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 [...]

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 ...

When teaching denotation and connotation I use numerous poems in addition to the literature we are reading (The Crucible’s use of “cold” is an excellent example if you are reading it, which we just were). Here are three I use with my classes: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Eagle” (also great for alliteration) He ...

To follow my previous post, here is another exercise I use with my students regarding adjectives. First, I put a list of words on the board all synonymous with “angry:” mad, upset, incensed, perturbed, enraged, disgusted, indignant, annoyed, peeved, infuriated, provoked, and irate. If I have the time I sometimes give each small group ...

One of the first sets of literary devices I teach at any level is connotation and denotation. These are two of the most basic diction analysis techniques for students to learn since they are wide-reaching and allow students to discover tone, mood, inferences, and more. Denotation (the primary definition of a word) and connotation (the [...]

Hi, My names Natalie.  I'm a Primary School teacher into my nineth year of teaching.  I'm interested in boy's education and mentoring students in reading, writing, and leadership.  Am looking forward to learning with you all.

    Hi, My name's Natalie and I'm a primary school teacher in NZ.  I've been teaching for nine years and still loving it!  I am interested in boys education and mentoring in reading , writing and developing leadership qualities in students.  I'm looking forward to learning from you all on this network.

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 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 [...]