The Joys of Teaching Literature

There are so many great teachers that share their creative ideas online, and this is one of the best ways teachers can improve and find new ways to inspire students. Visit my blog to find links to all the blogs and websites.  

The conclusion can be a game changer for our students who need a good reason to write.  The conclusion is what an education is all about, so let's rethink how we talk about the conclusion.  

My units on novels move from the large, external world of the character to the small, internal one (and then back again).  

Wouldn't it be nice if students could get just as excited to come to our classroom as they did for the big game?  Or if we had the same attitude toward mistakes, building skills, and teamwork?  This week, I'll elaborate on the metaphor, learning is a sport.  

The first time I saw a rubric, I thought, yikes!  That doesn't look like a whole lot of fun.  So let's think about how we can simplify rubrics so they are easy to understand and useful.  

We learned to juggle education websites last year, so now it's time to get back to pencil and paper and think about how students stay engaged in real life.  I'll go over the seven simple ways students learn.  

Lately, I've been trying to make things more exciting than usual to get my students excited about literature.  I'll go over five easy ways to inspire and motivate your young scholars.  

Interpreting poems about poetry can get students excited about a challenging literary form.  These six poems should help them use their imagination and embrace their confusion.  

Does that syllable get a stress?!  Prosody doesn't have to be hard, and it actually helps students appreciate the playfulness of poetry. This week, I'll go over how I teach prosody and rhythm.  

Be scared, be very scared.  I'm talking about the thesis statement, the be all end all of the essay.  Or is it?

It's fun to assign a personal narrative to start the year.  I'll talk about the ways that I try to inspire my students to write in their everyday storytelling voices.  

Start the school year with a revolution!  I'll talk about the first conversation I have with my students about the functions of language and all the reasons to love reading fiction.  

There are a few simple, easy things we can do to establish great relationships in our classrooms, which is the key to keep students engaged and excited to learn.  

It's way easier to teach Shakespeare by showing a film clip after your students read the text and do a close reading of a passage.  I'll talk about the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet from PBS Great Performances and how it helps students better understand the emotions of the characters.  Visit pbslearningmedia.org and search for "Romeo and Juliet" to view the clip.  

No, not that kind of drama.  Performance.  This week, I'll talk about how you can get all your students into performing, not just the theater kids.  

A few people suggested that I teach Beloved by Toni Morrison, so I gave it a shot last year.  I'll talk about the book and some of the questions Morrison wants us to consider.  

Students love to read fiction so they can understand another world in another time, but they also read to understand the world they live in right now.  In this episode, Elizabeth and B.H. James will talk about writing A Sea of Troubles: Pairing Literary and Informational Texts to Address Social Inequality. 

It's important and also easy to talk about race and culture in school.  In this episode, I'll talk about racial literacy.  

Displaying student work not only adds to the literary culture of our classrooms and schools, but it builds confidence so students feel confident to share their ideas.  I'll talk about my experience advising my school's student-run art gallery and all the ways I display student work.  

An organized classroom makes life easier for everyone.  I'll talk about how to plan organized units, set only a few due dates, and keep track of student writing.  

Last year, we adjusted and still managed to offer a quality education to our students.  But now, let's look at the ways we can make teaching easy, exciting and excellent.  

Every year, I complete my final assignment, a video essay where students reflect on graduating, what they've learned, and the future.  This year, we focused on the topic of love, so I called the project "The Love and Stories Project".  This is the audio for the video essay.    

It’s hard to imagine that anything positive will come out of this year, but I’ve been thinking about what, if any, lessons I’ve learned from teaching hybrid.  In this episode, I'll reflect on what worked and what didn't.  

Give your students an assignment to end the year that will be fun and meaningful.  In this episode, I'll describe how I end the year in my class.

There's a big difference between writing a story and telling a story out loud.  This episode is all about real life stories and their literary value.