my British Literature students studyContinue reading “The Sonnet for High School (part 1)”
My Top 10 Posts of 2021
I’ve compiled this post to put into one place my most-read posts of 2021. I hope you find these helpful, and I really hope you’ll skim through these titles and make sure you haven’t missed any that will help you be a more effective and confident teacher in 2022.
Three Poems for Veterans Day
Try these three poem ideas for Veterans Day with your middle and high school students.
Taylor Mali’s Metaphor Dice
Metaphor Dice are excellent tools for inspiring evocative, poem-worthy ideas. The words set the stage for deeper, extended critical thinking. My poetry students loved them!