Sophistication – Exploring Tensions and Complexities (Path One)
The sophistication point on the AP Lit rubric (Row C) is the hardest to train students to achieve. One of the tools available to teachers to help students find it is in the standard phrasing of the...
View ArticleThe College Essay
Most of my students start their senior year with a primary focus: applying to college. As a result, we tackle the college essay early in my class – typically on Day 2. True, the college essay is not...
View ArticleUsing Signposts for Course Alignment
Earlier this summer I was able to spend some time in the Keys and started each morning by kayaking into the water to read. On most days, the water was so inviting – crystal clear, piercing blue, and...
View ArticleDay One Activities: Part 4
Instead of the usual “syllabus reading”, I decided to flip my classroom for day one. I posted the syllabus on our schools CMS and created a pair of Google Forms. One is an “About Me” form where...
View ArticleDay One Activities (Part 3)
Purpose:The purpose of this assignment is to introduce the concepts of literary analysis. Instead of jumping into what teachers expect students to be able to do by the end of the first term (or later,...
View ArticleDay One Lessons (Part 2)
As promised, in addition to my first day lesson, here are a few more Day One lesson ideas which are AMAZING! I so appreciate Lisa Boyd and Valerie Withers who teach in Henry County GA outside of...
View ArticleDay One Poetry Lesson
After what seemed like the shortest summer ever, we are back to school. First impressions are so important, and on day one I always want to set the tone – not in a “here are the expectations and rules...
View ArticleInhale… exhale… now write!: What we learned from Winton’s Breath
As Farrah Hilton mentions in her 2021 Reading Reflections, we are amazed at what our students accomplished to sit for this year’s full exam. We commend them on their effort and creativity, especially...
View ArticleIt’s The End of the Year As We Know It
This year was . . . well, y’all know. I found myself in a situation where we had exams on Monday and Tuesday with grades due Wednesday morning. (Yep – done here in Georgia. God bless all of you...
View ArticleEnd of the Year Values
This class is all about the exam; this class is not at all about the exam. – Lisa Boyd We start the year with this quote and talk about living in the dichotomy of learning that prepares students for...
View ArticleBeyond The Traditional Essay
I am a writing teacher at heart. Introducing students to methods of organizing ideas and stringing words together to tell a story or advance an argument is fun for me. The end product of teaching...
View ArticleYouTube Essays as Mentor Texts for Analysis
I watched a TedTalk this weekend by Evan Puschak, the creator of Nerdwriter, where he spoke on the topic “How YouTube Changed the Essay.” His premise is the written essay and the film-essay have...
View ArticleA Year of Pandemic Teaching – a Photo Essay
I decided to create a photo essay of this past twelve months which have been almost 100% virtual for me. This serves as both a way for me to document the past 365 days but also process them. The goal...
View ArticleAnd So We Teach On
This week marks the one year anniversary that I left school on a Tuesday afternoon unknowing of what the future held. While most teachers worked though Friday, March 13th, I was off the 11th for a...
View ArticleChoice Reading Meets Book Clubs
Many of us in education have been talking about how disconnected our students seem in the 20-21 school year. Sadly, the overwhelming nature of external stressors has become system wide. Even our top...
View ArticleTwo Approaches to Choice Reading
Classroom 1: Julie Adams, Midwest City, Oklahoma Growing up as a rancher’s daughter, I’ve listened to many dirt-road hours of country music and this year, like never before, I find the first lines of...
View ArticleAnd When You’ve Lost that Loving Feeling
It’s no secret: I love teaching. But just like every other relationship, my life-long love affair with teaching has had some good times and some not so good times because that’s how relationships (and...
View ArticleEncouraging Reading for Pleasure
At the beginning of each semester (we’re on block schedule), we read the AP Lit course description as a class and discuss it. One of my students said something this week that I cannot shake. She said...
View Article21 Texts in 21: Summary
One of my personal goals, not only in my classroom but on this site, is to introduce more voices and works that represent and celebrate all people and continue to expand and complicate the canon. I’m...
View Article“Me up at does” Analysis and Writing Lesson
Mara Corey sent this lesson early last week (or last year or last decade – who even knows what time it is anymore) and I was completely AMAZED at its detail and thoughtfulness. This two day lesson...
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