Celebrating the Good Stuff

Another idea I stole from Kelly Gallagher, my favorite author of books about reading and writing, -bulletin boards with a focus. Rather than displaying entire student essays, (which nobody actually reads) select a focus for the board and display work that demonstrates excellence in that area. A few weeks ago, my students wrote personal narratives. My bulletin board this week focuses on great hooks. The students were excited to see their work on display. Next time I will have another focus!

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TQE: Get students Engaged and Digging Deep

I've mentioned before how Twitter has helped me grow as an educator. Edutwitter is a valuable resource for book recommendations, new teaching methods, lessons, and articles. One of my favorite educators to follow is Marissa Thompson, a high school teacher at Carlsbad High. This summer I read about her TQE(thoughts, questions, epiphanies) method for discussing literature. I'd always longed for having discussions like the ones I had in my college literature courses, but when I try fishbowl or Socratic seminar with my students, the discussions felt forced, flat, and awkward. That changed today when I tried TQE for the first time. Sharing homework in small groups Students writing their TQEs on the board When I listened to Marissa's podcast on Cult of Pedagogy ( check it out here ), I was intimidated. After all, her students are in high school and have a rock star teacher. I think I read the transcript twenty times before finally trying it....

Writing an Essay...with a Partner

I love technology for collaboration! Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy. All students come with different skills and knowledge. With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process. Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience. Students need to learn to develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade. Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product. I...

Mock Trials-Periods 0 and 2

MY Ethan Couch (notice the shirt) Wow! What a fantastic week it has been for me as a teacher! My students have been working hard preparing for their assigned cases and getting ready to go to trial. Each group was assigned a case based on an article we read in class. One case was about a sixteen-year old boy named Ethan Couch. He had a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit when the car he was driving hit a disabled vehicle and killed four innocent people. He receive one year of rehabilitation in Malibu and ten years probabtion as his punishment. His attorneys blamed his behavior on what was called "affluenza." Please ask your child about this word and how it was used to defend him in court! The other case involved for teens who threw an eight pound rock over an overpass and struck the passenger side of a vehicle. The passenger was Sharon Budd, a middle-school English teacher and breast cancer survivor. Sh...

Learning, Laughter, and Love in Middle School English

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