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 [...]

Today we started the film The Matrix and the kids are enthralled. What a great feeling to know they are learning the literary devices and analyzing while enjoying the process. Also, I introduced the double-entry journal, the Christ-like character attributes, and the heroic cycle. Everyone dove right in to the the work. While watching the film I ...

I purchased some movie units from Michael Vetrie, an alternative high school teacher in Sun Valley, CA, and I’m going to try one tomorrow. I will show The Matrix in half-hour segments, so the students can do the following: compose a double-entry journal, study the film using literary terms, analyze critical quotations in the novel plot how ...

I took a few pictures of projects for the end of The Great Gatsby unit. Each pair of students had to create an artistic rendition based on a quotation (Eckleburg’s eyes were popular) with an explanation, a sonnet connecting three characters, three essay question answers, and everything compiled into a display of some sort. Here are a few ...

A while ago I mentioned that I had my students research topics for the era in which our novels take place. We then used their findings to create visually pleasing bulletin boards. The requirements were: to include at least one image for each researched item, to type up a 6-8 sentence description or history for each selected item, to cite each ...

I have a fantastic week ahead. In my American Literature course we are finishing Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Raven.” Then the students get to finish their final projects, which they created for themselves. In my College in the H.S. class we are reviewing for next week’s final, and then these ...

I’m thinking about giving my students a choice with their final novel projects. The students may compose a second literary analysis paper, or they may create an alternative project which incorporates an analysis and a visual. They will have to decide on the option and what they will create by Monday and get my [...]

I’m not teaching as well as I should want to right now. I’m just going to throw out my frustrations in a venting session and call it good. Catharsis time. 1. My classes are just too large! My smallest class has thirty kids, and all of my courses are literature and writing courses. I’m getting [...]

My classes were awesome this week! American Literature: These kids have jumped right into The Crucible and explored the play wholeheartedly. They're asking the right questions and seem genuinely enthused to start each day. I think the groups I created are finally creating the collaboration I wanted to see. College in the High School: They love ...