The worst is behind me.  I’m pretty sure about that. This week is a short week, to fit in parent conferences.  That always helps. I will finally have an assistant teacher — hooray!  She starts Tuesday, and I can’t wait.  She was so awesome in the interview the Prince kept sending me these looks saying, “let’s hire ...

Hooray for Mo Willems.  I decided that September would be Mo Willems month in my classroom.  Usually I have this “welcome to school” theme and I read all these books about school, but this summer I admitted to myself that I think all those books are boring, so I went straight to a unit on bugs and an author study on Mr. Willems, my ...

I love allusions. They’re one of the numerous reasons why I love language and the language arts. The other day I came across a great one, and I wondered how many people would catch the allusion. I laughed out loud and got a few looks of bewilderment from the people shopping around me. Dorothy Parker’s original: [...]

I use a lesson format I call the fish bowl. Really, it’s a modified Socratic Seminar except that every student is not required to be an active speaking participant. I have 8-9 students circle up in the middle of the room with their notebooks and texts while the rest of the students make a circle [...]

Eureka! I created a way to keep my bulletin boards changing frequently without increasing my workload. I know it’s not rocket science or a monumental unearthing of educational knowledge, but I got the students to do the work. I copied off a lengthy list of events, people, and items dealing with the 1920s in preparation for [...]

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 ...

The other day I posted about allowing my students to choose their final projects for The Princess Bride, and it looks to be a success. Once I gave the students the option of another thesis paper or their own project, they immediately jumped into groups (I gave them the option of 1-3 in a group) [...]

One of my absolute favorite stress reducers is taking my current bubble-gum novel (you know, the ones you can chew on and then spit out at any time), sitting in a quiet spot in a restaurant, and then reading my book. A quiet meal with a good story is an excellent way to relax and [...]

I love tangents in class. Yes, you heard me correctly: I love tangents in class. Sometimes I learn more about my students in these situations than in any other, and sometimes we all learn a bit more about life than we could have done during the normal lesson. Today while discussing the scene in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn where some ...