The Joys of Teaching Literature

Catch-up days allow your students to conference with you about their writing, make sense of their notes, or make up missing work.

A list of ten creative writing projects for the end of a unit.

Put students in charge of their own learning by asking them to set goals when they receive feedback on an essay.

It's easy to change a text-based question into an essential question and it will make learning about the topic much more meaningful and interesting for students.

Learn how to assign a visual one-pager and celebrate the creativity of your students.

Learn how to categorize literary techniques to make them easier to learn.

Learn how to ask students to discuss music like you would a poem or story. Create a fun project or assignment related to music.

Students appreciate it when there's less academic rules and expectations for writing. Here's how to assign a creative nonfiction essay on a topic of choice.

It's easy to get distracted at work so here are some tips to stay focused and not bring work home.

These five simple methods will help you create a positive and welcoming classroom environment where students feel comfortable sharing their ideas.

Instead of getting upset about kids and their phones, let's teach stories about how and why people consume media.

Let's talk about the moving parts of the psyche and how students can use Freud to make a better interpretation of a character's behavior.

Give your students six options to create graphic organizers and track the patterns, topics, and motifs of a poem, short story, novel, or play. Posters are a great way to get students out of their seats by collaborating, presenting, organizing their ideas and quotes.

Learn five techniques that will help you teach The Bard.

Reading blocks held during class time may help students read challenging novels.

Let's think about how to get kids off their phone and tuned into the conversation.

Here is my list of 9 contemporary novels to teach in high school.

Students can present their thoughts in front of the entire class or they can record an interview by using their phone or computer. Here are three types of interviews and conversations that students can record.

If we want students to read and do the work, they need to constantly be in the process of meaning-making. Here are three ways I try to make things meaningful for my students.

Your students will love studying Serial, Season 1 with Sarah Koenig because it's real and relevant.

Give your students options when assigning a podcast. I'll review some techniques that will make creating a podcast easy.

There are a lot of things to consider when asking students to close read a passage in a novel. Learn some fun activities I do to make it manageable.

Here are six activities to keep on your desk to mix things up when interpreting a novel with your students.

There are all kinds of things English teachers can do to prevent the use of AI, but the most important is to provide verbal feedback while they write.

Instead of unit and thematic-based units with essential questions, you could try media and genre-based units where students study and then create podcasts, poetry, video essays, short fiction, and personal essays.