I love to share ideas from others that I wish I’d thought of myself. Here’s one from Joe Bellacero who writes: I know that, as an English teacher, I wanted my students to read things outside of class so we could spend our time in class in more fruitful discussion and analysis. One of my [...]
Sometimes when students SEE how essays work, they can write their own with more confidence and competence. One thing that has worked for me is using colors, metaphors, and formulae. USING COLORS: If you can locate colored pencils or highlighters in different colors, enough for three colors per student, you can try this. [...]
It is effective use of time to have student respond in class to the writing of their peers. Here’s a structure that works well for a 50-60 minute class meeting. Keep in mind, it may take three tries doing it before students feel comfortable with the process. Sample guideline for structuring class is at this link to [...]
Selecting and using just the right/write/wright approaches to teach students think more deeply and write more precisely about characters they read about, observe in real life, and create in their own writing can be a challenge. This is about more than homonyms. It’s asking students to consider the tone of the piece as well as [...]
SEEING IS BELIEVING Sometimes when students SEE how essays work, they can write their own with more confidence and competence. One thing that has worked for me is using colors, metaphors, and formulae. USING COLORS: If you can locate colored pencils or highlighters in different colors, enough for three colors per student, you [...]
We always are looking for lessons to teach and assess skills in ways that students can incorporate newly acquired knowledge and practice fledgling skills. This assignment to write a speech about an abstract term is one I’ve use to introduce students to a variety of kinds of support once can use to explain, expand and [...]
Lookiing for a way to engage students to create a POETRY-Notebook that showcases their learning about poetry and other English Language Arts skills and completing a product/performance assignment that reflects your instruction to meet COMMON CORE STANDARDS. This poetry notebook assignment combines research, analysis based on strategies you’re teaching, such as Poetry T.I.M.E., and allows for student choice [...]
February is a great time to incorporate an oral language component into your lessons and invite students to memorize and recite a poem by an African American poet. This assignment lists several to get you started. To increase confidence and decrease apprehension, give the students the grading criteria when you make the assignment. Among criteria [...]
This set of handouts includes guidelines to provide students with what they need to complete an in-depth poetry project based on the Poetry T.I.M.E. approach to poetry analysis. This resource can be adapted easily to the analysis approach that you teach. See Chapters 7 and 8 in my book for description and application of POETRY [...]
