I have an enjoyable but hyper, sugar-rich, Red Bull-high honors class which is quite difficult to control. Teaching this class reminds me of this commercial: Posted in Discipline, Honors      

Every year my department revamps the curriculum to teach the material more effectively and to improve student achievement. This year we’re taking a particularly close look at the vocabulary words we use in the honors courses. A few different means of choosing words, all backed by research, are available to us. 1. We could simply pluck ...

I had a great start to my week! I absolutely enjoy my classes, and my new collegaues seem to be adjusting and fitting in well. Here’s how my week went with some key lessons. College in the H.S. (American Lit.) I started the kids with a dozen literary terms. I created a chart with the following columns: literary term, definition, example ...

In order to be in our honors program in the English Department, we first require the students to submit a letter of application and then require the students, prior to the 9th and 10th grade years, to complete summer homework. These assignments are due on the first day of school. If a student does not complete this work, they are denied entrance ...

At last, I will be able to prepare for my classes today! The last three weeks have been nothing but department and building issues; “putting out fires” is what I tell people I’ve been doing. We have one English position to fill, which will be filled with a substitute until the five day hiring window closes. I think all of the ...

When handing back papers, especially among my honors students, I often run into some emotion. I tend to be a tough grader. fair but tough. My students realize this after their first writings are returned to them. For many students it’s the first time they haven’t “aced” a paper; this, of course, creates anxiety for [...]

I’m such a geek when it comes to teaching. Two weeks after the school year concludes, I’m ready to start again. Since I can’t have a classroom full of students to teach, I go back and revise and adapt my curriculum lessons during July and August. This year I have some more revisions to make, [...]

Two novels I taught this year were To Kill A Mockingbird and A Gathering of Old Men. Prior to and during reading these novels, I had the kids look at some songs, poems, and historical context. Here are a few of my favorite things concerning the race relations in the novels. Prior to reading To Kill [...]

While I assess diction analysis papers, personal essay, and literary analysis essays this week in the evening, I have scheduled enrichment films for my students. Here they are: Reading A Gathering of Old Men Malcolm X Separate But Equal Mississippi Burning Reading Frankenstein Edward Scissorhands Frankenstein Reading The Iliad Troy 300 Any ...

Here is a list of my favorite literary works of length to teach: To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare The Crucible by Arthur Miller A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens What are your favorite pieces of literature to teach? [...]