The Joys of Teaching Literature

LGBTQ+ literature fits right in with everything English teachers do, including the the exploration of topics like identity and love.  In this episode, I'll talk about poetry, To the Lighthouse, and Giovanni's Room.  

Conversations outside of class can be a great way to bring new perspectives into the classroom.  In this episode, I'll talk about how we can ask our students to talk about literature with someone in the real world.  

For many students, this is a hard year to keep up with work.  Here are seven things I've been doing to make it possible for all students to finish this year strong.  

In this episode, I'll tell stories about the past year.  It's the audio recording for a video essay I created for my students.  

In this episode, I'll talk about all kinds of storytelling and how it can transform our world and ourselves.  

In this episode, I'll talk about fun projects that will create memorable moments and keep students engaged through the spring.

In this episode, I'll talk about an activity that will get students outside and thinking and talking about the past year.  

In this episode, I'll talk about eleven different topics that will help students see the relevance of literature.  

In this episode, I'll talk about why professional development should be job-embedded, or related to the daily challenges of teachers in a specific content area.  

In this episode, I'll talk about how excited students get about magical realism, and how they love getting the opportunity to create it for themselves.  

In this episode, I'll talk about when someone asked me why I wanted to be a teacher in a job interview a long time ago, and I'll update my response.  

In this episode, I'll talk about very short fiction, microfiction, sudden fiction, or whatever you want to call very short prose, and how it's perfect for remote or hybrid teaching.  

In this episode, I'll talk about screencasts and how they can be an alternative to a traditional essay.  

In this episode, I'll talk about the place for media literacy in an English language arts class.  I describe a small group project that will get students to think about how they consume a single news story.  

In this episode, I talk about what makes a superteacher, even though it's almost impossible to be one right now.  

In this episode, I'll talk about how I plan to restructure my novel units for virtual learning.  I'll also describe my topical approach to teaching the novel.  

In this episode, I'll talk about ten creative projects that will keep students engaged during hybrid or remote learning.  

In this episode, I'll talk about the things ELA teachers can do to facilitate a good conversation about politics.  

In this episode, I'll go through 50 songs that you could play to start class.  

In this episode, I'll talk about all the different ways we give feedback, and I'm not just talking about written feedback.  

In this episode, I'll talk about how we can get our students to set and achieve their own goals.  

In this episode, I talk about how students should be able to write about literature from the past, and also write for and in the present.  

In this episode, I'll talk about how I assigned sketchnotes at the end of my poetry unit.  

In this episode, I'll talk about reading poetry out loud and my six favorite poems to read in class.  I'll read "Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth.  

In this episode, I'll talk about the five best tech tools for small group work I used after teaching hybrid for a week.