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Real to Reel: Our Favorite Book-to-Screen Adaptations
For book lovers, it’s nothing new to read a good book and seek out the movie rendition, but for students, many seek out movies or TV shows and then...
Carmel McDonald walks you through how she walks her middle school ELA students through narrative structure with an interactive plot map. Download her worksheet below!
Carmel McDonald has taught middle school ELA in both British Columbia and Michigan, and has learned that tweens are tween-ish everywhere. She digs that. In 2019, Carmel was named Jackson Magazine’s Teacher of the Year. Carmel has nineteen adventurous years behind her as an educator, and is enjoying year twenty.
Architecture, Design & Structure in Literature
Ernest Hemingway once famously said that “Prose is architecture. It’s not interior design.” Well-known for the sparsity and tight structure of his...
AP European History Exam Review with focus on Historical Reasoning Processes
From a practical point of view, argumentation is at the heart of the free response section of the AP exam. This can be particularly difficult with...
Deconstructing Historical Discourse: Teaching the Secondary Source SAQ on the AP Exam
The Secondary Source Short Answer Question (SAQ) on the AP history exam presents a unique challenge: students must analyze and synthesize historical...
Mental Health Awareness: Writing as a Healthy Outlet
Mental health is just as important as our physical health, and many educators understand this. According to the National Institute of Mental Health,...
Practical Tips and Strategies for Welcoming English Language Learners into Your Middle School Classroom
It’s that time! The school year is beginning and you’re ready to welcome up to 180 new learners into your classroom. Whether you’re in your first...
Hispanic Heritage Month: Speaking and Scribbling in Spanish
When my mother was going to school in the panhandle of Texas, she and her friends were punished if they spoke Spanish in school. When my brothers and...
Interview with a Character (ELA Activity)
There are so many more interesting methods to writing a character analysis than writing an analysis paragraph. Oftentimes, English or language arts...
Black History Month: Fits, Photos, and Happily Ever Afters
Back when I taught at Southwest High School in San Antonio, Sharri Peterson, who dubbed herself my work wife, was my school spirit partner. Whenever...
Active Reading Notes & Purpose Statement
Whether teaching literature or rhetoric, close reading is an essential and often difficult skill to teach. This note-taking system, which is a...
Black History Month: Death by Journal
Okay—circle of trust here. After dropping my youngest child off at college all the way from San Antonio, Texas, to Lawrence, Kansas, at The...
Rock Star Poets
The “Greatest Hits” album. All the greats do it—Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tom Petty, Elton John, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mariah Carey—so it only...