12 Ideas for Teaching American Lit

1. Use a Highly Engaging Essential Question

When it comes to teaching American Literature, it can feel overwhelming deciding how to set up your curriculum.  Chronological?  Thematic?  By text?  Each of these methods has their benefits and drawbacks, but by far, the most successful way that I’ve seen American Lit courses flourish is under the guidance of a highly engaging and exciting Essential Question.

In our podcast Brave New Teaching, Marie and I talk about using the question, What is America’s story?  I love framing America as a story:  something complicated, evolving, and crafted by the people in it.  By teaching American Lit with a question rather than pre-designed topics or themes, it keeps units student-centered and focused on pursuing answers to student questions.  When we look at To Kill a Mockingbird, we use the unit EQ:  When injustice arises, is empathy enough?  With that question, we explore everything from the skyrocketing rates of incarceration to more commonly heard narratives of injustice in America.  We can look at Atticus and Bob Ewell with the same question - is empathy enough?  And if not, then what is to be done?  Exploring these texts, topics, and times in America’s history sparks genuine conversation among students.

2. Utilize a Literature Circle Unit

With soooo much available to cover in any American Literature class, Betsy from Spark Creativity suggests that one way to approach time periods or themes is to break them up into literature circle sets. For example, rather than have your whole class read The Great Gatsby, you might let kids choose to read The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, A Room of One’s Own, or a selection of poetry and short pieces from the Harlem Renaissance. As students work through their selection in their groups, have them share back to the class now and then, so everyone gets to learn from each other along the way. You can also bring everyone together to read complementary essays, listen to podcasts related to the era, or watch part of a documentary together.

Setting up literature circles doesn’t have to be intimidating. Start with a book tasting, and let kids find the work they’re most attracted to. Then have kids gather to break up the reading as they wish. Rather than assign the “roles” often used with younger kids, give older students creative prompts like one-pagers and character Instagram posts to guide them in responding to the literature along the way - these also make ideal visuals for helping groups share what they’re reading and learning back to the whole class.

As your students complete their works, wrap it all up with something fun like a literary food truck festival that will allow them to showcase their selection to the whole class. 

3. Ask Yourself, “Who’s Missing?”

“OK-who is missing from my curriculum?” is a question that drives Krista from @whimsyandrigor as she plans for her middle school English classroom. For many teachers, this question can be uncomfortable because it forces us to answer, “Ummm, it looks like my library represents white boys and I teach zero books with a BIPOC as a central character and all of the authors I teach are white…”

Yeah...that got awkward...

Krista developed a tool, inspired by a social location wheel, that enables teachers to analyze their libraries and curriculum so they can answer “Well, my library represents all of my students because I feature books with Black, Native, queer, white, and deaf protagonists that are part of the #ownvoices movement, so, yeah, my students see themselves in our books.”

Mic. Drop.

Here’s how it works:

• Download your free copy of a blank social location wheel HERE.

• Gather ALL of the texts you share with students. 

• Dive into that massive stash of Flair pens every teacher has. 

• Choose a text and choose a pen.

• Start filling out the wheel. It might look something like this:

• After you have analyzed the first text, continue the process with the remaining books.

• When you have finished, step back. What do you see? What do you NOT see? Who is there? Who is missing?

Now it is time to start researching books to fill those gaps. @buildingbooklove, @theconsciouskid, and @readingisresitance are all excellent places to begin.

If you are feeling extra empowered, take your completed social location wheel to your department chair or the administration and start having a tough discussion about who is missing.

Use #findthebookgap to connect with other educators doing the work to bring all voices into the classroom and visit Krista’s blog to get more real-life teaching ideas.

4. Engage with Social Media

Liz Taylor from Teach BeTween the Lines knew keeping kids engaged can be difficult, to say the least! That’s why she would recommend using something that they care about and know well to help guide them in their understanding of their novels and in the understanding of American Lit. Social media is the key! Having them “create an Instagram post” describing the theme/delving into the “American Dream”, or “post a tweet” from a character perspective on their American identity, can give a modern take to teaching American Literature.  In her blog post, Using Social Media to Create Engaging Reading Response Activities, Liz goes in-depth with a multitude of ideas on how to make sure your lesson plans are up to date and exciting for your class! This is a fun activity for both in-person and distance learning! She even includes an idea on how to turn a protagonist’s story into a Netflix Comedy Special! These activities could work for nearly any type of novel, and the possibilities are endless! 

5. Add Updated Novels Outside the Cannon

American Literature has a long history of canonical texts that are still found in many high school curricula. Samantha from Samantha in Secondary believes that one way to level up your course is to add updated novels that highlight the many complex issues in American society with a fresh lens. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely provides a look at the nuanced issue of police brutality by viewing it through the lens of two very different main characters, Rashad and Quinn. Readers are pulled back and forth as they are shown both sides of an incident of police brutality. Far from the Tree by Robin Benway provides insight into the new American household as she explores what the term family really means. Grace, Maya, and Joaquin are biological siblings who all lead very different lives, but are brought together by a common goal. This complex, heartwarming read will truly highlight all of the intricate themes begging to be explored in an American Literature course. (You can find a longer review and teaching ideas for Far from the Tree on my blog!) Finally, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson will give any American Literature curriculum an instant facelift. Captivating and thoroughly real, Stevenson takes readers on a journey through his years as a death row attorney in Alabama. The result is captivating. Stevenson even makes several comparisons to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird which would make for an excellent comparative unit. I invite you to explore your own curriculum for opportunities to refresh your texts. There are so many moving, thoughtful offerings that deserve a space in your updated canon.

6. Look at America Through Motifs

Do your students have trouble crafting meaningful analysis from motifs? We often see characters in American literature chasing the American dream, uncovering their identity, feeling alienated, etc., but how does an author develop these motifs and how can we help students unfold the impact? 

In her blog post, Motif Analysis: Simple Questions to Prompt Better Analysis, Kristina from Level Up ELA (@levelup_ela) shares a simple strategy which encourages students to look beyond the superficial and into the greater meanings of motifs across a text. She creates a list of 3-4 motifs in the text and assigns each student one motif to track on a graphic organizer while they read. Students document the concrete details and evaluate the context of the quotation, considering what was happening before, during, and after this quotation. Finally, she has them move into analysis. She asks them, “What does this example of the motif do? Does it reveal a theme, conflict, deeper characterization, etc.?” 

By giving students the final destinations (theme, conflict, characterization), students are more likely to make more meaningful connections. Finally, Kristina groups together students who tracked the same motif at the end of the reading to share analysis and create a thesis statement and product to showcase to the rest of the class what significance the motif holds. This lends itself well to a group discussion at the end of all of the presentations exploring the common motifs of American literature and why those might exist.

7. Make Real World Connections

Often, when students hear the term “literature” they immediately think of something boring and outdated; and, as a result, they tune out. Elizabeth from Teaching Sam and Scout suggests helping students make real world connections with classic novels by pairing them with contemporary issues and current events. For example, students can debate the pros and cons of “cancel culture” (The Daily, a podcast by The New York Times, has a great two-part series on this topic that’s perfect for the classroom) while studying The Crucible, examine social media addiction and manipulation (Netflix’s documentary The Social Dilemma is a great place to start) as they read Fahrenheit 451, or discuss the 2019 college admission scandal (this investigative report from USA Today gives all the details) as it relates to the American Dream and entitlement in The Great Gatsby. By tying together “old” works and “new” issues, students are more engaged with the text, better able to see literature - yes, even fiction - as a timeless tool for social commentary, and more inclined to think critically about everything they are reading, watching, and listening to. A win all around.

8. Break Up the Serious Discussions with Humor

Much of American Literature deals with themes that are important, yet heavy. In between reading more serious works, Molly from The Littlest Teacher likes to break up the gravity with an American humor unit. Short stories are perfect for this. 

Be sure to include classics such as James Thurber’s “The Night the Bed Fell” and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” or Mark Twain’s “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” and “What Stumped the Bluejays.” Although O. Henry’s beloved “The Ransom of Red Chief” is often read in middle school, high school students would benefit from reading it again, this time with an analysis of O. Henry’s use of staple humor techniques. 

For more modern American humor, check out the works of Erma Bombeck, Bailey White, Patrick F. McManus, or Dave Barry. This blog post has links to several more humorous American short stories for high schoolers that can be read online.  

9. Infuse the Curriculum with Modern Texts

In order for students to fully comprehend American Literature and participate in meaningful discussions four things need to happen: 

1. Students need to care about the book and topic(s) being discussed. 

2. Students need background knowledge about the book and topic(s) being discussed. 

3. Students need to feel safe to speak their true opinions. 

4. Students need to feel valued by the classroom community. 

Amanda from Amanda Write Now recommends reading modern American Literature and providing students with a text/media set before and during your American Literature unit in order to build background knowledge. 

This text/media set can include links to articles and videos that provide students with the background they need to fully comprehend the context of the book they are reading. 

For example, if you are taking a more modern approach to teaching American Literature (highly recommended if you want students to care about the book) you might choose to read All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and provide students with this text/media set. 

Students also need many opportunities to write their thoughts and ideas about what they are reading before engaging in discussions. Check out this blog post that includes 15 inspiring ideas for how to help students have more meaningful discussions about literature, whether those discussions are happening online or in person.

10. Incorporate Authentic Voice

Marie from The Caffeinated Classroom LOVES using podcasts in the classroom in any way possible because they are highly engaging and novel to students. When teaching a class like American Literature, it can be easy to feel stuck relying on the textbooks or pre-written curriculum we are given, but these absolutely do not tell a full story of America.

While there is really no way to include EVERY perspective within American culture in one single course, it is possible to broaden student exposure to varied perspectives quite a bit with authentic experiences told by the people who live them.

Two of Marie’s favorite podcasts to include are Storycorps and This American Life - both tell the stories of average, everyday Americans, as well as US Presidents, and all walks in between.

When students listen to podcasts they can analyze things like the storyteller’s style and craft, as well as the overall production and experience of being a listener. After listening, having students break down an episode together and discuss their own takeaways makes for a very rich small group discussion.

If using podcasts and other nonfiction texts is something you’d like to try in your classroom, check out this blog post and video for ideas on how to work them into your curriculum and current classroom setup. ;)

11. Pull kids in with a hook

It’s all about that hook says Samantha from Secondary Urban Legends. Before starting to plan any unit, we have to think about how the topic relates to today’s learners. If they do not see the connection to their lives and what is happening around them, why would they feel motivated to read and care about themes, characters, etc. Remember, the reading makes sense in the context of the reader. The story doesn’t come alive until a reader connects with it. Pop culture is rich with sagas that you find in many American Literature texts. For example, Gatsby. New money trying to blend with old money or selling out to get ahead. What about Lord of the Flies. For sure today’s students can be hooked on the chaos vs order theme that is essential to the story and there is plenty of that to go around in 2021.

12. Be Brave & Teach Through a Social Justice Lens

I’m back here to wrap up this post with a final thought: when you teach American literature, be brave. We are teaching in a highly polarized political climate, so it feels like any social justice conversation requires us to walk on egg shells. My encouragement to you is to be brave and take on the injustices that we see in our country. I’ve had.a lot of success helping kids think about our country through metaphors. Let’s start with an athletic one: say you (student) are an athlete — an exceptional basketball player. To get to play on the college team of your dreams, however, the coaches are looking at speed, agility, ball handling, and sportsmanship. You (the student) have a few options: insist you’re already the best and have no room for growth, or, request critique from your coaches, accept their recommendations for improvement, and work on those areas of weakness. Our nation is a lot like this: we are a strong, healthy democracy founded on a vision of equality and self-governance, but we’re also a nation responsible for forcible removal of Native Americans from their own lands, a long-time supporter and proprietor of slavery, and often misguided by greed and power. We can be patriotic AND critical in the same sentence. Establishing this understanding with students helps conversations around social justice moving forward, and I hope you have the courage to have those conversations.

Thank you so much for joining us in this blog post collaboration! See you next time!

LET’S GO SHOPPING!

Mentor Sentences, Grammar, and Padlet: A Digital Lesson

I’m asked all the time, “How do you teach grammar?” “What workbook do you use to teach grammar?” and other variations of that question on a weekly basis. And my answer?

I DON’T.

This is not to say that I don’t teach the construction of language, the structures of punctuation, and how to proofread before submitting final work. I do all of these things. But what I haven’t done is assign a single grammar worksheet or taught any direct instruction lesson on a grammatical construct in a very, very long time.

The Grammar Teacher’s Danger Zone

There are two red flags to consider when planning for your grammar instruction: methodology and historical oppression.

First, as teachers embarking on any kind of grammar instruction, there are myriad ways to go about that instruction. Direct instruction through PowerPoint lecture, assigning work through a third party like NoRedInk, or teaching in context alongside other materials (rather than in isolation) are common considerations. Jenn Gonzalez from The Cult of Pedagogy explores research related to these options and shares clearly that grammar in isolation is not the way to go. Others here and here argue similarly. So if isolation (AKA a single Grammar Unit) is not the way to go, then let’s explore the power of teaching grammar in context.

The second danger zone that lurks in the background of the lessons we teach and the way we present grammar to students lies in the roots of oppression and colonization. In the United States, the English language was brought over from Europe and has remained the dominant language ever since. Native Americans have been long-time victims of the pressures of assimilation, especially when it comes to education. There have been mandated educational standards forcible enrollment in specially designed schools since the mid 1800s where “children were severely punished, both physically and psychologically, for using their own languages instead of English” (Klug, Cultural Survival). The message consistently sent by Standard English is that following the “proper” constructs of the language, one can be part of a more highly respected group of people. Cultural dialects and foreign languages have often been shelved at a lower place than Standard English, leaving us English teachers to sort this whole thing out as we look out at our sea of incredibly diverse voices in our classrooms. How do we teach English grammar in a way that helps students become stronger communicators and still validate the beauty and cultural importance of native languages and dialects? It’s not easy, but I can tell you right now we can stop doing two things:

• circling every error we see with a red pen (or digital equivalent)

• teaching full-length grammar lessons out of context

On a related note, you should hear what Vanessa has to say about teasing people about their accents:

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A post shared by 🎙Vanessa | Teacher - Podcaster (@empoweredteachingpodcast)

So what DO we do?

I have a self-conscious disclaimer: this is one of my sore spots in teaching English. Grammar makes me very nervous and self-conscious, even though I mostly know what I’m doing. Honestly? I’m a terrible proof-reader. If you’ve been here on this website for any length of time, I can honestly report that I rarely do more than a quick skim to see if there are any glaring errors. If not? I publish. Readers catch mistakes all the time and I thank them, correct it, and move on.

I try to take this attitude with my students when we approach grammar instruction. Any time a grammar lesson is in play, it’s surrounded by encouragement to experiment and try. Not a single grammar lesson goes without a reminder that learning language is just another way to help my students find their voices. We learn constructs and play with them. Mostly, you’ll see grammar lessons in my classroom immediately following a major piece of writing as I teach the common errors in the context of the paper and making improvements. We also look at speaker’s and author’s syntax in writing, much like we look at diction and tone. You’ll hear me say things like: Hey! Do you see this? This is called an appositive phrase and this is where we see the speaker’s real attitude toward the subject come out! What would happen to this sentence if the appositive were taken out? That’s right! This would have been a pretty neutral sentence if it wasn’t for that side-comment appositive phrase. Let’s try manipulating that ourselves…

What does this look like with technology?

One lesson that I shared on social media recently is a caption writing activity that uses Padlet. Padlet’s software is free for three uses, and then moves to a paid tier. This activity is great because you can complete the activity, keep it live for a while, and then delete it — freeing you up to use Padlet again for another lesson.

STEP ONE: CHOOSE AND TEACH THE GRAMMATICAL CONCEPTS

To do this, I built my students a YouTube playlist and sent them out to watch, take notes, and collect examples of 10 different grammatical concepts with varying levels of difficulty. About half of them were probably familiar to students from previous years of their education (this is a lesson I did with 11th grade) and the other half were probably new or generally unknown to them. My handout looks like this:

STEP TWO: PRACTICE AND PLAY

Once my students had a working knowledge of these concepts, we started looking at examples from literature and from of the major works we study for rhetorical analysis. We discussed Fitzgerald’s use of aposiopesis when he ends The Great Gatsby with the lines:

“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.… And then one fine morning— 

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

We also looked at Elie Wiesel’s simple, yet powerful use of a semicolon at this point in his speech “The Perils of Indifference”:

“We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms… So much violence; so much indifference.”

These discussions served two major teaching points for me: one, they put grammar into context, which as we know from the above research is imperative, and two, this is how I help students learn what analysis looks like. We can identify aposiopesis and a semicolon with relative ease, but the discussion about how and why are they effective given the context is where I want my students to be in their writing.

Now, it’s time to play. Enter: PADLET.

The idea behind this Padlet lesson is for students to manipulate language to create a noticeable change in meaning, tone, or purpose to a given sentence. Here’s how I set up the Padlet:

1. Head over to Padlet and login with your credentials. Click Make New Padlet.

2. Choose the SHELF option to set up the lesson the same way that I did. This option is what I use for any gallery walk type of lesson.

3. On Shelf 1, provide your instructions and any other notes for students to reference as they work.

4. On the remaining shelves, provide an image and a neutral-ish caption. For this particular sample, you’ll see a variety of images that are connected to what our class discussions have been about recently. The variety is key: choice in this lesson is critical so that students can find a comfort zone where they can experiment without feeling overly restricted.

5. Ask students to login to Padlet. This makes it easier to see who comments as it will automatically display their names.

6. Students now can see all of the images and captions and choose five (that’s what I asked for!) of them to modify using a grammar construct that we practiced earlier in the week.

That’s the gist! Afterwards, I had students read through the Padlet and upvote their favorite sentences, they pulled examples from the Padlet to analyze in small group breakout rooms, and, ultimately, complete a self-evaluation on their growth and progress in their ability to identify and analyze these concepts.

I’m curious to know: how have you been successful with grammar instruction in your classrooms? How else have you used Padlet’s shelf feature?

Let’s go shopping!

4 Ways to Use Design Thinking in your English Classroom

4 Ways to Use Design Thinking in your English Classroom

This blog post is sponsored by Intuit

If you’re new to the Design Thinking approach, you’re not alone.  Design Thinking has been around for a while and widely utilized by corporations and businesses, but discussions about its power in the education sphere have been relatively quiet.  I like to think of Design Thinking as Problem/Solution thinking -- a foundational part of building a classroom dedicated to critical thinking.

Intuit the makers of QuickBooks, TurboTax and Mint, have put together an incredibly useful (and free!) resource to help teachers get started with design thinking in their own classrooms - the Design for Delight Toolkit.  The toolkit is designed to help teachers teach students the basics of design thinking in an interactive, problem-solution format. The toolkit can be used by any teacher whether in classroom or virtual.  Not only are the materials ready to go for presenting on the teacher’s side, but each worksheet can be uploaded and used with the extension KAMI to mark up and even sketchnote on the PDF.  Use breakout rooms in Google Meetes or Zoom for students to discuss the big questions presented and start the process of design thinking with a little collaboration.

1. Research

When developing research projects for students, this approach is incredibly powerful.  In the initial stages of your research project, have students begin with identifying problems.  These could be problems related to social injustice, life as a teenager, or even issues that they find in social media.  Whatever the scope of the research might be, starting with the problem naturally focuses the research.  Then, through the brainstorming process, ask students to list possible solutions to research.  The Design for Delight Toolkit comes in handy here, as many lessons are created for teachers to implement right away.  Rapid experiments and partner interviews are just a few of the engaging and fun lessons that the toolkit provides that you can implement right away.

2. Fiction

Romeo has a problem:  a seemingly incurable love sickness.  Daisy has a problem:  an unwillingness to do the right thing and pathetic lack of a spine.  Fictional characters across the cannon and contemporary texts face problems and conflicts all day long.  Why not apply Design Thinking to their issues?  What could a solution to Romeo or Daisy’s problem look like?  What could work?  What would be disastrous?  The critical thinking required for these kinds of conversations, whether through a socratic seminar or through writing, are the kinds of lessons that grow our students.  This is not fact or plot recall - this is critical thinking.

3. Rhetorical Analysis

Intuit’s Design for Delight Toolkit is also nicely lined up with rhetorical analysis lessons as well. As we work through speeches and commercials, I’m constantly asking my students “Who is the speaker? What is her purpose? Who is her audience? How does she go about convincing that audience of what she’s trying to say?” Thinking about audiences as customers and the process of building rhetoric dovetailing with understanding the concept of “deep customer empathy” are a natural fit. Design thinking can help students look at the engineering of an argument and in the way a product is being pitched to an audience.

4. Project Based Learning

Similar to research papers, project based learning and passion projects are another place to instill the design thinking mindset. The toolkit provides easy lessons to help students start the brainstorming process, worksheets, and supplemental posters and collaboration tools. In my most beloved passion project, Be the Change, students begin the process by selecting an “issue” that they care about. In design thinking, students would instead start by brainstorming a huge variety of problems that they see in the world, and from there, selecting the problem for which they can help find a solution. As an English teacher, this gives me a clear and helpful way to show students what belongs in the introduction of the writing or project (the problem) and a clear line of reasoning all the way down to the conclusion (the solution).

No matter how you are including college readiness into your curriculum, know that the work you’re doing is important. I’d love to hear about your experience with teaching design thinking in your classroom in the comments below!

A New Twist on Article Of the Week: Coffee & DONUTs

Disclaimer: I am an affiliate with The Donut and will be compensated if you use my referral links below. All ideas, opinions, and suggestions are my own!

In my brick and mortar classroom, I have to admit, I’ve always been pretty bad at following through on “weekly” assignments. I have started so many activities that were intended to be weekly rituals and, although SO well intentioned, I either can’t keep up with the idea or just run out of inspiration and ideas by the time we reach October and November.

I had especially high hopes for implementing Kelly Gallagher’s "Article of the Week” activity. I had a few ups and downs and, ultimately, just couldn’t keep things going. I often struggled with a lot of self doubt when selecting articles, whether they were ones from Gallagher’s own website or ones I was trying to implement myself. There were formatting issues, Lexile issues, and most concerning: bias issues. I was always worried that with just one article I was setting myself up to be one-sided and not giving students the chance to see multiple sides to a story.

ENTER: THE DONUT.

Not too long ago, I was contacted by a staff member at The Donut. The Donut describes themselves as “a community of people changing the world through inclusiveness and positivity. We provide fact-based summaries of the day’s biggest stories and shed light on big-media spin, all while promoting good vibes and civic action”. Okay! So, yes. Yes to all of this.

I subscribed to their free daily newsletter which serves as a daily news update, and found that The Donut delivers - for each issue of the day, 2-4 sources are provided AND labeled on the media-bias spectrum. I immediately saw how valuable this could be with my students and I’d like to share those with you:

1. Everything is curated FOR you. No more looking for articles online. The newsletter is published daily and archives are available from previous dates. Less work for me? Check.

2. The stories and layout are both accessible for students and colorfully designed. The design of the newsletter might sound like a silly reason to get on board with the program, but there’s something magical about packaging that looks attractive and fun, but not childish.

3. The variety of perspectives is wide and deeply informative. I can now offer my students CHOICE when looking at an issue and ask them to determine their own stance on a spectrum. And remember, all of the leg-work is done for you.

4. Um, it’s free. Yes, there are some sponsored products/ads in the newsletter, but so far that hasn’t been a deterrent for me.

Here is a screenshot of the opening section of the newsletter: a deep dive into an important conversation

How I plan to use The Donut

Right now, I feel like The Donut is a springboard for discussion. In my virtual learning classroom (and eventually hybrid and in-person classroom) I’d like to use The Donut as a weekly reading and reflection activity. I’ve created a Google Form that I can reuse each week and I plan to have the students read a minimum of two articles on the focal issue of the newsletter. Then, I want them to identify the claim of the source and at least two pieces of textual evidence that support the claim. Finally, students will reflect and share their own impressions and ideas on the issue in writing, followed by either a live Google Meet discussion or a Flipgrid based discussion with the rest of the class. If you’d like a copy of that Google Form, help yourself and download below!

For more ideas and live tutorials, be sure to check out my Instagram page and highlights!

If you’d like to subscribe to The Donut, I’d love it if you used my referral link!

The Big List of Global Literature for High School English

In most high schools in America, junior year has been dedicated as the American Literature course. And while that might be the case, I found that MOST of the high school English experience is dedicated to American (meaning, from the United States of America) authors and settings, not just during junior year. I’ve only spent a few years at this level, but what I noticed quickly is that American students generally have a tunnel vision narrative of America.

America is certainly a diverse, conflicted, and important place to understand, but we have a pretty serious blind spot to reckon with: what about the rest of the planet? What’s severely lacking in our curriculums are experiences for students that help them see the US from the outside in, rather than only from the inside out, and, not to mention, the ability to see that the American way of doing things is not the ONLY way. Adding international stories and perspectives into our student’s high school education is vital as they move into a global economy and a world much bigger than the bubbles where they are growing up. Sure, we’re offering novels here and there, and short stories too, but from where I’m standing (myself included!) is intentionality in making sure that our students don’t graduate with single story narratives of the rest of the world. We must combat the ethnocentrism that American schooling perpetuates.

So I started collecting titles. This year, my students will embark on a new unit within their English 3 experience focused on this essential question: How do I find my voice in a global conversation? I wanted books authored by people from countries other than the United States and that take places in settings outside of the US as well. Some of these stories are immigrant experiences and provide contrasts between the US and the protagonist’s home country, but for the most part, the stories take place entirely away from US soil. If you’re looking to change up your curriculum too, check out my free curriculum map template to help you get started.

This list is broken down by country, but that’s just to give us a starting point. This list needs to grow and evolve: I have admittedly not been able to read every single title on the list, so many of my selections were based on reviews and recommendations from others that helped me categorize them and decide if they would be appropriate for the secondary English level. There are a handful of YA novels on this list, but for the most part, I tried to include a balance of text levels for struggling to advanced readers. And, to make things easier for you, I’ve included a free download of a Google Docs (editable!) version of this blog post at the very end! This post is a living, breathing document that will continue to grow. Have a title to add? Share in the comments below!

The titles below are linked to Amazon where I am an affiliate partner. If you choose to make a purchase through one of my links, I will earn a small commission at no cost to you.

• The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara

• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana

• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue

• A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

• Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

• A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

• Buried Beneath the Boab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi

• A House in the Sky by Amanda Lindhout

• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

• A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

• The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

• Sold by Patricia McCormick

• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

• Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

• Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

• In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park

• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

• The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

• The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

• Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See

• I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai

• Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel

• The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

• The House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende

• An Uninterrupted View of the Sky by Melanie Crowder

• The Disappeared by Gloria Whelan

• Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard

• City of the Beasts by Isabelle Allende

• The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

• The Queen of Water by Laura Resau

• Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea

• The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea

• Dancing with Cuba by Alma Guillermoprieto

• The Murmur of Bees by Sofía Segovia

• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

• Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario

• American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

• In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

• Like Water for Chocolate Laura Esquivel

• Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya 

• The Cat King of Havana by Tom Crosshill

• Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

• Refugee by Alan Gratz (contains stories from multiple continents)

• Beartown by Fredrik Backman

• Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys 

• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

• Code Name Verity by  Elizabeth Wein

• The Unbearable Lightness of Being: A Novel by Milan Kundera

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The 7 Best Places to Find Supplemental Texts for ELA

Building Essential Question based units means that now, instead of wholly relying on a class novel to drive a unit, you can lean into a wider variety of texts without feeling like you are neglecting the class novel. If you’re new to Essential Question and inquiry-driven unit design, I have a blog post here and here that can help you get started, but if you’re here now, let’s go ahead and get started!

Where can I find supplemental texts?

This is probably one of the top questions I’m asked by teachers as they are trying to rebuild their units. Before you start searching, it’s important to do a little brain dump and keyword brainstorming before you hit the Google. When looking at your unit Essential Question, jot down a few initial ideas that answer these questions:

• What are some historical events that could provide context for the EQ?

• What are some current events that could provide context for the EQ?

• What are some thematic key words that you are hoping to teach/reinforce during the unit?

• Where do BIPOC stories and voices factor in to the unit?

• What are some sub-questions or additional questions that stem from your EQ?

• What are some genres that haven’t yet been covered in the year? (flash fiction, poetry, podcasts, visual journalism, etc.)

Once you have a general handle on what kinds of stories and materials you’re looking for, you’ll be better equipped to use various search engines effectively.

As you are searching, keep in mind that supplemental texts should be on the short side. We’re talking 15 min for a video (more or less), short stories around 3-5 pages, podcast episodes that can be taught, listened to, and reflected on in 1-2 class periods, and so on. If supplemental text become too cumbersome, it can be hard to keep kids engaged toward the end of the third day of looking at one New York Times article. Finally, don’t forget to keep your finds easily accessible on your year-long curriculum pacing guide.

Here are my go-to spots when I look for supplemental texts for my units.

1. TED

   From TED Talks to TED Ed, there are so many thoughtful, yet brief discussions to pull from the library of TED. I especially love that TED talks all come with transcriptions, so sometimes, I have students READ the talk before watching it and we use it as a text to analyze for argument. Students can refer back to the text and pull evidence easily for socratic seminars, essays, etc. Some of my favorite TED Talks that I use or have used in the past include:

   Why Domestic Violence Victims Don’t Leave

   The Danger of the Single Story

   The Danger of Silence

   My Son Was a Columbine Shooter

   My Escape from North Korea

   Choice, Happiness, and Spaghetti Sauce

   Body Language

2. Great Big Story

   Great Big Story is a place where you can find current events on both a local and international level. All of their content is video based — and the videos are vibrant, short, and highly engaging. The stories are neatly categorized and I love that as I watch a video, there are more related videos in the lineup ready for me to check out. I love this powerful feminist story about a young woman from SoCal who started a low-rider car club and this entire channel dedicated to “brave voices”.

3. Common Lit, NewsELA, and Actively Learn

These three sources all do a similar job of cataloging, leveling, and suggesting texts that correspond with novels and with thematic topics. Each requires a login/membership and some have paid options, but overall, you can find quality articles on any of these sites and almost always for free. Each platform fuctions a bit differently than the other, but overall all three sources are uniquely set up to support ELA teachers in the classroom.

4. Poets.org

My friends, if you haven’t read my Teaching Poetry ebook series yet, you need to get on it! In the book, I provide tons of ways to incorporate poetry into your everyday, year-long curriculum — don’t wait for an isolated poetry unit to teach some poems! I love using poets.org to search for poems that will thematically supplement my units. The search feature actually has a THEMES option, making it easy to find new voices (and some old ones!) to join the conversation in your unit. I have thirty other recommendations here if you want to save some time!

5. Longreads

Longreads has some of the most beautiful, modern online fiction pieces that I can find. I subscribe to their newsletter which helps me keep an eye on what’s new and what’s suggested from their editors. I like that each piece (some memoir, some nonfiction, some fiction) is clearly labeled at the top with a word count and estimated time for reading - talk about an English teacher’s dream! You’ll find complex, layered stories here that stretch your students.

6. This American Life

Every week, This American Life publishes a new audio story that takes an intimate look at American culture. Students can listen on the website (no need for a podcasting app unless they want to use it there) and there’s always a transcript! The stories here are beautifully and engagingly told and cover a huge variety of perspectives, authors, and lives. Check out a few of these to get a brief taste of the variety offered at This American Life:

We Are In the Future: Afrofuturism

The Weight of Words

Chip In My Brain

Essay B

7. The Slowdown

I listen to The Slow Down every morning while I’m getting ready. Each episode is only five minutes, and the host, Tracy Smith, shares extensive commentary and thoughtful context to each of the poems featured on the show. Tracy’s commentary always gives me ideas for lessons and I’ve even done lessons that have students listen to 4-5 episodes in a row and look at the threads across all episodes.

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How to Lead Your Grade Level Team

Over the past thirteen years of teaching, I have seen the entire spectrum of experiences that come with attempting to build a course curriculum with a group of teachers. At it’s worst, egos and selfishness can create a miserable team environment, but at it’s best, working on a grade level team can reenergize even the most tired souls and make a drastic, positive impact on the education of the students being served.

So you’re leading the team…

Maybe you’ve been asked to lead a grade level team. Maybe you’re on a grade level team that has no appointed leadership and you’re ready to take the reins. No matter how you arrived at this moment and this blog post, you’re probably wondering where to start and what exactly your role should be. As your team works together during this school year, here are a few things to always keep in mind.

LISTEN.

There’s nothing worse than being part of a team and knowing that your leadership never listens to your idea, or worse, never solicits new ideas or conversation. At the end of the year and before any summer revamping starts, I like to send this Google Form out to my team to get feedback on their experiences over the past year. I find that a combination of in-person meetings and email/survey types of communication is great. Some of my teammates are a bit more reticent to talk during a team meeting but have so much to share via email and Google Docs/Forms.

ORGANIZE.

There are a lot of moving parts when working on a curriculum team, and it’s your job to keep them all organized - digitally and physically. My team meets weekly, so I make sure to always have a few things organized for each team meeting:

• An email reminder the day before about our meeting

• A brief agenda in that email with our goals/topics that will be covered

• An ask for any other items from the past week that should be addressed

• During meetings have someone take notes

• Keep your curriculum map/pacing guide updated regularly

• Link common assessments and assignments on the curriculum map so that everything is easy to find in one place - not scattered and hard to find with random titles in Google Drive

• If you are using Google Drive, come up with a simple naming system for documents or folder system so that everyone can find what they need when they need it

• Send out a brief recap of the meeting at the end of the day for all who were unable to attend and so that everyone knows the focus and mission of the upcoming week

• Bring or bookmark the school calendar for every meeting so that as you plan lessons and assessments you can cross-reference dates

CONTROL.

Yep, I said it. These meetings need to be controlled…by YOU. If your team has a habit of chatting off topic for the first fifteen minutes, there’s something you need to handle. Leading a curriculum team means taking on a position of leadership that you might not have taken on before and this can feel quite strange and even intimidating. But remember, you’ve got this. Control the situation by redirecting the conversation to the agenda that everyone got in their emails (see why organization is important?!). When teachers come in to team meetings bashing other teachers or even students, it’s your job to stand up and let them know that kind of attitude is not welcome in the meeting. You are in charge — you’re not a dictator, but you must take responsibility for the quality, productivity, and character that you expect from your team.

SPARK JOY.

Your team is going to have high and low times during your year together, and that is totally normal. As much as you can, find ways to spark joy in your team meetings or even in your interaction with teammates outside of meeting times. Can you remember a birthday? What about sharing a positive student story each week? Is there somewhere for your team to visually celebrate wins? No matter how small, take the time to gear your meetings toward the positive side of experience and frame your time together in terms of making progress toward a collective goal that everyone genuinely cares about.

REMEMBER YOUR WHY.

Why did we start in this profession to begin with? I can guess that for most of us, it was the kids. It’s always the kids. As things in teaching get more and more complicated and inane demands are thrust onto our plates, it’s easy for teachers to start drifting away from their original purpose for joining the force. Keep reminding your team of your WHY. Who is this lesson serving? How does this plan reflect the people in front of us? Are we talking about rigor or busy work? Challenge each other to focus on what’s best for kids - not what’s easier for teachers.

SET AN EXAMPLE

If your team has planned a lesson together and when you teach it the lesson completely bombs, be honest! Share that experience! Being a good leader means having the willingness to “step into the arena” (Roosevelt) and that “arena” is a metaphor for VULNERABILITY (Brene Brown Daring Greatly). Teachers on your team will appreciate you sharing your failures and discussing a rebuild for the next go around.

…AND SHIFT YOUR MINDSET TO “OUR”

When I think back to the glory days of the most productive, cohesive team of teachers I ever worked with, I can pinpoint our success one one common denominator. We stopped saying “my” kids and “your” kids and started saying “our’ kids. We were the English 2 TEAM. These were ALL of our kids. We visited each other’s classrooms - and I mean I legit would unannounced and uninvited walk into my teammate Kyle’s room to announce the most random and unrelated information: “Mr. Etheridge! Last night my cat barfed up last month’s birthday confetti.” Things like that. For one week, we designed a short unit about getting ready for college and we organized a Teacher Swap: each teacher shared her college search journey with each of the sections of English 2 until all students had heard all teacher’s stories. The students became one big group that we, as a team, were trying our best to help achieve the highest success possible. This dynamic didn’t last forever and it was hard to build, but when we got there, it was exactly what education is supposed to be.

Good luck on your curriculum team journey! As always, let me know how I can help!

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How to Set Up Your ELA Curriculum Pacing Guide

Traditionally, curriculum maps are developed based on one, golden goal:  meeting standards.  In my experience and research, standards are not only different in different parts of the world, but oftentimes are limiting or inaccurate representations of the big picture of what students need to learn in a given year.  This curriculum map template should both serve as a functional way for your team to make a plan, but also a place to start important conversations about what curriculum writing can do for a school and its students. When I sit down with my team to put together a curriculum map, I always keep these following principles in mind:

ONE:  A high school English curriculum should be anti-racist, representational and diverse in its texts, mediums, genres, and approaches to learning.

TWO:  A high school English curriculum should spiral and build skills, teach and reteach, assess and reassess.

THREE:  A high school English curriculum should be inquiry-driven and strive to build curiosity.

FOUR:  A high school English curriculum should concern itself with modern, current, and important world events.

FIVE:  A high school English curriculum should strive to build informed citizens with a critical eye toward messages shared in the media.

As you work with your team to develop your curriculum overview, add to these core beliefs. Draft statements that you want to unite your team as you work toward a common goal: educating curious, critical-thinking citizens. The conversation that you have BEFORE building the map and about the students you serve is critical in building the curriculum that your students need.

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9 Headings to Include on your Pacing Guide

1. NUMBERED WEEK:

My first column is WEEK. I used to try and use an exact calendar, but I’ve found that a simple weekly outline is much easier to manage at the year-long scope.

2. UNIT EQ:

The most important guiding light for each of my units is the Unit Essential Question. Placing this in primary location on the guide always helps me stay focused on the purpose — to explore this question using the skills and texts for the unit. The question also reminds me to take a step back every now and then and assess my classroom: who’s asking the questions? Who’s doing the work? Are things moving in an inquiry-driven direction? If not, we quickly return to the EQ and reset from there.

3. FOCUS SKILLS/TARGETS/OBJECTIVES:

Next, I list the focus skills of the unit. Note, I don’t list ALL of the skills students will learn and/or practice, just the focal points. These skills come from the assessment designed for that particular unit and the specific author’s craft elements that manifest themselves in the texts at hand.

4. CONCEPTUAL IDEAS:

This might be a new column for some of you. This column is, for me, the next most important after EQs. Yes, I said it: ideas are more important to me than skills. Big ideas are prevalent in English and for the early part of my career, we talked about them when they came up. I never made an intentional effort to address things like racism, toxic masculinity, or even nurture vs. nature. Conceptual ideas have traditionally be reserved for other subject areas, but once I started pulling these into units and shining a light on them, I saw huge growth in my students personal reflections on what they’ve learned in the class. I hope when they went home and their parents said, “Honey, what did you learn today?” My students stopped saying “Um, we did chapter 4 of Gatsby” and started saying “exploring the relationship between masculinity and wealth”. Okay, I know that 98% of them said “Nothing”, but let me dream!

5. FOCUS TEXTS:

Here, list your core text and any supplementary text you’d like to explore. Hyperlink YouTube videos, TED Talks, articles, NewsELA articles…you name it!

6. SEL:

Social. Emotional. Learning. SEL is not an initiative. It’s not something that happens once in a while in your classroom. Checking in on student well-being and the context of the season of life that students are in is crucial. In this column, I like to list things as light-hearted as Homecoming Week (so that I remember that week will be hella-crazy), and as serious as final exam stress periods.

7. ASSESSMENTS:

This is a column to link any common assessments you’ve agreed upon with your team. Create them on Google Docs or Forms and link away! Simple, easy, and essential!

8. ACTIVITIES:

This space if for the handfull of activities that your team would like to highlight during each unit. There’s definitely not room for everything that you’ll do, but maybe you can put all common shared activities here.

9. BELL WORK/VOCABULARY:

Here is a place to link any weekly work that you want to accomplish in bell ringers. For me, that’s almost always vocabulary practice and word work. I like to keep this on the map because seeing all of the work as a whole on the map reminds me of the grand scope of that work. It’s also nice to have all of those slides in one spot linked and ready to go!

Curriculum writing is a journey.

And you are lucky to be on it. If you’re here and thinking about re-design or building something from scratch, know that you are doing important work. What you select, how you select it, and how you lay it out on a map shapes the life, education, and experience of all the young people that get to live your map day in, day out. Be thoughtful. Be intentional. And take chances. Push to try new things and use this map to keep the big picture in mind.

Ready for your free template?

Need a unit that’s ready to go in this format?

I’ve got a whole bunch waiting for you in the shop.

My 2020 Teaching Bucket List

If you’ve been following along on my teaching journey for some time, you’ll know that as an Adventurous Teacher, my goal is to always keep trying new things, no matter how daunting or intimidating a strategy or technology might be.  Last year, I posted 10 Adventurous Teaching Ideas that I planned to try, and I’m happy to announce that I accomplished 9/10 of them! As must as I tried, I really didn’t step up my game as far as grammar instruction is concerned, but I’m okay with being just okay in that area! This year, I have a few new things up my sleeve that I wanted to actually write down as I prepare for the new calendar year. Here is my list of teaching strategies, ideas, and other things that I want to accomplish in 2020.

Make more EdPuzzles

I have one EdPuzzle that I love.  Like, when the week came to do my EdPuzzle, I was giddy up until the day I finally got to put it in front of kids.  If you don’t know what an EdPuzzle is, it’s summed up pretty simply: its a YouTube video with all of your stop and think questions already preloaded into the video for kids to answer.  It’s seriously amazing. I do my EdPuzzle during my Great Gatsby Unit right at the start of discussing Chapter 6. This is the point in the novel when students realize that Jay Gatsby actually has a childhood name and identity that he has been hiding all along - James Gatz.  It turns out, to me anyway, that James Gatz and PT Barnum (as portrayed in the incredible film The Greatest Showman) have quite a bit in common!  For my EdPuzzle, I have students watch an opening segment of the film (from a clip I found on YouTube) and answer compare and contrast questions about both the characters and the lyrics in the clip.  I watch kids stare intently into their computers and then slowly look up at me like OMG MRS. CARDENAS...THEY’RE LIKE...THE SAME!! It’s an awesome day and I want more of these -- EdPuzzle needs to be on my calendar more than once a year!

Redesign my Lit Circle Unit

A very rough sketch (with misspellings and all!) of my initial brainstorming for lit circles 2020…

I’ve done lit circles in the past that I’ve really enjoyed, but last year I was out on maternity leave during my first year teaching in my current school.  So, this year, the lit circle unit is fresh! From what I heard about last year, the unit as it stands is in need of a little TLC, and I’m soooo ready to tackle it and give it a face lift.  I’ve started by choosing the books from the list of what our school has to choose from and then drafting an Essential Question that links them all together so that we can have ongoing, critical conversations about the issues pertaining to the question. To follow along, make sure you’re checking Instagram and watching my story highlights!

Combine Memoir Writing & The College Essay

As a teacher that mostly helps juniors, I have a lot of kids in front of me that are in the midst of making college and other post high school plans.  Whether it’s a college app or a job application cover letter, my students struggle so much with writing about themselves, so I’m going to very intentionally make time for my mini-memoir unit and pair it with some college essay writing prompts.  Using mentor texts will be a game changer, I think!

Create a Digital Library of Mentor Sentences

I don’t have it fully fleshed out yet, but stay tuned.  Using a combination of Google Sites, Google Forms, and Google Sheets, I think I have a way to let kids contribute to a growing library of killer mentor sentences that they can refer back to again and again (this post is not sponsored by Google -- it just happens to be then answer to all of my classroom conundrums!)

Make Tweaks to my Classroom Library

I did a massive overhaul on my classroom library this year with an effort to be more of a minimalist and be more intentional about helping students have access to books.  You can read about how I purged my library from shelves and shelves of unused and unread books to just a cart, and that’s where I’ll also post my reflections after using it for a full school year.

Make More Room for Poetry

Guys, changing schools and learning a new curriculum after ten years of teaching meant bing a good listener and trying everything they way it was presented to me.  But now, after a year of witnessing the curriculum in action, I have to say, poetry needs some focused attention. I have so many ideas, and I think my biggest change will be blending poetry instruction into inquiry units rather than having a stand alone unit.  If you’re having the same debate in your head, here’s what I’m thinking: I think poetry units that stand alone tend to be units that focus on “skill building” AKA memorizing poetic device terminology. Rarely do full poetry units ever really answer their own essential question or make a meaningful, conceptual impact.  That’s certainly possible, but given what we have in our junior curriculum, I think poetry will genuinely help shape bigger conversations we are having in other parts of the school year. Also, I like that they’re seeing it all year rather than in just one stagnant unit.

I’m so curious to hear what you have to say:  what’s on your 2020 Teaching Bucket List?

The Best Essay My Students Ever Wrote

You guys.  This is the first time in over a decade of teaching that I’ve gone through a stack of papers saying, “Yes!  Yes! YESSS!!!!” I’m so proud of what’s been accomplished that I’m just dying to share with you how to make this happen in your own classroom.

First, a concession:

I must begin by conceding an important pedagogical and curricular point:  my students were not given proper writing instruction for this assignment.  The success I’m about to share with you is limited by the situation that I am currently part of at this moment in time:  a curriculum that focuses on novels and then assesses with essays. Most of us know this is nonsense: if we want students to become better writers, we need to not only use writing as a summative assessment, but we need to actually teach it, workshop it, and provide wide experiences TO BE writers.  

What I’d like to share with you today is how my team and I were able to work within our parameters and still find huge student success.  

So, for the purposes of this blog post, please know that I’m talking about writing AS assessment for learning.

And one more concession:

While on the whole this essay was a massive success, I still managed to find THREE instances of plagiarism.  Each instance had its own unique set of circumstances, but still, I’d like to be transparent with you. Nothing is perfect.

Here’s what worked and what you can do, too:

ONE:  The prompt was perfect

Having success in essay writing that is based off of an entire unit of learning means that your writing prompt has to be on point.  Here’s the prompt I gave students after completing our study of The Great Gatsby:

How does Fitzgerald use style to examine dreams, and to what extent does he suggest they are inspiring or destructive?

This prompt was the cornerstone of student success.  Here are two checkpoints you can use to assess the quality of your own essay prompts:

The prompt should truly ask students to use what they’ve learned.

Need some ideas to kick off your Great Gatsby unit? Try some of these!

Our study of Gatsby focused on a lot of author’s style elements, namely symbolism, characterization, and use of setting.  We also spent a great deal of time discussing the American Dream and other issues relating to the thematic ideas around dreams.  I didn’t want to write a prompt where students only examined one of those things, so I used the word “style” to broadly offer students options for their body paragraphs.  Now, the paper would be led by the student’s choice of stylistic elements and the way in which they reveal the central theme. There are options that would be relatively easy to write about (even for students who read very little but maybe paid a bit of attention during class), but also more complex elements that students may have noticed or paid attention to on their own.  The key here is RANGE and ACCESSIBILITY, while still holding them ACCOUNTABLE for everything we’ve learned.

The prompt should set students up for a claim that’s simple and clear (for those that struggle), but also has space for sophistication (for students ready to push)

For this prompt, there is a very simple, basic claim that students can write:

• Fitzgerald uses ______________ and ________________ style elements to show that dreams are inspiring.

It’s lame, but it does the job.  It sets a focus and even offers simple organization for two body paragraphs.  This is so important for the students in your class who struggle getting started.   But here’s the beauty: this prompt also can be answered with a great deal more sophistication.  Here are a few interesting claims I got from students that went beyond the “fill in the blank” option:

• “Throughout the story, Fitzgerald shows us many examples of how destructive dreams can be, using the symbolism of the green light across the bay, and the characterization of Gatsby himself.”

• “As evident in the story, Fitzgerald uses the idea of dreams to represent something dangerous and not worth chasing.”

• “In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald suggests that dreams inspire; however, some people can be blinded by their own self-centeredness.”

TWO:  We tried a non-traditional outline

I’ve used dozens of different kinds of outlines over the years.  The goal has always been to find an outline or two that students can internalize and use on their own and in their future that works for them.  For whatever reason, this time around, I decided to switch things up a bit and try something totally crazy. I wanted the outlining process to be more TACTILE for students -- I wanted them to put their hands on the paper itself and be able to move it around.  So, this is what I came up with:

I called it the “Hands-On Outline”.  The directions were pretty simple. After breaking down the prompt, we had about five different angles students could take in their body paragraphs.  The could look at: color symbolism, object symbolism, weather/temperature symbolism, characterization, or setting. To scaffold this process, I copied half sheets of paper with mini outlines for each of these potential subclaims.  I also created mini outlines for the introduction and the conclusion. Now, students “simply” had to come up to the board and select their options for each body paragraph.  

Whether you do a more hands-off version of this (just offer the cards, not the suggested subclaims) or not, I think what worked was PHYSICALLY getting up from their seats, PHYSICALLY making a selection and taking their cards, and then PHYSICALLY arranging the cards in the order they wanted to use for their arguments.  Something about the movement hooked them this time. They were able to simultaneously break the paper into smaller, more manageable pieces, while also seeing the big picture.

THREE:  The Timeline Worked

When we write essays, I always use the same timeline, but this time around, I made one VITAL tweak:  the turn-in time. Here’s a peek at essay writing week (and remember, this is ONLY when we’re writing for assessment purposes)

• Day One:  The prompt & the claim {HW finish drafting claim}

• Day Two:  The outline & the evidence {HW finish collecting all evidence and put on outline}

• Day Three:  The outline & start writing {HW work on any writing you’d like}

• Day Four:  Writing & turn-in AT THE END OF THE PERIOD {THE END}

That was the game-changer:  due at the end of the period.  

As a writer, I so deeply believe in the writing process - believe me, I do!  However, as an experienced educator, I must say that the more time I’ve given students to work on writing, it has not necessarily made the written result any stronger.  In fact, with more time, my struggling writers tend to either procrastinate further, or, worse, overthink writing decisions that really don’t matter. And what’s worse? The frustration builds and I end up getting an unfinished product by the deadline.

A firm, hard end-of-class deadline can work in your classroom.  Especially if you’ve planned time for revisions after the fact. The rule in my classroom is:  if it’s turned in on time, you can always revise, so there’s very little risk involved in submitting work.  Also, what’s important to remember is that this essay is writing for assessment, not writing for writing improvement.  The goal of this paper is to show me what students have been able to synthesize and think about for the past unit, and it is CRITICAL that I have all papers turned in, almost regardless of quality.  With a regular level and with struggling readers and writers especially, an end of class deadline ensures that you will have something of theirs to read and to assess.  

You guys, that entire fourth day, I walked laps in the room helping students with last minute details and just riding the buzz in the room of writers working to meet a deadline.  As soon as a student clicked TURN IN on Google Classroom, I let the student ring my classroom doorbell and we all cheered (more on the classroom doorbell here!). We kept the energy high, positive, and exciting. At the end of the period, two students still hadn’t clicked turned in and I made them sit at their tables and click that button right in front of me.  It was tough love, and I’m okay with that. For my students with IEPs and 504s that would be too overwhelmed in that environment, they were working at a desk in the hallway with my cooperating teacher.  

If you struggle with turn in and student work completion, make this change and you’ll be so glad you did!

FOUR:  I graded them quickly

Fast, focused feedback is a critical component to improving student writing and helping students become better writers through revision.  This year, I only had one section of juniors that got this essay, but even with more sections, I would have planned this the same way. After the essay was due, I scheduled THREE DAYS to watch the film.  And the students understood the deal: you watch the movie and do the activity - I grade your papers and you get them back at the end of the movie. And I did it. In three class periods and a little time at home, I was able to get an entire class’s worth of essays graded the same week that they were written.  As soon as the movie was over, we moved into revision.

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I can’t tell you guys how good it feels to have successfully nailed this essay.  I know this blog post was long and there are quite a few moving pieces, but I hope some of these principles and ideas can get you moving in the direction of essay success in your own classrooms.  Let me know in the comments - have any of these strategies worked for you? What else would you suggest?

Here are some of my favorite lines that students wrote — some are simply fabulous writing and others are the best work I’ve seen from that particular student. I’m sure you can appreciate that! I also gave out awards for “Best Lines” and it was quite the celebration! So without further adieu, here’s me being a Proud Mamma Bear:

"The dreams we have are what inspire us to get up out of bed every day, love is what drives us to talk to others make those connections with others and find the one we love, but for some that drive gets too serious."

"Reading this, some might say that the green light represents the one goal that Gatsby wasn’t able to reach, but rather, I believe that it represents the one dream that kept him going in life. Gatsby had already attained every dream he wished, every dream but Daisy. However, his constant reaching for Daisy only helped to further him in life. Daisy was the reason that he wished to obtain such mass amounts of wealth, she was the reason he got his house, just across the bay from her; Daisy was Gatsby’s inspiration in life."

"He may be betrayed by the American Dream but his dream is deferred.. And then destroyed." (We read A Raisin in the Sun before Gatsby so I’m SUPER impressed with this allusion!!!)

"This billboard could have possibly been put here as an advertisement for a business, but was forgotten because no one took advantage of the offer. This killed a dream of the founders’, providing cheap and decent eye care for those that needed it."

"Not only does this piece of evidence describe Gatsby’s swimming pool, it describes the luxury Gatsby enjoys, the magnitude of sheer wealth protruding from every inch of his property"

LETS GO SHOPPING!

How the Keeping the Wonder Workshop Can Change the Future of Teacher PD

Keeping the Wonder teachers, presenters, and world changers.

We have all been to our fair share of professional development that has felt like a total waste of time.  Yes, even a PD junkie like me who finds the sunshine in everything can admit that. But boring PD doesn’t have to be that way, and admin needs to know this.  This summer, I had the pleasure of both presenting and attending one particularly groundbreaking event: the Keeping the Wonder Workshop.  This full-day workshop is leading the charge as an example of how PD for English teachers can be invigorating, inspiring, and infectious.  

If you don’t have time to read through this entire article, here’s the biggest takeaway:  professional development FOR teachers is best when it’s ORGANIZED BY teachers. When consultants from the newest program or speakers with no classroom experience stand in front of teachers, admin, you can pretty much bet the takeaways will be minimal.  It’s not that the information isn’t valuable - it’s that teachers are a really complicated breed of human being. We like intimacy, but not always the spotlight. We want to be creative, but we also want to be resourceful. We want to push every student to their absolute academic potential, but we also want to make sure to provide for their mental and social health.  Simply put, the format of one speaker to one giant audience of teachers is a formula bound for struggle. Teachers need (and want!) smaller, more frequent, more personalized PD. How do you do that for us? Find the expert teachers in our school or even in the education social media sphere to work with staff. 

Keeping the Wonder (or KTW) proved the need for smaller, personalized PD on so many levels.  I’ve narrowed it down here to a few lessons to be learned from how Ashley Bible, Jenna Copper, Abby Gross, and Staci Lamb (the KTW team) ran their workshop.  

Here are four ways that Keeping the Wonder can change the future of teacher PD.

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1. Worry Less About Research and More About Authenticity:

Marie Morris (AKA The Caffeinated Class) presents on bringing theater into the ELA classroom. Photo Credit: Angelyne Collins

Yes.  Researched based strategies like CRISS and UbD are critical components of continuing teacher education, but be careful about the way in which these pedagogies are presented to the staff.  If a company is sending a trainer, it’s likely that trainer is coming with a binder full of talking points rather than planning an experience for teachers.  

At Keeping the Wonder, presenters shared strategies that were both research based AND classroom tested.  BOTH kinds of strategies are valuable. I’ve done plenty of lessons in my time that weren’t based solely on one specific body of research and they’re been lights out, killer lessons.  That’s because teachers know how to teach. Their experiences should be just as valuable and worth the stage as the research. Strive for balance in what you bring to your teachers and they will thank you for it.

KTW participants said:

“When I go to more ‘traditional’ PD I feel like the presenters spend a huge chunk of time simply validating their presentation and grounding it in research. While of course that is important, for me Keeping the Wonder just got down to brass tacks. The sessions were the perfect length and jumped right in with the HOW. Honestly, as a teacher at this point in my career I don't care so much about the WHY -- I know the presenters are legitimate and masters in their craft. In other words, I trust them! On a broader level, I often feel like those presenting ‘traditional’ PD are doing it to inflate their resume.” --Noel Cordle

“Everything about it was just so valuable and intentional and practical and useful. Not like the stuffy commercialized, forced upon you PDs that teacher usually have to attend. It was what PD should be. It was so worth the trip. Truly made me love teaching even more.” --Chasity McGee Ivy

CHECK OUT MARIE MORRIS’ VLOG OF THE EVENT!

2.  Keep Sessions Short & Flexible

Amanda Cardenas (AKA Mud and Ink Teaching) presents to a small group on the magic of setting. Photo Credit: Angelyne Collins

At the school where I began my career, I can remember getting the back to school letter in the mail with our agenda for PD on the first two days.  We always started those days with a two-hour long session. Seriously. We jumped into the newest initiative before we even said, “Hi! How was your summer?  Did you have fun on your trip to…” and then BAM! Two hours in our seats “listening” to a presentation that we all took very seriously (I mean, no one was on their phones or laptops or daydreaming about the million mile long to do list for the first day...hasn’t anyone told you yet that teachers are the worst students??).

At KTW, sessions were organized in small chunks and anticipated the needs of teacher participants.  The organizers looked at their participants as students, and then, using best practice, planned a day that would be effective for their students.  It seems like such common sense, but it’s so rarely happening during PD time in schools! With the day broken down between large group, small group, rotations, flexible seating, snack time, etc., teachers happily learned at a pace that kept them engaged the entire day (making it worth the money invested).  This is an easy fix for schools looking to up their PD game.  

KTW participants said:

“I think the timing of sessions was also very well planned. At previous PD I’ve attended, sessions will go for over an hour, and I struggle to remain focused. Having a variety of session formats (the tours, the whole class sessions [the suitcase and mind maps presentation, the presentation on escape rooms, etc.], the breakout sessions) and keeping them under an hour was very helpful in making it effective for me as a teacher learner.“ --Sarah Danielle

“What I loved most was that the ideas were all easy to implement in the classroom without having to revamp units wholly. A lot of pd sessions I’ve attended pretty ask you to approach your curriculum in a completely new way that is unrealistic for what requirements exist at a school that has certain regulations on curriculum. To sum: Real teachers. Real lessons. Real learning. Other things I liked was that there was so many things to learn bc the pace of the day was quick and always moving. I was never bored. It was affordable and worth the cost (that is not usually something I say about PD.)” —Angela Vasquez 

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Workshop seating setup for guests. Photo Credit: Angelyne Collins

3. Include Active, Excited Teachers as Presenters

It can be really hard for a room full of educators to get excited about a presentation from someone who hasn’t been in the game and can’t honestly relate to the day-in-day-out lives of teachers.  If you can’t find expert teachers in your district or area, reach out to the teacher authors who write and share about teaching online and on social media. Keeping the Wonder mastermind Ashley Bible is starting to travel for PD, Jennifer Gonzalez is an expert teacher I’d love to have in my school, Jen Jones from Hello Literacy travels the country working with schools, and I’ve also started working the PD circuit myself.  You might even consider doing an EdCamp model and letting teachers teach each other in a more off-the-cuff fashion. Real, engaging, and excited teachers are out there, but they have probably been busy teaching and haven’t done 25 years of research. Ask your teachers who they follow on social media or what books they’re reading. They’ll let you know who they’d like to see.

KTW participants said:

Jessica Martin (AKA The Whimsical Teacher) shares her secret strategies for using root words. Photo Credit: Angelyne Collins

“KTW was so much better than the “traditional” style of professional development. The biggest difference is that everyone who was involved is an active teacher. All of the ideas and techniques have been used and tweaked in the classroom. There was even one session where the presenter said, ‘This crashed and burned a few times, but isn’t that the nature of teaching? We just try again the next day and try to make it better.’ They are real people who understand the needs of teachers because they ARE teachers themselves. The material shared with us was something we could use to enhance our teaching practices without adding extra work, extra items on the to do list, or extra time away from our personal lives.” --Alexandra Rodriguez

“All the presenters I’ve watched are actually USING the strategies, and not just regurgitating research or mundane language about their activities. I think the best pd comes from the teachers...I [was able to] pick and choose what I want to learn instead of listening to one presentation for 3 hours straight!” --Rachael Salvucci

“I liked that there were a variety of strategies and methods shared, and I appreciated experiencing it from a student’s perspective through the modeling. I think this provides a clearer picture of how the activity goes and is meant to be experienced. I also loved being a “student” because it kept me engaged and, most importantly, made it fun PD!” --Sarah Danielle

4. Let Teachers Stay in PJs with Eighteen Cups of Coffee

Even when the PD is strong, teachers still need to go to school to get the training.  Does that really have to be the case? Other industries have moved to a more remote, work-from-home lifestyle, and education has yet to follow suit.  Professional development would be an amazing place to start giving teachers a flexible work schedule by using virtual options. The Keeping the Wonder Workshop (among others!) are starting a trend of offering online virtual conferences.  

It’s worth considering:  how many days of the school calendar are used for teacher PD?  How many half days? What would happen if, instead, teachers were asked to participate in virtual PD and could go home for the afternoon?  Or were offered an extra day off for mental health recovery? Or teachers could work in their classrooms while listening to their PD via a podcast?   Certainly there is a need for in-person PD where teachers are together, but what worries me about so many current approaches to PD is that, as a teacher, I feel like I’m not trusted with my own desire to grow.  I feel like I have an ankle bracelet on. Teachers are corralled into trainings and attendance is taken: is the point of PD that teachers are physically there, or that they are inspired, learning, and excited to go back into their classrooms?

Virtual conferences are popping up all over the place, and they’re cheaper than going to big, national conferences.  Other than Keeping the Wonder, Carrie Conover from educators 2 educators has put on two free conferences for teachers with presenters from all over the education world.  The Teacher Reboot Conference took place over the winter break and served to help teachers both boost their self-care priorities as well as inspire their craft for the upcoming year.  In the summer, e2e will host the Summer Teacher’s Conference with presenters sharing their areas of expertise. Also this summer, Danielle Knight and her team are hosting the Teach With Tech virtual conference.  Over 60 different presenters will be sharing their best educational technology strategies and also be available on Facebook for interactive discussions. How could your school take advantage of these types of conferences, or even, create your own?

KTW participants said:

“As a virtual attendee of Keeping the Wonder, I do think it’s the wave of the future. We got so many different personalities and styles of teaching. The activities came with everything you needed to start tomorrow. For me, the virtual is perfect. I can go back in October and rewatch the black out poem for The Raven to refresh my memory. Educators want to feel excited and overflowing with ideas. That’s what we got with Teaching the Wonder. It was Not bland, boring workshops with presenters who have exactly zero passion on topics that don’t apply. It was for secondary ELA and every bit was applicable, relevant, and sparked a fire that made me wish school started tomorrow. Amanda’s setting pd was amazing. The presentation drew me in from the start. I immediately opened my google slides and began creating for setting in several texts we will be reading.” -Jennifer Smith

“I participated virtually and I have been telling everyone that this is the BEST PD I have ever done in my 11 years of teaching. 1) these are strategies used by current classroom teachers so they WORK in practice- not just theory. 2) they are creative, student centered, standards based activities, 3) each session is set up so you can take the handouts/templates/etc and implement the strategy- the majority of the hard work is done for you so it’s not as overwhelming because you’re not starting from scratch 4) it is SO easy to incorporate these strategies into what you’re already doing- it’s not like you have to scrap everything you’ve ever done in order to utilize these strategies and 5) I personally loved the virtual option so I can view at my own pace and go back to the sessions over and over as needed. 6) the creativity and energy that each presenter brings gets me pumped up to try these strategies in my classroom. I mean it’s summer and I’m willingly and excitedly planning for next year!”  --Danna Hathaway Jones

So there you have it.  Four ways teacher PD could be exponentially improved.  I hope these ideas spark a discussion in your schools. Pass this along to an administrator.  Make a suggestion at your next department meeting. Remind each other that education is about shaping the future, and the teachers need to continually be inspired to do so!  

For more information on Keeping the Wonder, visit their website.

If you’d like to talk about one of my professional development sessions coming to your school, let me know!

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The First Ten Days of School - Routines, Rigor, and Relationships

The First Ten Days of School - Routines, Rigor, and Relationships

It’s every teacher’s most stressful, most highly anticipated, and most powerful time of the year:  back to school! After over a decade of first days back to school, I’ve finally found a plan for the first ten days that streamlines the three most important things for me:  routines, rigor, and relationships. Here, I will outline for you the importance of routines, rigor, and relationships, then, provide my daily plans for the first ten days.

It’s not the most pinterest-worthy or “cute” part of the job, but routines from these first two weeks are, I would argue, the top priority.  Yes, even above building relationships. I can say this because I’ve been there before: it’s really hard to build relationships in a class where the classroom management is out of control.   By establishing key routines, you’ll be setting the tone for a classroom that is respectful, runs smoothly, and can operate on its own while you take time to meet and confer with students on a need-to basis.  

Here are the routines that are essential to establish in my first ten days:

Start and End

The daily starting and ending routines of my classroom are the most important. To start my class, I’ve always aimed to have a routine that students can do independently, silently, quickly, and meaningfully. And, an added bonus if it doesn’t need to be graded immediately! Enter: BELL WORK! Every year I tweak exactly what we do, but I always end up using a version of one of these two systems: my vocabulary bell work notebook and my digital bell work notebook. Students have access to the digital notebook on their chromebooks and I control the exercise that they will complete each day. Sometimes students are creating a meme based on the reading from the night before, sometimes they’re writing a personal reflection, and other times they’re looking up the perfect song on YouTube to capture the mood of a poem. No matter what, they’re able to read my screen at the front, take out their chromebooks, start and complete the assignment independently, silently, quickly, and meaningfully. I need this time to do so many other important micro-tasks. I’ve used this first 5-7 minutes to return work to students, have a one-on-one conversation with a student in the hall, take a few deep breaths, send a quick email to a parent about an issue from the previous class period…you name it! I NEED these minutes, but I am not willing to waste them, either. So, bell work has been my solution. Since it’s assigned digitally, I collect it via Google Classroom at the end of a unit (or end of a week depending on the class/level/task), so I’m able to look at their over their work all at one time and it’s not another daily to-do.

To end class, I have three clear directives: “It’s time to pack up!” I take time practicing this with students - they are not packing up their things until they hear this phrase. It is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, and on the whole, I’ve learned that pet peeves can be solved by creating and practicing routines, so this is one of them! After they hear me say that, they remain “cheeks in chairs”. Yup. That’s high school talk for sit in your chair and DON’T LINE UP AT THE DOOR. Finally, when they hear “Have a great day!” (which I usually say with the bell), they are dismissed.

This probably sounds like a lot. And it is. You’re only four paragraphs in to this post so far. But trust me: figuring out your version of what works for your starting and ending routines are what save you down the road. They improve the quality of your lessons, they foster respect, and, not to mention, they’re things that visitors to your classroom notice (AKA observations!). Check out my TpT store for lesson ideas for your next observation or to kick off a new semester!

Movement

We use stations ALL the time and having students know how we do stations is essential for my classroom management.  We practice stations during these two weeks and I train my students to move with this doorbell from Amazon.  When they hear the bell, they know it’s time to move.  When they’re at a station, they are to stay on task until the bell has rung, then, they have a break.  They can move, hi-five someone from across the room, but then at the second bell, they should be at their next station prepared to work.

You’ll also want to consider the ways in which you want to permit students to move in and out of your classroom (hallways, bathroom, etc.).  I use a QR code attached to a Google form to track tardies as well as students going in and out of the bathroom.

Work Submission

Do you have all of your work collected on Google classroom?  A turn in folder? A combination of both? Whichever it is, make sure that during these first two weeks you assign multiple items so that students can practice your turn-in routine (and you can practice how you hand things back!).    Don’t assign work just to assign it - it should be meaningful - but make sure the assignments are handed in and scored in a way that reinforces your routine expectations! I always assign a letter of introduction for my students to write and I use this opportunity to teach my turn in policies:  if it’s assigned on Google Classroom, it must be turned in on Google Classroom. On the day the letter is due, I go right into Classroom and put the assignment in the gradebook: checks for turned in and ZEROS for anything not turned in. This sets of a red flag really quickly, but more importantly, a teachable moment.  It takes students a few assignments to get over the “but I didn’t click turn-in” or “I thought I had to print it, but there were no working printers, and my grandma was visiting from out of town, and my turtle escaped from his tank, so I couldn’t get it to hand in to you” excuses. Every single time an assignment comes in, we go through the same routine.  If you’re pulling out your hair in December about something that drives you crazy, create a routine that solves it, then implement that routine in the first two weeks. Dedicate time and energy to this routine as much as you can and you’ll find that the rest of the year is so much more tolerable!

Technology

I have students using their Chromebooks every day in my classroom, so establishing a daily routine of taking out your CHARGED Chromebooks needs to happen!  I purposefully plan Chromebook related activities to make sure that students are in the habit of bringing it every day to my room ready to go. Even if the assignment is as small as an exit slip, purposefully scheduling time for students to need their Chromebooks is essential.

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Ready for the next level?

If you’re loving this blog post, but could use more support, you need to check out my COMPLETE Back to School Toolkit - The First 10 Days! This course will hold your hand through over a dozen asynchronous video trainings led by me. I’ll share with you the why, the how, and the when for planning and implementing the best back to school season ever!

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During the first two weeks, students get several assignments from me, each with a specific purpose.  Some of them help me teach routines (see above!), others help me demonstrate my grading policies and what I have outlined in the syllabus, but the others are designed to help me craft an atmosphere of high expectations and rigor in my classroom.  In the first ten days, I assign both “classwork” (assignments that are checked-in pass/fail) and “assessments” (assignments that are graded on a rubric). I train students to read their gradebooks accordingly. In these first ten days, I will assign the following:

Classwork:

• Student/Parent Syllabus signature

• Cell phone policy contract

• Email etiquette assignment

Assessments:

• Bell work (graded at the end of the unit)

• Letter to My Teacher

• Socratic Seminar

I think sometimes high expectations and rigor can be misinterpreted as “teacher-centered” or being inflexible.  For example, with one of my first assignments, the letter mentioned above in the ROUTINES section, I set a hard line on work that is turned in late.  Zeros go in the grade book if the assignment is not turned in on Google Classroom. Period. When students come with excuses, I simply respond, “That’s fine!  I just have this zero here as a placeholder and reminder to you and everyone who can see this 24/7 internet-based gradebook that I have not received it from you.  When I do, that zero will change, but until then, it’s just gonna stay that way.” This might sound harsh - how could I do this when I don’t even know my kids yet?  How could I do this when I don't know what hurdles they could be facing outside of school?

We can’t build strong relationships around lax routines and procedures - we have to start strong with firm expectations.  Remember, being firm and clear in building a strong academic culture in your classroom doesn't mean that you’re ignoring student needs.  Expecting responsibility, strong worth ethic, and a commitment to high standards DOES MEAN that you care about your kids, deeply.

And, while we’re on the subject, this is a good time to think about your curriculuar approach for the year — have you made the shift to inquiry-driven instruction? A makeover of your short story unit might be a great place to start…

With an efficient, respectful set of routines established and an atmosphere with high academic expectations cultivated, powerful relationships grow.  At the start of my career, I thought relationships were the only thing that mattered. I wanted to reach every kid and know everything about their lives, their families, their backgrounds, their struggles.  And I did. I went to games, I called home, I did surveys, I wrote personal letters, I sponsored the clubs that no one else would sponsor, and I did it: I built GREAT relationships! But, there were some consequences to this approach that I didn’t see coming.  

First was the burnout.  I was weighed down with so much emotional baggage and physical stress (the only way to do all of these things for my students was to completely ignore my own health, of course) that I burned out fast.  I’m a happy person that burned on adrenaline to survive, but as close as I was with my students, it was the worst I’ve ever felt physically in my life.

The second is the more embarrassing one to admit.   Most days in my classroom were a total flop. Since I prioritized relationships above all else, I never really considered how I was going to control the workflow of my classroom and be everyone’s “cool” teacher all at once.  Since I knew everyone’s issues, I was willing to forgive bad attitudes, accept work (extremely) late, and let students take fifteen minute bathroom breaks. I thought I was meeting their needs and caring for them. But in reality, the learning environment was not one of respect:  it was one where my kindness and flexibility were taken advantage of. I was too close to push my students to meet their academic potential and too much time was wasted. It took me years to find that routines and rigor were truly the foundation to building the kind of relationships that I really wanted in my classroom.

Here is the kind of relationship I’m committed to having with my students:  one where they know I care so much about them that I want not only to support them in times of need, but also where I can push them to grow in ways they may have never gone on their own.  One where I can say, “Listen, I know what’s going on at home is really tough on you right now, but here’s what else I know. I know you can do this. I know you can handle this assignment and feel really proud about what YOU did, and not sad about the other things going on that are out of your control.  If you need an extension, we’ll make that happen, but I really believe in you and I believe you can do a great job.” Take time to think about how you want to define your relationships with students. Then, build the kind of classroom that will help those kinds of relationships grow.

Day 1:  Marshmallow Team Building (RELATIONSHIPS)

Our first day is typically a shortened class period, so I always have this lesson ready to go. Marshmallow team building is a quick way to get students working together, being creative, and establish a classroom culture of student-centered learning. I have a handful of other possible options listed here!

HW: None

Day 2:  Debrief, Expectations, Syllabus (RIGOR & ROUTINE)

The next day, we debrief the marshmallow team building exercise. What was the experience like? How did your team work together? What were the struggles? I let this conversation flow into an overview (not word-for-word reading!) of our class syllabus. I’ve done more interactive versions of this, but I’ve found that I want to be very clear and direct the first time through our expectations, so I give it to them pretty straight. We reinforce and practice these different parts of the syllabus later, but this day is typically pretty dry - on purpose! One thing that helps has been moving my syllabus to a digital format. Instead of reading a paper syllabus, my students receive their Google Classroom codes and open their syllabus that I’ve created using Google Sites. This allows us to look through the “boring” stuff, but also watch book trailers for the novels we’ll be reading and experience the other interactive elements on the site.

To close class, today we practice our closing routine: “Time to pack up”, “Cheeks in chairs”, and “Have a great day!”

HW: Parent & student syllabus signature (on a Google form attached to the syllabus)

Day 3: Meet the Teacher / letter to your Teacher (ROUTINE, RIGOR & RELATIONSHIPS)

I continue establishing relationships on Day 3 by sharing a few pictures and stories about my life. I tell students that it’s important to me that they know who I am, who I love, what I care about, what makes me laugh, and what my life is like outside the classroom. It’s important to me that they’re not coming to a classroom to learn from a stranger. I share with them, very transparently, my journey to becoming a teacher and how much I love coming to work every day, but also how I love going home to my family and traveling the world. I want them to see me as a whole person, and then, I ask them to do the same. Students then write me a letter of introduction (routine - turn in on GClassroom; rigor - graded on a rubric as an assessment; relationships - getting to know their stories).

Today is the second day of practicing our closing routine.

HW: Letter to your teacher

Day 4:  Intro bell work routine / Pocket Points tutorial / First Text (ROUTINE & RIGOR)

On Day 4, we begin our most important routine (and one that takes quite a bit of practice!): bell work! This takes about three times as long as normal, so we go slow and practice. With the remainder of the class period, we discuss and practice our cell phone policy and practice it with a text (short story, quick article, etc.) . This year, we will be experimenting with Pocket Points, so the plan is for students to get logged in and do their first reading session in a small group. The text we will use during this session will be connected to their upcoming socratic seminar and I’ll have them reading with a small group.

This is the third day we practice our closing routine.

HW: Continue Letter to My Teacher

Day 5:  Bell work / classroom stations (ROUTINE & RELATIONSHIPS)

Class starts again with bell work training. We slowly start trying to increase independence and reduce time spent on the task. The plan for the rest of the day is to do one of my favorite activities: classroom stations! Each year this varies, but basically the goal is for students to get a tour of my classroom while using the classroom routine procedure of stations. My six stations include:

• Take What You Need bulletin board

• QR Code station

• “Not all those who wander are lost” bulletin board

• Technology Station: register for Actively Learn accounts

• All About Me sketchnotes

• Adventure Journal setup

As students move through the stations, we practice movement (as stated above!) using the doorbell from Amazon.

Of course, we close class by practicing our closing routine again!

HW: Finish Letter to My Teacher

Day 6:  Intro Socratic Seminar (ROUTINE & RIGOR)

Bell work continues.

Collect Letter to My Teacher.

Socratic Seminar is one of my absolute favorite types of assessment. I first heard about seminars a while ago, so I observed many in action and did some research. My go-to for seminars, however, is from the incredibly talented Esther Wu on Teaching Channel. I love how she does seminar and I’ve been doing an adapted version for years!

On this day, I teach students what seminar is, show them a seminar in action, go over our rubrics and expectations, and assign them a short list of texts that we will be discussing. Each year, this list changes. Last year, our seminar was designed around summer reading. This year, it will be tied to our first unit’s essential question. Either way, I design the questions (and students write questions to add) that are both text-dependent AND opinion/experience-based. I want students to do a lot of things in a seminar, but for the first one, I really just want everyone to TALK.

Here’s the video I show students and the resources that I learned from.

Closing routine continues.

HW: Read through one text on the list & annotate

Day 7:  Seminar Prep Day (routine & rigor)

Bell work continues.

The next day we will spend preparing for seminar. Depending on the age and level of the students, this day might be spend heavily on reading additional texts to help our conversation, it might be spent taking a more in depth look at the video from the previous day, it might be an interactive presentation of the rubric so students know how they’ll be assessed, or some combination of all of these things. Either way, students usually need a day to get read for seminar rather than just jumping right in. I usually also take this day to practice more routines (if needed) or do a small partner exercise (for relationship building).

Closing routine continues.

HW: Complete reading texts for seminar; complete seminar prep sheet

Day 8:  Day 1 Seminar (routine & rigor)

Bell work continues.

Collect seminar prep sheet from Day 1 students.

If you had a chance to look through the Teaching Channel video linked on Day 6, you’ll know that these seminars are broken into two days. The group for Day 1 will seminar today. While students are in seminar, I am taking notes and giving feedback.

Closing routine continues.

HW: Complete role sheets & coaching sheets

Day 9:  Day 2 Seminar (routine & rigor)

Bell work continues.

Collect seminar prep sheet from Day 2 students.

This day looks identical to the previous day, but the students in the center circle have shifted. I continue taking notes and giving feedback on the discussion.

Closing routine continues.

HW: Complete role sheets & coaching sheets

Day 10:  Socratic seminar reflection & goal setting (routine & relationships)

Bell work continues.

Collect any remaining role sheets and coaching sheets.

On the day after our first socratic seminar, we take time to reflect and celebrate. Typically, I’ll have students do a silent chalk talk and share their experiences on the board. Anything you like to do for reflection would be great here, but make sure you find time to also set group goals for the next seminar! How did we do overall with incorporating evidence? Did seminar sound like everyone reading their homework out loud or an organic, meaningful discussion? What can we do to improve for the next seminar? These are important questions to address together, so be sure to find time to do this!

Closing routine continues.

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I hope this article has helped you start to envision the first ten days of your own school year. I’d love to hear your version of these critical days - how do you set these days up? Have any of these ideas worked for you? Be sure to share in the comments - I can’t wait to connect with you!

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Summer Reading: 5 Problems & 5 Solutions

Summer Reading:

Five of the most common problems and five solutions that just might change the summer reading conversation at your school

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In the first decade of my teaching career, I think the number one most hotly debated issue every year was SUMMER READING.  When I was new, everyone seemed so opinionated and fired up, so my tendency was to crawl into my little shell and stay quiet.  

Then, something changed.  I gained more experience. I learned about the lives of my students.  And I finally began to see how important a summer reading program was for my students -- especially my minority and low-income students.  Suddenly, I started to feel the fire, too. The “summer slide” is a powerful force that knocks students off track who were making progress.  Students struggling with literacy all school year fall further behind during the summer months when the “faucet” (an analogy described by the Brookings Institute) is turned off.  We NEED to do something, but in high school, we face a plethora of challenges.

For this article, I interviewed teachers on social media and drew from my experiences at two different districts.  Here are the problems I found and some solutions that I propose. I’d love to hear your feedback and additional suggestions because we are in this together!

NEED A QUICK WIN?

TRY SUMMER READING BINGO!

1. THE KIDS DON’T READ.

This one needs no explanation.  We’ve all seen it. We’ve all heard the excuses.  We know they’re faking it. We know they’re using every website on planet earth to pretend they read.  We know some won’t even use Sparknotes to fake it -- they’re straight up refusing.

A zoomed in look at my BINGO card! For more motivating ideas, check these out!

SOLUTION:

First of all, maybe it’s time to start reconsidering what constitutes a summer reading program.  Must it always be novels? Research shows that while reading is a critical component to preventing summer slide, in the bigger picture, it's’ really about literacy and exposure to language in many contexts.  Maybe we need to think bigger than a summer reading list and develop a program that encourages students to encounter and explore other kinds of literacy, too:

• If you’re committed to a reading list, consider expanding the list to include popular nonfiction.  

• If you have requirements, try adding optional additions or accompaniments.  For example, if you have students reading Fahrenheit 451 over the summer, pair it with the podcast Limetown.  If the kids skip reading the bigger reading assignment and just do the smaller one, at least they’ll have exposure to the genre and something to talk about in August!

• Try thinking of summer reading as a PROGRAM rather than an ASSIGNMENT.  I like to share summer slide statistics with my students and give them a BINGO sheet to attempt to complete over the summer.  I have them bring the sheet back to me at the start of the school year for some silly (free or inexpensive) prize and we talk about their summer vacations.  We’ve also used hashtags to stay in touch over social media, such as #stopsummerslide.

• Come to terms with the fact that some kids aren’t going to read.  They’re just not. What we CAN control, however, is the program and the HYPE.  If we keep our expectations high, praise and get excited about the kids who are into it, most kids will join in.  But yes, some won’t. And that’s okay. Plan a day for teachers to go visit future students and talk about the books.  Create Snapchat book trailers. Build a summer reading energy that can’t be missed!

• Don’t throw everything out the window because you know some of the kids don’t read.  Check out #3 for more on the fakers and nonreaders...

2. PAYING FOR (OR MAKING KIDS BUY) THE BOOKS.

This one is uncomfortable and difficult.  What to do? Expecting all kids to purchase the book can seem unfair in some contexts, but in others, it sets an academic expectation.  But, then, there’s no money in the budget to send every kid home with a book. But we’re still going to expect them all to read (so many emojis could go here…)  Then we have the kids who want to get library books and audiobooks: English teachers panic because HOW ARE THEY GOING TO ANNOTATE?!

SOLUTION:

• A:  Decide how much you really care about annotating.  And as you think about that, be honest with yourself:  even though it’s “best practice”, which of your kids is taking a highlighter and pen AND their book on vacation?  Probably not your struggling readers -- and if we’re honest again, that’s really who needs this reading experience the most.  If you can eliminate the annotation barrier, there’s one less thing standing between a reluctant reader and summer reading. This also opens up several options for FREE BOOKS.

  • Audible:  The first book on Audible is free!

  • Project Gutenberg:  58,000 ebook titles for free, yo!

• B:  If you really DO care about annotating, consider making a colorful, bound annotation journal.  When the annotating or reading reflection takes place in a separate booklet, no post-its are required and a library book is a-okay.

• C:  Create a list or allow students as much choice as possible.  Encourage them to find hand-me-down or cheaply purchased books from thrift stores.  The Goodwill in our area always has a huge selection of paperbacks for .50 each, but you’ll need an open mind when it comes to approving titles that kids find.

• D:  If your school can find a small budget for books, try to create a list your team can stick to for a few years.  This ensures that there will be books every year and you’ll only have to replace a handful at a time

3. CHOOSING THE BOOK(S).

Do we do one book one school?  Books that connect to the start of the next year of English?  Total free choice? Easy or rigorous? Choosing books can have English departments at a standstill.  I’m going to offer a solution that I like, but that certainly doesn’t mean there isn’t a great deal of merit to other choices!

SOLUTION:

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’ve probably already guessed my solution:  it’s all about the ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS! I think the best bet for any department, the best way to offer balance between choice and focus, “beach-reads” and rigor, is to harness the power of the Essential Question.  Create a list of books (as short or long as you like!) that all respond to an Essential Question. You could have one question as a whole department and the same list for all grade levels OR each level could come up with their own Essential Question and their own list.  There are a lot of reasons why I like this option, but here are a few just to start:

• A strong Essential Question creates an umbrella.  For example, imagine an English department decided that the summer reading Essential Question would be:  At what point is it critical to speak up in the face of injustice? Here’s what the reading list could look like, and I don’t know about you, but this list looks pretty exciting to me:

  • Dear Martin

  • To Kill a Mockingbird

  • The Hunger Games

  • The Handmaid’s Tale

  • Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America

  • I Am Malala

  • A Long Way Gone
    

  • 13th Netflix Documentary

  • SERIAL Podcast

  • ...and any other nonfiction short pieces discovered over the holiday are good to go, too!

• A strong Essential Question offers choice, but also offers a focal point for assessment.  Now that all students are on on a quest to answer the same question across a variety of texts, the stage is set beautifully for thoughtful assessments such as socratic seminar, one pagers, gallery walks, screencast videos, and other digital media.  So, instead of feeling the pressure to scaffold the reading list, teachers can simply scaffold the difficulty of the assessment given in the fall. Continuing with the example given above, an AP course could as some tough questions in a socratic seminar, whereas a freshman course might do some work with characterization or plot diagramming to help them arrive at an answer for the Essential Question.

4. SUMMER READING ASSESSMENTS START THE SEMESTER OFF WITH BAD GRADES.

For a while, I remember teachers (myself included!) giving ridiculously hard multiple choice quizzes on the summer reading.  I guess we thought that we could shame and punish the kids for not reading over the summer and send a message that the class was going to be tough and they better start reading...but, I also don’t really remember that working.  The consistent problem is that if we assign summer reading, we have to assess it. And if students are perpetually NOT doing the reading, then their first assessment grade will be in the toilet. And no one likes starting the year with half of their students failing…

Projects like one-pagers offer students a creative, yet thoughtful way to showcase their understanding of themes and essential questions. For more assessment ideas, check this out!

SOLUTION:

I’m takin’ it back to Essential Question based assessment, or, at least, project based assessment.  When students are assigned a project and asked to use a text to respond to a question, it’s no longer a “gotcha” kind of assessment.  Here are some ways to help make it work:

• Give the assignment before students leave for the summer.  If all classes are coming back to create a digital media project, let them know!  Knowing that they’ll be expected to produce something creative might light a fire under a few of them that weren’t really planning on reading in the first place.

• Assign projects that take several days to complete in class.  Hint, hint: this gives the non-summer readers a few extra days to knock out a good chunk of the book without you *technically* knowing.  If the book is read June 4th or during the first three days of school, does that really matter to you? No, because they finally read something!

• Choose projects where you can assess more than just their reading comprehension.  If a student didn’t read but still participated actively in a socratic seminar discussion, his grade might not be an “A”, but it also won’t be an “F”.  Projects, discussions, and other types of creative assessment give students a chance to showcase their thoughts on the Essential Question which will help them connect to their classmates, your course, and keep them in an acceptable grade range.  I usually offer them five choices in assessment types and then grade them all on one rubric that focuses on theme, big ideas, and the essential question.

5. COORDINATING LOGISTICS BETWEEN COLLEAGUES AND DEPARTMENTS.

There are always students moving between levels or between schools that somehow arrive to class in the fall and have (or claim to have) no idea what was supposed to be happening over the summer.  I taught at a school with a huge ESL program for a long time, and it was always difficult to get the right reading list to the right teacher for the right student graduating into a specific course level.  

SOLUTION:  

See Solution #3 & #4 - an Essential Question based *suggested* list makes it easy for kids to hop in, prepared or not, to the assessment by simply drawing from their reading background from other classes.  If, in fact, the student did actually move to the district during the first week of school, no problem! Hop into this assignment and tell us what you think about standing up in the face of injustice. When assessments are Essential Question based instead of plot based, you’ll give yourselves a bit more flexibility in this area.

I hope some of these solutions are helpful at your next department meeting as you attempt to tackle the monstrous responsibility of summer reading. Whether you’re working on it as a team or solo, know that your work is important. Making reading fun, exciting, and AVAILABLE to kids all year round is an important extension of our work in the classroom. Keep up the great work and let me know what else you’re doing that’s WORKING!

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The End of the Year in ELA

The End of the Year in ELA:

13 Last Minute Lesson Ideas

As the school year comes to a close, you might be looking at your calendar thinking, what on earth am I going to do with these random extra days?  Or maybe you have room on your calendar for a final unit, but no idea what to do with your students.  I’ve got your solution right here! Here is a roundup of 13 ideas for ELA mini-units and lessons that can effectively and meaningfully fill between 3-5 days at the end of the year.  My friends Amanda, Melissa, Danielle, Caitlin, and Jackie helped contribute to this list and I love what they had to add! Have other favorite ideas? Share them in the comments below!

1. Skechnotes Reflection:  

I love using a visual, artistic way for students to reflect on their learning and their lives.  These sketchnotes are the perfect kick off to a quick, mini-unit to end the year.  Spend one day reviewing and brainstorming what students have learned and how they’ve grown during the year.  Then, introduce the sketchnotes and let student start designing. Finally, have students present their sketchnotes on your projector at the front of the room for a quick speaking and listening grade.  After each presentation is done, hang them up on a string of twine with a clothespin to make a great backdrop for an end of the year class picture!

2. Cento Poem & Performance:

This poem is essentially the poetry version of making a patchwork quilt.  Think about the school year and all of the characters you’ve met, books you’ve read, and experiences you’ve had as a class.  Using this blog post to help you, send students back through their favorite moments of the year to create a cento poem that reflects their fondest memories of a particularly powerful theme that ran through the course.  From reflecting, drafting, writing, and then performing or design a printable version of the poem, there’s an inspiring, reflective, and meaningful end of the year week!

3. How to Be a Person:  

This is a great poem that can be used to have students set goals for the future.  Use this post to guide students through a several day lesson that has them analyze the poem, write their own imitation, and potentially even create their own video to accompany their new creation.

4. Check out Netflix documentaries and films:  

Netflix is constantly coming out with new, beautiful documentaries that are appropriate and, in some cases, important for students to see.  Using a simple KWL (what do you know, want to know, and what have you learned) for a handout, your students could end the year learning something brand new.  Some of my favorites include: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, Our Earth, 13th, and Miss Representation.

5. End of Year Stations:  

This one’s only a one-day lesson, but it will have your kids up, moving and making one last memory together!  Throw together a quick and easy photobooth, use up all of the paint chips you promised yourself you were going to use for a lesson, and copy these handouts for a station rotation activity to tame those little squirrels.  For another idea and approach to end of the year stations, be sure to check out the option from Room 213 - these involve a bit more classwork review!

6. Camp S’More Writing

Using the metaphor of summer camp, Caitlin & Jessica from EB Academics use their classroom transformation skills to motivate and excite students to review their learning at the end of the year. Check out the fun summer camp decor and games they’ve put together!

7. A Mini-Memoir Unit:  

I love the idea of ending the year on a personal writing project.  They’re meaningful, rigorous, and can be paced out in a way that keeps students focused on a daily task up until the last day of school.  One mini-unit that I’ve particularly enjoyed is one that I do on the concept of LEGACY. I begin the unit with a lesson on what legacy is and the famous legacies that many well known figures have left behind.  I have the kids then choose a person whose legacy they admire and then participate in a short “speed-dating” activity. Next, we start brainstorming, drafting, and writing our own memoirs. Depending on how much time you have, there’s then plenty of time to submit, revise, peer review, and publish!

8. Help Seniors Say Goodbye:  

I’ll admit it - in this blog post, I actually suggest planning a senior prank WITH the seniors.  I also have some other, less reckless ideas for how to bond with and support seniors as they’re making their way out the door.

9. Encyclopedia Memoirs:  

This super cool project comes from the Amanda Write Now blog.  Here, she gives detailed instructions for how to guide your students through this creative project where students create a memoir using the letters of the alphabet as a guide for their writing.  She has an example and simple, easy to implement instructions on her website! This could be such a fun week: spend one or two days drafting and brainstorming ideas, another few days designing the pages of their encyclopedia books, and the remainder of the mini-unit presenting and having a publishing party to share the end results!

10. CROT Poetry:  

This poetry activity comes from my buddy Melissa at Reading and Writing Haven.  She told me, “At the end of the year, I love throwing some creativity into the mix. Students are often involved in passion projects, mini research assignments, or fun reading units. This creative response to nonfiction is the perfect way to blend research with abstract thinking. With this assignment, students research a topic of interest and convey what they have learned by synthesizing multiple sources. The final product is a combination of prose, poetry, and art. Students analyze white space, fonts, colors, and alignment as they combine fragments of thought to craft an overall theme.  This lesson is icing on the cake for research, poetry, and author's craft units. Because of the short snippets of thought, it provides an opportunity to add rigor to creative writing. Not only are students synthesizing research, but also they are using crots and blips (purposeful fragments of thought) to create an overall emotional impact and thematic message. If you have a few extra days at the end of your school year, try this outside-of-the-box activity with your junior high or high school students.”

11. Start the college search:

The College Board website (referred to as Big Future) has some amazing college search planning tools. Have students create an account, go through some of the guided tutorials, begin the search process, and write or speak about what they discovered by the end of the week.

12. Create Vision Boards:  

When I talked to my friend Danielle about the end of the year in her classroom, she shared this with me, “In the classroom, you can use the vision board many times during the year. Think about times when there are ‘new beginnings’ in the classroom. Do you end the school year in May or June? Instead approach the end of the year as though it’s a new beginning.  Create a vision board at the end of the school year to create goals for the upcoming school year. Students can use this tool periodically during the summer to “check in” to make sure they’re on the right path for the future they want for the upcoming new school year.”

13. Take Class Outside:  

Embrace the great weather with these fun ideas from Room 213.  From writing lessons to creative projects, here are some great ways to open the walls of your classroom.  And here’s another cool writing project that takes students through a park looking for items to describe and write about!

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The Literary Analysis Essay: A Teacher's Guide

Teaching essay writing is no simple task:

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1. The pressure is on:  this is a skill that students need, are tested on, and will need to harness for the next grade level all the way into college.  

2. Students somehow forget what they’ve learned in between assignments.  I mean...how many times do I have to teach you what CLAIM is?!?! We JUST went over it!

3. There are just TOO MANY skills all depending on each other.  Every time we teach an essay, we feel compelled to teach and grade everything, from selecting best evidence to writing a correct MLA header!

You get the picture.  We’re in this together.  This article is the first in a series of articles that will break down into detail ways to handle these problems and to focus your instruction in a way that’s helpful to students and life-saving to your weekend hours with your friends, family, and social life!

CREATING A GAME PLAN

Design the rubric

You might be thinking, why is the first part of a game plan the last thing I look at in the process?  Rubrics are for grading, so why make that the first step? Well, beginning with the end in mind is not only best practice in curriculum design, but it’s going to make the grading process (yes, the dreaded stack ‘o’ papers) a lot less painful!  Here are my top tips for designing your writing rubric:

• Design ONE rubric that you can use all year long.  Yep. One that works for ALL kinds of writing or can have just one row adapted to fit the writing task.  This gives students the opportunity to learn your rubric - to internalize each of the criteria and the feedback.  When students know their rubric, it lets you lean on the language in the rubric more than leaving the same comments over and over again!  

• Use student friendly language.  If the rubric communicates clear, concise writing goals, again, you can lean more on the rubric when it comes to giving feedback.  

• Eliminate points.  Label your grading scale with a ranking scale that let’s students know where their skill level is - not how many arbitrary points they’re worth.  You can still use points in your grade book, but on the rubric, they’re more distracting to students than helpful. I use “Distinguished”, “Proficient”, “Basic”, “Below Basic” and “Missing”.  Other teachers use A-F or 1-5.

• For your skill rows, try to group skills into big categories (think: holistic) rather than breaking things down into tiny tasks.  For example, if you have two rubric categories, one for MLA and one for Grammar, consider combining them into an “MLA & Grammar” category.  Again, this will help with providing helpful feedback that doesn’t take you weeks and weeks to come up with.

Stop keeping the essay question a secret

For a long time, it’s seemed like it was a big secret to find out what the essay question would be at the end of a unit.  Knowing what we know now about curriculum design, it’s important to reframe our older perception of this experience. In my earlier years of teaching, I was also guilty of starting a novel without even knowing what the question was!  I now call this “teaching into a black hole” and it’s just as scary as it sounds. We NEED to know what the assessment will be before we begin teaching the novel unit - PERIOD. Whatever the question may be, whether it is a literary analysis skill or based on the unit’s Essential Question, this question should be the guidepost for us as we are designing lessons all throughout the unit.  Put the question on a bookmark. Discuss it at the beginning and middle of the story and see how student perceptions have shifted. Create annotation exercises around the question. Keep track of evidence using Google Keep. Ask different versions of the question in discussion, in smaller writing assignments, and for quick little homework assignments. The more exposure and practice the students have with the question, you’ll be able to spend more time on teaching writing at the end of the unit and less time making sure everyone understands the question and knows how to approach the essay.  By the way, you’ll also read MUCH BETTER ESSAYS. You’re ensuring that your students are already thinking about and processing the essay all unit long.

Systematically plan your writing week

Instead of letting your writing week turn into a mish-mosh of drafting and brainstorming, create a specific goal for each class period leading up to the essay writing day.  What are the skills (priorities) that require whole-class direct instruction? For me, those skills are claim writing, finding best evidence, and thinking through the structural packaging of the essay in an outline.  So, when we finish our novel unit and are ready for writing week, my students go through a four day pre-writing workshop. Each day has a mini lesson, work time, and a homework assignment. I’d love to send you a copy of my calendar - sign up here!

Know the difference between grading and providing feedback

I know this is what everyone wants to know: what’s the secret ingredient in the quick-essay-grading sauce?  Well here, the secret: grading fast depends on everything I’ve talked about prior to this: a well designed and clearly understood rubric, writing practice, and targeted lessons that precede essay turn-in make for a much faster and more focused grading experience for you. For me, grading is circling items on the rubric and getting that rubric back in the hands of students quickly (I collect on Fridays and hand back rubrics on Mondays). Feedback, however, comes in the form of a conversation that I have with students on the whole-class and individual levels.

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To grade quickly, there are of course the practical tips:  turn off your phone, isolate yourself from the outside world, and don’t start until you’re ready to chug through uninterrupted.  Speed in grading is reliant on the rhythm you develop as you read responses one after another. You’ll start to see your students papers holistically and you’ll even start to see your class as a whole.  This is the goal: let go of the nitty gritty issues in grading full papers. Hone in on subject-verb agreement and other grammar and style based details when students write shorter pieces. If you have a grammar or MLA component in your rubric, make it worth the least amount of points.  You want to make sure that you can quickly, almost at a glance, assess the OVERALL quality of each category. If you can let go of how annoyed you are to see ANOTHER lowercase “daisy” in your stack of The Great Gatsby papers, the faster you’ll move.  If the errors are distracting (overall) students should receive a lower score in that category, but you need to free yourself to move on to the bigger issues.  Does the claim build and stretch throughout the paper? Did the student create a cohesive argument? Are the chosen pieces of evidence convincing and well analyzed?  These are the things that deserve your attention.

When you’re ready to get down to business, allow yourself to read, circle the rubric, and repeat.  Don’t slow down. Don’t second guess yourself. Don’t write a single comment. Get in the zone and start to absorb the papers.  After about 10-15 papers are read and rubrics are circled, add a few quick notes to a post-it on some of the common errors that you’re noticing.  Remember, try to leave the grammar and style issues alone (unless they’re rampantly glaring!) and focus on the bigger picture writing skills that you’ve been practicing.  If you’re noticing that students are struggling with something that you haven’t really taught, first, you shouldn't be surprised, and second, there’s no need to critique it now.  Put it on the list to teach for the next round of writing. You don’t need to cover everything in every paper - focus on the priorities you set out from the beginning. I use these common errors as discussion points in each of the reading conferences that I have after essays are returned.

I hope these ideas can start a thought provoking discussion in your department or on your curriculum teams.  Share this article with your teacher bestie and have a debate. There is so much more to say and I promise more is to come in this series.   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or come over and hang out with us on Instagram @mudandinkteaching.

Want a copy of A Teacher’s Ultimate Guide to The Literary Analysis Essay?  I’ve got tips and a two week calendar all arranged for you in a printable PDF.  Just tell me where to send it below and I’ll keep you in the loop about future posts and conversations on this topic.

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How to Teach a Long Novel

How to Teach a Long Novel:  

Keeping Readers Involved & Engaged

No matter whether you love or loathe the long novel you teach, the same struggles pop up every time we come around to teaching it year after year.  For me, it’s To Kill a Mockingbird.  It’s a 400 page monster!  It’s fun dawdling around with setting and making maps of Maycomb and then rolling through Boo Radley anecdotes., but before we know it, August has turned into December. I’m kidding, of course, but time truly does have a way of slipping away as we work through a long text.  And there’s nothing worse for kids than dragging out a book for too long! Here are my best suggestions for getting through your version of my Mockingbird.

Start with a killer Essential Question

An Essential Question is the cornerstone of a great unit, no matter how long the novel is, but when working with a long text, having an essential question helps serves as an anchor point that keeps everyone focused.  Leading into your novel with an essential question helps answer the question “Why are we reading this book?” and helps you decide which lessons to teach and which to leave out. For more ideas that will help you get started with writing Essential Questions, check out this blog post!

Consider teaching PARTS rather than CHAPTERS

For a long tie, English teachers have subscribed to the instructional method of assigning chapters for homework followed by reading quizzes.  This is pretty much (with some variation) what I do with The Great Gatsby, but it’s only nine chapters long!  Assigning chapter by chapter reading in a book with 20+ chapters, to me, seems to make the reading already feel like a chore.  Consider this: break the reading up into larger parts and give students more time to read. These parts might already exist in the novel or you can make them based on the page numbers that need to get covered.  Now, students are reading Part One over a 1-2 week period, giving you a larger territory to use for bigger picture, thematic lessons, and students have more autonomy about where and when they get their reading accomplished.  

This method often makes teachers panic.  Here are a few of the concerns I always hear:

• What if the student’s don’t read?  Well, the truth is, students probably weren’t going to read your nightly assigned chapters, either, so we have to think about solving that problem in other ways.  Why not give them the sense of independence by only having three “assignments” due rather than fifteen?

• Won’t it be too hard if I don’t check in more often?  Use your best judgement because, yes, this might be the case.  There are a lot of texts, however, that benefit from understanding the big picture rather than zooming in on every single detail.  Mockingbird is a perfect example of this.  I’m really not concerned with students having a perfectly accurate read for every single chapter or every single character.  What’s really important to me is getting to the point in the novel where we can start to have really serious conversations about justice, privilege, and symbolism.   If we stop to examine every prank the kids pull on Boo, we’ll never get there. By grouping those chapters all together, we’re likely to come together as a class at the end of the allotted time for reading and hit the major ideas.

• Won’t they forget about specific details?  Think about the first time YOU read a book.  Did you catch all of the details that you’re so desperately holding on to for your students right now?  Probably not! We need to give ourselves permission to not feel the burden of “covering” every single magnificent literary moment in a text.  Stick to the details that illuminate your essential question and if some of your favorite lines or moments get glossed over, IT’S OKAY! Remember, we’re teaching teenagers with shortened attention spans.  We need to pick the best of the best, get in and get out! Just keep swimming...

Casually check in with reading progress using Google Forms/Classroom

Especially when I give a lengthier chunk of text for students to read, I like to send them a quick little (ungraded!) check in.  I simply create a Google Form that asks students things like this:

• About how much of the reading have you completed?  (0%; 25%; 50%; 75%; I’m done!)

• What points of confusion have you found so far?

• How can I help make the reading more clear for you?  More enjoyable?

• Which character do you like the best so far?  Why is that?

• Are you liking the book so far?  Why or why not?

Questions like this are sneaky :-)  Students who are really reading will voice their concerns and give you solid answers and you’ll get great insight into a students’ reading experience.  On the other hand, students who are not reading or are struggling with the reading will reveal that pretty clearly, too.  This gives you a chance to pull a student aside individually and talk to them about what’s hindering their reading progress.  You’ll be able to catch issues before your reading quiz or before the due date for the assigned reading.

Set up a reading calendar...and stick to it!

I know this sounds basic, but it’s the best way to keep your pacing on track.  Make your calendar, print it, hand it out to students, and post it on Google Classroom. Your close reading lessons could also be included here, helping to establish a practice and develop a routine. This calendar commits you to finishing each piece of the novel on the timeline you established in your initial planning.  Sure, you can always make adjustments if you have to, but for the most part, having the calendar will force you to keep moving.  I’m the first to want to extend a chapter after I had a great idea in the shower the night before, but then my units turn into twelve week long nightmares!  Make your calendar and stick to it.

Offer multiple types of assessment formats

If you want to keep the energy moving, assess the students with some variety.  Here are a few things that I like to incorporate:

• Two Truths and a Lie:  Just like it sounds - give the students two true statements about the reading paired with a lie and let the discussions begin!  It seems very elementary on the surface, but once students start debating, be prepared for some really thoughtful discussion.

• Door Quizzes:  I like to throw “pop” door quizzes every now and then.  In this type of quiz, students are stopped at the door with a quick and easy comprehension level question and students cannot enter the door until they can answer the question .  If they get an answer incorrect, they stay in the hallway, take out their books, and reread until they can figure out the answer! Students who get the answer correct are allowed to enter the classroom.  Once inside

• FlipGrid:  Simple questions about character and plot take on a whole new energy when they’re answered on FlipGrid.  Ask the easy questions or do something more adventurous like putting students into small groups or pairs to reenact a scene!

• Socratic Seminars:  circle up the desks and let’s get talking!  Socratic seminars come in many shapes and sizes, but here’s why they’re great for long novels:  big picture questions can be answered from so many different places in the novel. With shorter texts, sometimes students repeat similar examples to answer questions, but with a longer novel, students have more to draw from.  Bonus? Grade on the spot as students are talking - no take-home work for you!

• Sesame Street Quizzes: They’re by far and away my favorite type of quiz. Listen to the Brave New Teaching podcast episode that walks you through them and share your info below and I’ll send over my quiz template and practice lesson!

Stagger the unit with high interest non-fiction, poetry, and visual text

I know this sounds contradictory:  add more reading to the unit with the longest book.  While that’s true, we know that we also need to keep our texts relevant.  Clips from movies with strong connections, news articles from around the world, and poetry that speaks to the experience of a character all make for a more enjoyable reading experience and help build connections for kids as they read.  Also, these text might be the ONLY text that are read by certain students. Remember those kids we talked about earlier? The ones you’re worried won’t read the book? They might not be reading as much as you hope, but they WILL close read a poem with you in class.  They WILL talk about the article that you put in front of them that makes a connection. Sometimes, these little moments inspire kids to want to know what they’re missing in the novel and offer important big picture considerations that might be missed otherwise. With To Kill a Mockingbird, I love to show the documentary 13th from Netflix and read about the wrongful imprisonment of Kalief Browder.  

Hopefully, these ideas can make teaching your long novel a joyful skip through a field of wildflowers instead of trudging through the 8th circle of hell.  Trust me, I’ve been there! What are the long novels that you teach? What struggles to you face? What strategies have you tried that have worked well for you?  Let us know in the comments below!

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SHOP THE MUD AND INK TEACHING STORE

How To Build A New Novel Unit From Scratch

After teaching for ten years and then switching schools, I was very quickly reminded of how much work goes into writing curriculum from scratch. For a long time, I was in a happy place of continual revision of curriculum that I liked, but was tweaking here and there for relevance, rigor, and for fun.  

Now? It’s the Wild West. It’s intergalactic chaos. It’s constant guessing and unpredictability.  All that aside, however, it’s also invigorating and exciting. I would call myself “a curriculum person” because this kind of blank slate challenges me in a way that sparks joy in my life, despite the chaos, so I’d like to share with you how to most easily navigate through a first attempt at writing and implementing a new curriculum for a new novel in your secondary ELA classroom.

1.  Read the novel

I know this sounds obvious, but really having a chance to get through the novel from start to finish before the kids do is critical. I have tried to muddle through a new book by just staying ahead of the kids, but let me tell you, the stress of that life is unbearable. In the very best case scenario, try to ensure that you have enough time to get through the novel before the kids start so that you have time to think about the priorities of why it’s important to teach. While reading, consider the following:

• What are the patterns that I find myself annotating? Are these the things I want students to look for, too?

• What does this novel offer to students that no other novel has? What is uniquely special about this particular story that is a “must teach” because they won’t likely see it again in such a clear way?  (Things like parallel plot structure, extended metaphor, motif, a really strong example of foil character, etc.).

• How have I been enjoyably reading this book - in larger chunks or chapter by chapter? What is the most natural way to break up the reading for the kids?

2.  Consult Your Team

“Accumulating resources is different from constructing a unit. ”

Some of us work on course teams.  Some of us work solo. I find that I plan best when in conversation with a lot of people about the book I’m teaching. I talk to teachers at my own school who teach or have taught the novel in the past, I call my friends from my old school and talk to them about the novel, and I’ve even been known to put out the “bat signal” on Instagram to hear what the amazing teachers across the globe have been doing with the novel. After those three sources are consulted, I usually have WAY MORE than what I could possibly handle and I’m sparked with ideas for the unit. A few reminders:

• Just because someone gives you something doesn’t mean you have to use it

• Accumulating resources is different from constructing a unit.  I know teachers don’t want to “reinvent the wheel” (which I find insane - I love reinventing that stupid wheel!), but regurgitating someone else resources for your students is not best practice.

• Look at the resources through a critical lens - which resources address similar issues?  Which resources are BOTH rigorous and exciting to use/teach? Can any of the resources be grouped together to address a big, conceptual question?

3.  Create a Curriculum Map Vision Board

This is a new idea that I just started using for my unit on To Kill a Mockingbird. After reading the book and pouring through recommended resources, this is the place to visualize the patterns, issues, skills, themes, and questions that you’d like to address somewhere in the unit. I think there’s potential to use this in class at some point, but for now, I just make these for myself as a draft before I commit items to an actual curriculum map.

4.  Draft Your Essential Question*

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE PROCESS!!  I wish it could go higher on the list, but it’s hard to write a high quality essential question without having processed through the steps above. If you’ve never gone through this process before, I recommend purchasing Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding (affiliate link) by Grant Wiggins and Jim McTighe (they’re the original gurus) or at least checking out the abbreviated version on their publisher’s website.  

Your unit needs ONE essential question. One question that captivates curiosity, applies to a broad spectrum of texts, and begs your learners to uncover an answer rather than regurgitate one. McTighe and Wiggins lay out seven criteria that define essential questions:

1. Is open-ended; that is, it typically will not have a single, final, and correct answer.

2. Is thought-provoking and intellectually engaging, often sparking discussion and debate.

3. Calls for higher-order thinking, such as analysis, inference, evaluation, prediction. It cannot be effectively answered by recall alone.

4. Points toward important, transferable ideas within (and sometimes across) disciplines.

5. Raises additional questions and sparks further inquiry.

6. Requires support and justification, not just an answer.

7. Recurs over time; that is, the question can and should be revisited again and again.

So how do you get there? Look through your vision board. Look back at the resources you’ve curated from your team. What are the thematic patterns? What do you want students to walk away from your lessons wondering about - EVEN IF THEY DON’T READ THE NOVEL? The essential question is huge because it is the question that drives instruction - not the novel itself. It will help you make decisions about what to include and exclude from the unit.  

Then, start drafting.  Write all ideas down - even the “bad” ones.  Cut them and paste them. Say them out loud. Run them by a colleague. Ask your non-teacher friends if they’re captivated by your question. Once you think you’ve gotten there, run your question through the criteria above. When you’ve got it, throw a party for yourself!! This is a huge accomplishment!!

Before you begin the unit, be sure to have a place in your classroom where you’ll display the question.  In order for essential questions to really hold their value, you’ll have to address the question throughout the unit, so making it visible sends the message to students that it’s something they should be constantly thinking about.

LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION? HERE’S A NEW NOVEL UNIT TO TRY…

5.  Set Up for Backwards Design

If you’ve been trained in UbD (Understanding by Design), you’ll have a more sophisticated understanding of what I’m about to cover, but essentially, when designing a unit, it is critical that everything starts with the end in mind. When working with essential questions, this is really easy: your unit should start and end with the essential question.

Most people end their units with an assessment.  If that’s the case, ideally, you’ll have your students respond to the essential question in either a written, spoken, or project based way. However, you might want the final assessment to be more skill based. For example, if you want your students to write a literary analysis paper on symbolism in The Great Gatsby, you should do that and build up to those skills, but don’t forget that to END the unit, students should also thoughtfully address the essential question that drove the unit. They could answer a reflection question on Google Classroom, they could have a mini-conference with you about the question, they could informally share in groups what they’ve learned about the question, they could present a portfolio that responds to the question, or anything else you come up with. But if you start To Kill a Mockingbird asking “When an injustice is committed, is empathy enough?” and end by asking them to write an essay that asks, “Who are the mockingbirds in the story?”, your students will struggle to find value in the essential question.  

As you look at your unit calendar and move backwards, be sure that the assessments you have planned match the skills you plan to teach in each section of the novel. Your close reads, part of that backward planning process and calendar creation, are also skill-focused, giving students the scaffolding and practice they need to approach the summative. Again, for example, if you want to end a unit by having students write a narrative, make sure that the instruction all throughout the novel is about plot elements, creating characterization, writing dialogue, etc. Good backwards design means that you are designing units that set students up for success - not blindside them with expectations.

6.  Write Your Curriculum Map

For some teachers, curriculum maps are something they like to write as they teach. If you have time, sketching out your map before the unit is nice because it’s a backbone that can keep you stable, but if you’ve done everything else up until this point, you’d be fine to fill it in as you do things that you like! If you need a map, I have one here that’s pretty elaborate, but you can certainly do something simpler if you’d like. I have these blank maps printed and spiral bound for myself and I keep them at my desk! Once I’ve got a rough draft I like, I will start to move them into a digital format linking the assignments that correlate with each section of the map.

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Did you find this helpful? Where are you feeling lost? If you need a community of teachers to run ideas by or be sounding boards, we’d love to have you join us in The Adventurous Teaching Academy Facebook group or on Instagram. Share below your best tips that you’d add to this list!

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RESOURCES FROM MUD & INK TEACHING:

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Write here…

10 Adventurous Teaching Ideas for 2019

Teacher burnout is a real thing.  Exhaustion from the myriad demands placed on our shoulders year in and year out can make anyone question why on earth they started in this profession in the first place.  

As a teacher in the US, the winter break gives me a chance to reevaluate my “why” in teaching.   Why do it? Why work so hard? Why work to the point of burnout every single year? When there’s actually time to slow down and remember the answer to that question, the answer is so simple - why?  Because I love watching kids learn. That’s it. It’s that simple. And when does burnout start to feel so painful? It’s when the job has become something other than dedicating time to helping students learn and experience new things.

In 2019, I’m excited to announce the launch of a new social media meeting place for teachers - The Adventurous Teaching Academy.  It’s a Facebook group and safe space where teachers can ask questions, share experiences, and most of all, challenge each other to try new teaching adventures in their classrooms.  Here is where we kill the burnout and stay invigorated - by focusing on new and exciting ways to watch students learn!

To kick off the new year and send you back to your classrooms with a sense of excitement and anticipation, I’ve collected some adventurous teaching ideas for you to consider.  Here’s how I suggest you get started…

#1:  Overhaul Your Curriculum Maps

There’s nothing more refreshing than taking the time to seriously overhaul and rethink your curriculum map with your team.  This can seem like a daunting task, but once the map is strong and it works, you’ll feel refreshed and focused on the FUN in teaching rather than the chore of day-to-day planning.  Start here with my free curriculum map template.  Sit down with your team and sketch out what is working so far.  To read more about making your essential questions stronger, read this blog post to get started!

#2:  Try an Escape Room

They can take a bit of work to set up and are a bit hard to design on your own, but once you’ve tried an escape room, you’ll be dying to make or buy a TpT one for every novel you teach!  My friend Abby from Write On With Miss G loves them too. She says, “Escape rooms are an adventurous teaching must-try. They encourage collaboration among students, get students up and moving, and bring content to life. An escape room is comprised of clues that lead students to tasks or challenges. Once completed, each task generates a code that allows students to advance to the next challenge. Escape rooms can be paper and pencil, entirely digital, or blended.” Be sure to check out Abby’s escape room for Poe’s “The Masque of the Red Death”  or mine for “A Raisin in the Sun.”

#3:  Transform Your Classroom

Last year, The Wild Card took teacher book clubs by storm and one of my favorite takeaways from reading it was the excitement that is possible through classroom transformations. Ashley from Building Book Love sums up the classroom transformation experience beautifully. She says, “Here’s another way to be adventurous in English class: take your students on a journey without even leaving your classroom! Though some might view classroom transformations as a little elementary, secondary students benefit from the novelty and engagement just the same as younger students. The best part is that it doesn’t take a lot of effort or money to make your next lesson look more adventurous; take a look at these simple and economical transformations: Lord of the Flies One Dollar, One Hour Transformation, Great Gatsby Party Decorations, Hygge in the Classroom. ”

#4:  Experiment with Podcasts

Nothing says adventurous more than trying a completely new medium in your ELA class. According to Ashley from Building Book Love, “podcasts are the fastest growing form of media, and if you can introduce students to this new digital platform, you can potentially transform their potential of continuing life-long learning. To get started on your podcasts-in-the-classroom adventure, check out this post filled with tons of ELA podcast pairings. “

#5:  Rethink Grammar Instruction

When I chatted with Melissa from Reading and Writing Haven, she reminded me that making grammar adventurous is important. Why? Adventurous lessons engage students, and...let’s face it. Grammar lessons can use all the zest they can get. Next time you review grammar concepts, try playing truth or dare. Or, use captivating narrative leads from young adult literature as mentor sentences.  Additionally, Lauralee from Language Arts Classroom noted that no matter what, grammar instruction cannot begin and end with worksheets! She recommends connecting grammar to the rest of your ELA content and get students discussing grammar with their peers. You might find luck with mentor sentences or verb stations.

#6:  Take Students on a Virtual Field Trip

If you really want to bring the setting of your next novel to life, try using a combination of Google Maps and Google Instant Street View to create a virtual field trip. Abby from Write On with Miss G showed me that maps will allow you to plot points for setting or a character’s journey, while Street View will show students 360 views! Tie this to the standards by having your students create literary postcards to analyze setting, point of view, characterization, and more.  If you’re planning on teaching Shakespeare anytime soon, you might take a look at this Virtual Field Trip to London that preps students in his background and life story.  Students will get their very own passports, book hotel rooms, flights, and travel all around London learning about The Bard and about travel itself!

#7:  Consider New Assessment Strategies

First and foremost, hop on this Pinterest board for an ever-growing list of assessment strategies for high school and middle school ELA.  I keep it as fresh as I can with new ideas every week! Then, once you’re all set on Pinterest, why not think about instituting conferencing with students as a new assessment adventure? According to my friend Amanda from Amanda Write Now, this is an adventure worth taking. Conferences are short conversations with your students as they work. It is an easy way to differentiate your instruction too. Learn more about conferencing in this article. Another way you can implement conferences is with writing partners. Students can support each other in powerful ways too. Once you get these conference conversations going in your classroom the adventure can begin!

#8:  Refresh Your Approach to Reading Instruction

Assigning reading? Annotation is not the only way to help students process course content. Melissa recommends you try asking them to close read with color. Each time students read, they pull out a new layer of meaning, and each layer of meaning is represented on a Post-It with different colors. Read more about this adventurous teaching idea here. You may also be interested in trying (two great blog posts here and here!), which are a fresh way to capture snippets of how students connect with a text.  Lauralee is a strong believer in trying a reading aloud with your high school students. They will enjoy it! You will have the opportunity to model your thought processes as you read and share images the reading sparked for you. Not only will you be sharing fiction and nonfiction, but you will also be building classroom community.

#9:  Commit to Movement

Keeping students actively engaged is something that will change the environment and learning experience in your classroom dramatically.  For me, that journey all started by incorporating stations at the start of pretty much every novel. Then, I got good at them and started using them in other unique ways during a unit.  Either way, here’s a great blog post to help you get started with stations.  Beyond stations, I love this blog post that features ten ways to bring movement to your ELA classroom - it’s a great read!

#10: Join the Teacher Social Media Movement

My best ideas and the encouragement I need to try new things comes almost entirely from my social media teacher circle.  My colleagues are amazing, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes we just need to be real people with those that we work with.  With the teacher-insta community, we can be nerdy teachers 24/7! My favorite platform is definitely Instagram.  I’m also so excited to have recruited many Instagram friends to join our new and growing Adventurous Teaching Academy group on Facebook.  No matter where you go, find an online community of teachers and plug in. Find your like-minded teacher soulmates and let them encourage you!   So here’s where you start: with these incredible women who contributed brilliant ideas to this blog post!

Thank you to Abby, Ashley, Amanda, Melissa, and Lauralee for your contributions to this post. Make sure you check out each of these fabulous teachers on Instagram! There, you’ll find more of their content and links to their websites and blogs.

Tell us, which adventurous teaching idea are you excited to try this year? Share in the comments!

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MUD AND INK TEACHING RESOURCES:

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Making Essential Questions ESSENTIAL

Making Essential Questions ESSENTIAL

(and why your curriculum feels clunky)

**If you’re new to the world of essential questions, I highly recommend you do a bit more background reading before continuing on with this post.  Check out Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe to start.**

Many teachers and districts have hopped on the essential questions trend, but time and time again in my conversations with teachers and administrators across the country, many are missing the point.  Writing an essential question is more than just filling in another box on a curriculum map. They’re more than just a way to kick off a unit. Essential questions should be the vehicles that carry students to their essential understandings of each unit.

So where are teachers and curriculum writers taking a wrong turn?  From my recreational “research” (casual conversations online and in person with teachers), there appear to be three big issues that are making essential questions in curriculum feel clunky.

1.  Essential questions are created without backwards design

Backwards design is a cornerstone in curriculum development.  When designing units (and school years), beginning with the end of the unit must be the first step for a team to take.  When curriculum teams start building a unit with an essential question and NOT with a conversation about the essential understandings that teachers want students to have by the end of the unit, the essential question itself is doomed to fail in doing its job.  

In a freshman English unit, for example, teachers might want students to end a unit by writing a narrative.  If this is the case, elements of narrative and narrative-type assessments should be the focal point all throughout the unit.  The essential question, too, must drive students to consider how narrative works. Perhaps the question might be, “To what extent can narrative transport a reader?”  Now, the question is designed to drive the unit all the way through whatever selected texts are used AND ensure that students are not blindly walking into an assessment disconnected from the rest of the unit.  The question also naturally calls for students to develop an opinion about narrative that should evolve across the course of studying the unit. By the time students get to the end of the unit, they should be well versed in the components of narrative that make it transformational for a reader and then able to attempt one of their own.  

Instead, we have “required assessments” put in place from district offices.  Then, a year or two later, well meaning teachers are told to include essential questions.  Instead of starting with the assessment, they start with the themes of the novel they’re studying or a major skill that they perceive to be important.  And although now essential questions are on the curriculum map, they’re not driving students to understanding or teachers to instructing.

2.  There are too many essential questions on the table

If you’re struggling with using and revisiting essential questions in your classroom, consider this:  do you have too many? Wiggins generally suggests having an OAEQ (overarching essential question) and then one other essential question that is a bit more specific.  In terms of a English school year, I like to think of one overarching question for the year (all of English 2) and then an essential question that drives each unit. I’ve seen so many curriculum maps with four or five essential questions for just a single unit and wonder to myself so...which one is ESSENTIAL?  

For students to delve deeply into the question, there need only be one or two to consider.  Make it juicy, make it cultivate curiosity, and make it open to a wide variety of lenses. Then, ask that question over and over and over again as students learn more and see more of the world that you expose to them through the unit.

3.  Students never respond to the essential question

They’re on the map, they’re on the handouts, and sometimes they’re even on the school website, but if essential questions are not in front of students to respond to during the unit, then how are they meaningful?

Many teachers start with good intentions.  It’s an easy gateway to explore students first thoughts on the question at the start of a unit.  But, so often, the question fades into the background and the content takes over. The novel or play takes over.  The world war takes over. Intentionally designing opportunities for students to respond to the essential question formally and informally throughout the unit allows them to track how their thinking has grown and shifted.  It’s how we help students make sense of why they’re learning what they’re learning.

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Getting started with EQs and synthesis writing…

If you want to explore some mini-units that utilize essential questions, I’ve got a few you should try. These mini units provide teachers with an essential question, non fiction articles that respond to the question, a synthesis writing prompt, and writing outlines. As you get more comfortable with essential question units, these questions can incorporate more texts, novels even, and you can sprinkle the nonfiction articles throughout the semester.

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6 Ways to get Started with Stations

GETTING STARTED WITH STATIONS IN YOUR ELA CLASSROOM

When I first started teaching, I remember trying so many different ideas all the time in my classroom. It was exhausting running a new small group scenario or differentiation strategy several times per week, and over my many years of teaching, I’ve come to master a handful of strategies that are versatile and work EVERY time (at least NOW they do!). For me, learning stations are the way to go. I’d say at least once a week, I have my students engaging with content through a learning stations setup and I love it.

I rounded up some of my favorite learning station resources and talked to a few of my favorite ELA teacher friends to help you get started and inspired in your own classrooms - take a look at all of these goodies!

1. Permanent Station Signs

I use stations so much that I found a quick and easy way to make sure that they’re always ready for implementation - low prep and quick organization! Pick out a cute font, make signs for your stations (I usually use about 5-6), back your signs on card stock, and laminate! I hung these signs in my room where I usually tend to send students. Now, my kids know where to go every time I launch a stations activity.

2. Peer Review Stations - Interactive Bulletin Board

Have you guys met Ashley from Building Book Love? She’s not only a talented teacher, but a dear friend. I had to ask her about her peer review stations and here’s what she had to say:

“I love stations, but they can take a while to set up. That’s why I use the same set of peer review stations every time we do an essay. These work to improve essays before they get to me and allows me to give one-on-one feedback to each student before his or her final essay is due.

3. Annotation Stations

When I introduce the Prologue for Romeo and Juliet, instead of having students annotate as a whole class, I send them to stations! At each of the stations, the students close read and examine one specific purpose of the prologue in one highlighter color (i.e. pink highlighting for all of the sonnet features). Then, when the students rotate to the next station, they change highlighter colors and change annotation focus. By the time we come back together as a whole class, every student has had the chance to think, discuss, read (and reread) the prologue multiple times. We have a rich discussion involving everyone, not just the kids who always raise their hands first.

4. MLA Research Stations

My friend Melissa at Reading and Writing Haven loves learning stations, too! Here’s what she recommends trying in your classroom:

Research shows that direct instruction, when used appropriately for the age group, has great benefits. Still, when I’m teaching a complex topic, students need a lot more practice and exposure than they can get through a short lecture or a worksheet. Some concepts lend themselves really well to learning station approaches because they are multi-faceted, and they need to be studied from various angles. One of my favorite learning station lessons is for MLA research skills. I give students various scenarios, and we look at in-text citations as well as embedding quotes in essays in ways that move them from a basic level to deeper understanding. It’s interactive, and students love it!

5. Grammar Stations

My friend Lauralee at Language Arts Classroom is a grammar guru - no joke. Here’s how she incorporates stations into her grammar lessons:

“Learning stations provide huge benefits for grammar lessons. Teachers can see individual struggles and clarify misunderstandings as they rotate through stations. Check out grammar stations and other alternatives to the grammar worksheet and see an example here!”

6. Advice from The Stations Queen: Write On with Miss G!

If a crown for Stations Queen was in existence, I think all of Instagram would hand it over to Miss G! Abby has been using stations to replace all kinds of old school teaching practices, and when I asked her why she loves stations so much, here’s what she had to say:

“Stations are a staple in my high school ELA curriculum, but I especially love using them during novel units. I’ve ditched my old pre-reading PowerPoints in favor of stations to introduce literary movements/historical context for all of the literature we read. Stations are also perfect for avoiding the dreaded packets of chapter questions and breaking up the monotony that can sneak up during novel units if you’re not careful. You can even use end-of-novel learning stations to wrap up key discussions on symbolism, character development, theme, author’s purpose, and more.

Lucky for you, I have a series of posts all about learning stations, so feel free to check out my blog for even more tips and tricks:

• 10 reasons to implement learning stations in the secondary classroom

• How to create learning stations to engage students

• How to facilitate successful learning stations in the secondary classroom

If you are ready to get started with using stations in your ELA classroom, check out Miss G's learning stations for ANY text! These standards-aligned learning stations are engaging way to wrap up any novel unit and challenge your students to collaborate and critically think while practicing literary analysis skills. 

SHOP MY FAVORITE STATION ACTIVITIES:

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