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You never get a second chance to make a first impression. We've heard that many times before, right? I believe that life is full of second chances, but it's an adage that I do pay close attention to when I meet a new group of students. Starting off on the right foot can do wonders for classroom … [Read more...] about My Favorite First Day of School Activities

English language arts is a very skills based course. Because of this, we end up teaching the same skills over and over across the grade levels. So, if you have a great lesson, one that works well, is it ok to use the same lesson for different grades? Absolutely. Obviously, you won't be … [Read more...] about Using the same lesson for different grades

Do you find that you are so tired at the end of semester that the thought of grading another paper makes you just want to curl into a ball and hide away? Me too. So I save my sanity with end-of-the-year speaking assignments. That way, when I am most tired, I can sit back and grade my students on … [Read more...] about End-of-Semester Speaking Assignments

We've all been there: classes that are chatty, rambunctious, and hard to manage or engage. They make every day a challenge, and leave you wondering if teaching is really for you. Some classes are harder to deal with than others, but I have a secret for you that can help you get better at dealing … [Read more...] about The Key to Classroom Management in Secondary Classrooms

Whenever I start a new text, I always begin with a pre-reading exercise that gets students engaged in the ideas we will explore in whatever it is we are about to read. I wrote about this process before, on this post, but now I'd like to tell you about how and why I tweaked it for making text to text … [Read more...] about Making Text to Text Connections

Engaging is one of those buzzwords that you are probably getting sick of hearing, right? Everything is supposed to be "highly engaging," so kids will get excited about learning because class is just so much fun. But have you ever wondered this: is our job really about engaging, entertaining - or … [Read more...] about Engaging, entertaining, or educating?

The other day, I posted a photo of one of my rubrics in Google Classroom, and I got a flurry of response - and lots of questions about whether I have them for sale. I don't and I won't. However, I'd love to give you some help with creating your own rubrics for Google Classroom. Why don't I sell or … [Read more...] about Rubrics for Google Classroom

At the end of each semester, my twelfth grade students have final conferences with me. I love them for several reasons (which you can read about here). and one is that I get some pretty solid feedback on my course. This year, something that came across load and clear was that my students really … [Read more...] about Scaffolding Speaking Skills for Student Success

Do you have comments that you make repeatedly when giving students feedback? I definitely do, and on the top of  the list is "tell me more." So many of my students don't fully develop their points, and their writing is pretty dull as a result. Therefore, I decided it was time to come up with a new … [Read more...] about Teach students to support their ideas

In my thirty year career, the thing I've found the hardest to get kids to truly understand, is how to do a literary analysis. Many of them can do one on a surface level, but most struggle to show a true understanding. I've been tweaking lessons for years, and the most success has come from using a … [Read more...] about A Visible Thinking Activity for Analyzing Text

Someone, somewhere, once said that necessity is the mother of invention. That is an adage we had to lean into - hard - in 2020. It was a year that challenged us in so many ways as we desperately tried to transfer what we know about good teaching from the classroom to the screen. One way I did that … [Read more...] about One-Sliders for Distance Learning

Two weeks before our holiday break, we were abruptly slammed into remote learning again. We had been face-to-face since September, so there was a lot of scrambling to make the switch. This time, it was very different than last spring because the kids were actually expected to show up and do some … [Read more...] about Taking Attendance for Distance Learning