Adventurous Teaching

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There is this wild thrill that happens both when traveling and when in the classroom: getting lost.

Whether I’m starting a new unit on Macbeth or trying to figure out which train to board that will get me to Machu Picchu, I’ve always felt excitement at the precipice of the unknown.

I’ve traveled the world inside and outside my classroom and it is my mission to help teachers discover the road to truly excellent teaching.

About amanda cardenas

Golden Apple Scholar
13-year English teacher in suburban Chicago
Experience in EL self-contained, co-taught English, AP Language, and all gen-ed 9-12
Staff Development Leader
BA, English | MA, Curriculum & Instruction
CEO at Mud and Ink Teaching®

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GET THE PD THAT YOU NEED

Ready to take your instruction and curriculum design to the next level? From department-wide solutions to 1:1 coaching, I will help you on your next adventurous teaching journey.

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What teachers HAVE TO SAY about Professional Development with Amanda:

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“Such a great and informative time shared with Amanda! The format of her workshop allowed for take-aways, reflection, and planning. Educator led and it showed!”

“Amanda gets it. She offers valuable advice because she was a teacher once upon a time. She truly understands the difficulties of teaching, and she has a plethora of useful teaching tips that can be implemented tomorrow.”

“It was amazing to see a whole district of teachers engage in a way that I have not seen before!”

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Featured

Teaching The Great Gatsby: A Teacher's Guide to Close Reading

Navigating the intricate themes and symbolism of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby can be a daunting task for both new and experienced high school English teachers. As a veteran educator, I've found that close reading strategies are invaluable in unlocking the novel's complexities and fostering deeper student engagement. In this post, I'll share insights into my close reading approach and provide practical tips for incorporating this method into your Gatsby unit.

TEACHING OTHELLO: What makes Iago Shakespeare’s Perfect Villain?

When it comes to choosing a Shakespeare play to teach to your high school students, there are a lot of factors to consider, but none more pressing than will this be engaging for our (mostly) disengaged students?

Engagement in learning is at an all-time low, so it is rapidly becoming a driving decision-making factor for teachers. Shakespeare, to begin with, has historically been written off by many as out of touch, irrelevant, and not necessary for students in their everyday lives. And while this has not been my experience at all, I can completely understand how it may have been the case for teachers.

Cultivating Critical Thinkers: My Approach to Teaching Literature

As an educator, I've always been passionate about instilling critical thinking skills in my students. It's a topic that I recently had the opportunity to reflect on during a professional development session, and I want to share with you the insights and strategies that I believe are essential for deep engagement in the classroom.

Life's Blueprint: An ELA Lesson Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. King’s legacy is especially powerful in the ELA classroom: his words, his rhetoric, and the passion with which he speaks them is not only worthy of study in its own right, but the overlaps into our content area make the analysis of the layers of his work that much more rich and impactful. Here is a free lesson walkthrough for your middle or high school English class celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

Planning a Novel Unit Reading Calendar

The art of pacing out the reading during a novel unit can be tricky, so we’re going to take some time today to talk through the process. Whether you’re teaching a classic or a contemporary YA title, there are special considerations to be made for the design of your calendar and how we backwards plan for ELA. Let’s jump in!

Does Taylor Swift have a place in the ELA Classroom?

And here's the thing: if your students are talking about Taylor, then so should you. This is an open door into engagement and skill building that is not to be missed. Here are three ways to pull the power of Taylor into your classroom and spike engagement among your students…

Where will your next adventurous teaching journey take you?

Improve critical thinking, instruction, equitable opportunities, and assessment by tackling a curriculum overhaul.
Listen to Brave New Teaching Episode 65: The Case for Inquiry
Read about how to write engaging essential questions
Grow your skills by taking the Essential Question Expert Masterclass
Participate in one-of-a-kind virtual training on teaching Shakespeare and teaching Dystopia
Watch Amanda perform a rhetorical analysis close reading of Julius Caesar Act 2 Scene 1 or the song “The Other Side” from The Greatest Showman
Learn how Amanda uses The Big Six poetry analysis tool and then use it with one of these 30 poems
Reevaluate your department’s path toward an equitable approach to texts across grade levels
Check out these LatinX poets and layer them into your curriculum this year
Explore a giant list of international texts to consider for your next literature circle or world lit course

STARTS HERE

About amanda cardenas

GET THE PD THAT YOU NEED

What teachers HAVE TO SAY about Professional Development with Amanda:

ON THE BLOG

LET’S GET ON THE ROAD:

Where will your next adventurous teaching journey take you?

RESHAPING MY CURRICULUM WITH AN INQUIRY-DRIVEN PEDAGOGY

DEEPEN MY EXPERTISE IN THE ELA CONTENT AREA

REFLECT & REVISE CURRICULUM WITH AN EQUITY, ANTI-RACIST FOCUS