For many students, the Internet plays an important role in how they communicate with friends and family. It’s also increasingly being used for a malicious purpose: bullying. Internet bullying, commonly called cyberbullying, is when informational technology is used to subject a child, teen, or *** to harassment, ...

(Have you developed a particularly creative and successful lesson for your K-12 English, Social Studies, or IB Theory of Knowledge class? If you have, and can describe it in 400 words or less (not including student hand-outs you might want … Continue reading →

I’m starting a new novel with my students on Monday, and I like to give out a reading schedule for each book. Instead of a typical placeholder, I like to do two things with the bookmark. First, I print out a daily schedule of readings with the date and the pages to be read for that day. This means the students enter class having read those pages, ...

Every high school student knows his ABCs, and that’s a good thing since those very ABCs are a good tool in allowing kids to learn in fun ways. A number of assignments I use require the basics of the English language, and here are a few I’ve used recently. 1) I had one of my classes choose a Greek/Roman myth to read outside of class while we read ...

Earlier today I posted what I hope to be a regular feature in this blog — the Lesson of the Week (see Lesson Of The Week: What Does “March Madness” Have To Do With Theory Of Knowledge?). Have you developed … Continue reading →

(Have you developed a particularly creative and successful lesson for your K-12 English, Social Studies, or IB Theory of Knowledge class?  If you have, and can describe it in 400 words or less (not including student hand-outs you might want … Continue reading →

I’m not a huge fan of showing movies in class; most films do not meet my expectations for a good use of class time. I tend to ask myself: Will a clip suffice? Will a series of short clips from a film suffice? What is the purpose of using the film in class? Is this the best way to teach my stated goal/objective? However, just like the English ...

I continually hear from my fellow department members that kids today are not as intelligent as kids 10 years ago, and I admit that I have seen a distinct difference between the general students of today and a decade ago; however, I also see a marked contrast between the top 10% of my school’s students today and 10 years ago. I’ve thought about ...

Teachers and administrators at my school often ask how I keep my students on task for an entire period despite having quite a diverse set of classes to teach. I have previously mentioned my frequent switching of activities in a period, but the key to my success is rather simple and not very exciting: the entry task. To begin each period I have an ...

I’ve been getting lots of traffic on my “Freebies” page from blog followers and visitors. It occurred to me, though, that maybe not everyone has looked beyond the homepage of Lessons From The Middle.  I just had a peek at the Middle School Freebies collection that I started a while back, and I noticed that [...]