How To teach a Gatsby Unit Your Students Will Remember

Just about every American Literature class in the country will read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel on the American Dream, but that doesn’t mean that your unit on Gatsby should be like all the others. It’s one thing to fulfill a requirement or simply “cover” the book and it’s quite another to teach an impactful unit on The Great Gatsby that will really make a difference in the way your students view their world. I’ve been teaching this classic

7 Ideas For Experiencing Poetry

April is national poetry month, which means that teachers all over will feel obligated to dust off their ancient books of rhyme. But poetry doesn’t have to be full of archaic words and stuffy meter. With some engaging and innovative lessons, poetry can be fun and challenging and the best part of the year. Here are 7 ideas to experience poetry this month. Do some Madlibs. One of my favorite low-key ways to get students experiencing poetry from the inside

How To Get your Students to Work Independently

The best piece of advice that I ever got as a teacher was from a principal way back in 2004. He told me that at the end of the day, my students should be more tired than I was. I took that as permission to give myself a break, not martyr myself for the kids, and get them to do the work, not me. The second best piece of advice I ever got as a teacher was from a freshman

6 Reasons Why Your Students Need Close Reading

When I think about my goals as a teacher, I think about how I want to empower my students to go out into the world and think for themselves. Creating independent, confident, life-long learners who aren’t afraid to try to new things is really the ultimate dream. But figuring out how best to spend the limited time that I have in class in order to achieve those dreams is not always easy. I have found, over the years, that teaching

How to Teach Romeo and Juliet to 9th Graders and Make it Relevant

For most students, Romeo and Juliet is their first experience reading a Shakespeare play, and so it can be a make-it-or-break-it situation. The pressure is on—not only are you expected to get them excited about reading the 500-year-old words in this play, but their time spent with the two tragic teenagers will set the tone for their experience with other Shakespeare plays during their high school career. One of the best ways to insure that your Romeo and Juliet unit

5 Tips for Teaching Before Christmas Break

The weeks before Christmas break are not exactly a teacher’s favorite time of year. Students are tired and restless; some might be excited about their vacation plans, some might be dreading extended time with their dysfunctional families. It’s a challenging time to teach to say the least. But that doesn’t mean that it’s time to throw in the towel and stream endless videos or give students meaningless busywork. It is a good time to try something different, and to get

Why Your Students Should Be Writing Timed Essays

Students working quickly, striving to gather evidence, formulate their own ideas, and shape them into a coherent essay—this is how I like to end all of my thematic units, with a timed essay. Students will never really be able to avoid timed writing—from state tests to the SAT to AP and later college exams, they will be required to write intelligent pieces within a limited time frame. Real writing happens in the revision process, and many people believe that that’s

Why You Should Teach ELA in Thematic Units

When I first started teaching, I did what lots of ELA teachers do: I started at the beginning and then went from there. In other words, I taught literature chronologically. What better way for students to understand the comprehensive sweep of literature written in English, right? Well, it often felt like I was just stringing together a list of texts, and, as happens to many people, I never really got to the stuff that was written in the last 100

These are my do’s and don’ts of teaching Shakespeare.

6 Tips For Teaching Shakespeare

Teaching Shakespeare is truly the highlight of the school year for me. And it’s not only because I love the Bard so much that I have tattooed a favorite quote on my arm. It’s also because whether I’m teaching my beloved unit on Twelfth Night or any other play, the Shakespeare unit is a highlight for my students as well. It wasn’t always that way, and I have learned a lot over the years about how not to teach

What Your Students Should Learn From The Crucible

When you think about what you want students to learn from a powerful unit on The Crucible , think about five years from now. In other words, if you were to run into these kids in five years what would you want them to remember? Would you really care if they remember that Mary’s last name is Warren or how many people were accused of witchcraft or if the residents of Salem owned cows or sheep? If you’re going to spend

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