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 ...

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? [...]

I love using film clips or outside of class movies to enrich my students’ learning experiences, and the kids respond enthusiastically when I do use the cinema to enhance units. Any suggestions? I have the following novels to teach this semester: To Kill A Mockingbird, Frankenstein, Fahrenheit 451, A Gathering of Old Men, and Beowulf. I ...

What do Brutus (from The Tragedy of Julius Caesar) and John Anderton (from Minority Report) have in common? The answer is: pre-crime, preemptive action. And this is why my Sophomores will have the opportunity to watch Minority Report after school with popcorn and pop. I don’t tell the kids why they are watching the film, and [...]

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 ...

The Grapes of Wrath The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn The Tragedy of Julius Caesar