Students should not be surprised about what they are expected to know and be able to do on an exam.  As you prepare the  summative assessment or final exam for your course consider ways you can help your students review effectively and then use exam time efficiently. The outline below is designed to guide the [...]

I invite you to view this TED Talk-Education clip featuring Sir Ken Robinson’s insightful and inspiring take on the future of education in America. Then, encourage you to reflect on your practice and decide what you can do over the summer to be prepared to nurture a climate of change built on curiosity and creativity [...]

Reading and Writing a Literary Critique Use the Nine Yardsticks of Value Chart to show how you rate the autobiographical novel Monkey Bridge by Lan Cao. Also, carefully read the following critique and use the chart to indicate what you believe to be the values of the author, “Monkey Bridge,” Cao has a distinctive style [...]

We sometimes wonder if taking the time to teach students to read the media is worth valuable classroom instructional time.  Check out this video, then look at some of the lessons on this site tagged “media arts”.  If you have time, view the slides on Viewing to add to your understanding of reading the media.  [...]

Viewing and Writing about Photos from Around the World   Preliminary Activity:  Direct students to a website similar to 24 Hours in Pictures .  Let them explore the most recent photos, choose three of their favorites and write one sentence response/reaction to those three. They can copy and paste the photo onto a Word document [...]

April 22  is Earth Day as proclaimed by the United Nations in 2009.  Here’s an English Language Arts  activity you can incorporate into your lessons that will raise awareness of some of the issues important to humankind and especially to Michael Jackson as expressed in his “Earth Song“.  Focusing on lyrics fits in nicely with [...]

Keeping a journal as they read helps prepare students for more engaging discussion and elaborated writing.  When they have thought deeply about key issues and written words, phrases and sentences to record those thoughts, students are more likely to speak up with confident and write with authority. Here are some journal questions to help your [...]

April 23rd is the day many celebrate the birth of William Shakespeare, one of the more widely read dramatists of all times. Prepare your students to understand Elizabethan society a little better. Have a go with your students and have them take a Humours Quiz  to determine their own basic personality traits, then see how they’d [...]

Spend some time reading poetry and deciding which poem you like well enough to share with the class. (Please select a new poem; one not done for previous assignments or projects). Steps to Selection 1. Select a collection of poems (a collection by the same or by different authors).  See our class anthology, Poems 180, [...]

Planning for Efficient Student Feedback on Speech Presentation Days (See variety of feedback form below) To help student focus on various aspects of public speaking by classmates, for each round of speeches, I ask students to complete one section of our speech check list each day they are not speaking. Once the assignment is given, [...]