Empowering students with the skills to find their own answers.
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
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In many ways, 9th grade is a great time to teach Romeo and Juliet—there’s something about a whole tragedy about an unending feud, over-the-top love, and deaths resulting when “they stumble that run fast” that is just perfect for that age. Freshmen are often right at that stage where emotions feel huge, decisions feel urgent, and everything seems like the end of the world. Freshmen are also often excited about the prospect of their first real Shakespeare, and that energy
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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
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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
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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
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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 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 the Bard. These 6 tips will work for any Shakespeare play, but if you
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When you think about what you want students to learn from your unit on The Crucible, think about five years from now. In other words, if you were to run into these kids in the future, 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 whether the residents of Salem owned cows or sheep? The details might matter while students are
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Starting a writing unit by examining great examples of the kinds of writing we’ll be doing is one of those ideas that I seem to forget and remember over and over again. Maybe it’s because I rush through writing plans, anxious to get to the assignment so that students can start working. Maybe it’s the effort of looking for good examples. Perhaps it’s the mistake of believing that my explanation is plenty and students shouldn’t need anything more. Or possibly
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As a teacher, you might have just a few goals for the beginning of the school year: set the tone for your classroom; inspire students to work harder; establish rigor and expectations; teach students to think independently. Oh, and don’t forget win over students by showing them how much fun they’ll be having this year, and, when you teach high school, getting to know over 100 new people as fast as possible. Seems simple, right? Every year, I have tried
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The last few days before summer vacation can feel like a slow, painful countdown interrupted by bursts of chaos. Students are desperate to check out, the beautiful weather is beckoning, and you really don’t want to plan around yet another poorly announced award ceremony during your F period class. Mustering the energy to drag your students through a full novel or play just isn’t worth the effort anymore—and yet you’re not ready to give up on meaningful learning altogether. That’s
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