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 [...]
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 [...]
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, [...]
Propaganda, Persuasion and Play-writing Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Lee Adapted from McDougal Littell Conversation: Lessons of History Includes links to Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts Download Inherit the Wind Lessons Though based on the famous Scopes “Monkey Trail” where William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow clashed over a [...]
Taking a Random Walk through the Book: An alternative way to introduce a new fiction on non-fiction reading *****Ask students to write on a piece of paper any ten numbers between the first and last page number of the book you are using. For example, 3,7, 27, 59, 78, 87, 115, 143, 205, 212 *****Next [...]
