Ideas from the Blog

I'm not a huge fan of chapter questions, for a number of reasons. The main one is that they usually direct students too much, telling them what to look for, what's important to note.  I much prefer an approach that puts more of the responsibility for thinking about the text in the students' … [Read more...] about CLOSE READING AND STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY

I preach to my students all the time that the whole writing process is a waste if they don't read and react to feedback.  They get the spiel every time I pass back an assignment; some of them even act on it.But that's not what this post is about.  This time I'm putting the spotlight on me, … [Read more...] about RESPONSIVE TEACHING: GIVING JUST-IN-TIME FEEDBACK

My Pre-IB's are finishing up their readers' workshop; after the break we'll start a full-class novel.  The last few days we were discussing the various ways that authors develop their messages, and today we wrapped it up with a group activity that helped them make connections between texts. It … [Read more...] about AUTHOR’S MESSAGE & CONNECTIONS BETWEEN TEXTS

 Last week, I had to do a presentation to my department on "descriptive feedback" and most of my colleagues came feeling that they give lots of it. After all, we English teachers are masters of the pen, especially the red one.  Our pens--regardless of colour-- circle, highlight, underline and … [Read more...] about MAKING FEEDBACK DESCRIPTIVE & MEANINGFUL

I want my students to find mentor sentences from their independent reading texts, ones they can use as models for their own writing. Last week, I told them to be on the lookout for beautiful language in the novels they are reading.  We talked about the concept: what makes language beautiful? Is … [Read more...] about Mentor Sentences from Independent Reading

SPEAKING AS PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS:Last week, my IB students started their study of Night.  It's one of the texts from the Works in Translation part of the course, and they began with one group of students doing an interactive oral, a presentation on the cultural and … [Read more...] about SPEAKING, LISTENING & TEACHING ON THE FLY

My tenth grade students have been immersed in the writing process this week. Their task is to complete a persuasive research essay, but we took our time, focusing on the steps writers can take to revise their essays.  They started with an outline and a draft, and then each day I presented … [Read more...] about REVISION LEARNING STATIONS

Here at the Literary League, we’re a group of English teachers who truly love literature (we bet you already figured that part out). Given free time, we can all agree that there’s nothing better than leaping into a good book. But, even as avid readers, we have to admit that those spare minutes … [Read more...] about ROOM 213 LEAPS INTO LITERATURE

Writing is a thinking process.  I've said it many times.  I preach it to my kids. I make it a priority in my classroom by devoting time to the steps that they often rush through or ignore (it's hard to do every one when you start the essay the night before). This week I'm focusing on the … [Read more...] about PERSUASIVE & ARGUMENTATIVE WRITING: focusing on the pre-writing process

The internet changed my life as a teacher in many ways, most of them good.  But it also caused me a bit of angst for a while. For years I moaned and complained in the staffroom about what the Internet had done to my ability to get students to think critically about their texts.  Assignment … [Read more...] about FIVE WAYS TO KEEP YOUR STUDENTS OFF SPARKSNOTES

Six years ago, we built a cottage.  It was the result of ten years of dreaming and saving, and ten years of me cutting pictures out of magazines. I had a scrapbook and glue sticks and countless pictures of ideas for our cottage.  If only there had been Pinterest then, I could have invested … [Read more...] about SECONDARY ENGLISH TEACHERS ON PINTEREST