I learned about literature circles way back in college when a friend who was an elementary education major asked me to help her practice a literature circle before her class "test." I had no idea what a literature circle was. However, as an English Literature major, I knew I had to find out. I ...
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Six Unique Ways to Get Students Excited about Poetry
Back when I was in college, I took a course called Young Adult Literature. I was so excited to take this course because it was and still is my favorite genre. Before class started, our teacher posted the syllabus on our online classroom, and I remember being surprised to see a unit on poetry. At ...
12 Activities to Encourage Your High School Students to Love Reading
For most of us as English teachers, reading was a love-at-first-sight kind of experience, and while some of our students have that same natural love for reading, others simply have cold feet. Thankfully, it only takes a little creativity and the right reading activity for a love of reading to ...
How to Create an Effective Secondary Classroom Management Plan
Right after I landed my first teaching job back in 2009, my husband who had been teaching for four years at that point gifted me his copy of Harry and Rosemary Wong’s The First Days of School: How To Be an Effective Teacher. Even though so many things went wrong that first year, I am forever ...
The Ultimate Teacher Gift Guide 2019
Happy #feetup(Black)Friday! Just for something fun (and because I absolutely refuse to grade anything during this break), I'm sharing my 2019 ultimate teacher gift guide. Every item on the list is under $35 (or really close to $35). This list has all of my favorite teacher-y things (that I actually ...
How to Create Escape Rooms for High Schoolers
A few years ago, I was a chaperone for our school's senior class trip, and though escape rooms were a relatively new concept at that the time, we thought it might be something our students would enjoy (as well as the chaperones). We split up into groups with the chaperones being by ourselves. My ...
