Recently I decided to include more music into my lessons. I started this with my American Literature courses (the College in the High School and mainstream classes), and my students have reacted quote favorably. Initially, I used The Who’s “Baba O’Rily” and “My Generation” with Anne Tyler’s “Teenage ...

I posted a few days ago about the CRAFTS Process for prompt writing, and I ended my post by saying I use another type of essay which helps prevent plagiarism. I use the personal essay, much like the ones colleges ask students to compose for their college applications. When teaching a novel I focus [...]

According to a new study in a Washington Post article: At a time when more authors are writing more books for young people, fewer children are reading for pleasure. A recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts showed that the percentage of 13- to 17-year-olds who read daily for fun dropped from 31 percent [...]

I thought I’d post some updates on the goings on I’ve discussed previously. When my class created bulletin boards about the 1920s for The Great Gatsby, things did not go exactly as planned. Being literal-minded students, almost everyone basically created the exact same research piece–exactly as I had written up the assignment. A ...

Is it possible to create a culture of failure? My school is currently being asked to discover why the Freshman failure rate is so high. 1/3 of the Freshmen failed a class during their first semester in high school, and statistically speaking 30% of Freshmen who fail a course in their first high school year do [...]

I am very excited to teach The Tragedy of Julius Caesar this week. I love this play! We finished up quite a bit of historical context last week and will begin Act I on Wednesday. The opening scene is so dense introducing some of the play’s major themes while injecting humor, word play, and emotion into [...]

Currently my school is looking to create an intervention system which exists during the school day. The requirements we must meet are: it must occur during the day, must not require any new cost, and must not require any new staff. Tough restrictions, but we have to think of something. So far, we have decided to [...]

On Monday and Tuesday we’re going to watch Star Wars and Mythology produced by The History Channel. I think the kids will be excited to see how the patterns, structures, and archetypes used in Greek/Roman and Norse mythology are still being used in modern storytelling. George Lucas specifically mentions Joseph Campbell’s work with ...