Recently, I had the pleasure of joining Steve Barkley as a guest on his podcast, Steve Barkley Ponders Out Loud, where we chatted about the… Read More »Escape that Blah Feeling of Apathetic Argumentative Writing, and Help Your Students Find Their Flow
794viewsCollective Responsibility When our social studies department chair discussed students’ difficulty to contextualize the facts on the APUSH test, I knew this problem wasn’t just… Read More »The Most Underrated and Villianized Strategy for Teaching History: Memorizing Facts
Do you ever feel like your students’ argumentative writing lacks any real influence to make changes?
Aren’t you tired of debates that only escalate emotions? Aren’t you sick of heated discussions that seem like they’ll never achieve a solution?
Don’t you wish you knew how to make these arguments truly productive?
It is possible, even for our adolescent writers.
You’re not alone feeling the pain of teaching argumentative writing in today’s climate, but there are teachers who have found success. They have been able to teach students to argue with empathy for the other side and craft essays that offer collaborative solutions.
Share this process with your students by using the resources in this post.
3kviewsIn the past, when I would ask my classes how they studied for any of our last tests, overwhelming they’d tell me that they reread their notes.… Read More »Don’t Ask Students to “Study” Latin Word Chunks, Here’s Why.
5kviews As well-read ELA teachers, one of our most difficult struggles is with fitting in all that literacy research best practice into one class period.… Read More »How to Teach Latin Word Chunks in Less Than 10 Minutes
3kviews As the new school year approaches, we’re all eager to meet our new students. But—if you’re at all like me—you might fumble through this… Read More »Want to Quickly Connect with Your New Students? Start the Year with a Nosy Questionnaire
12.3kviewsWhen I first started teaching, we used ditto machines and overhead projectors. Take these dinosaur “tech tools” and pair them with 1) a random list… Read More »A Beginner’s Guide to Vocabulary Instruction: Using Latin Word Chunks
4.9kviews Spring is upon us, even here in Michigan. With sunshine peeking in through classroom windows, your students are no doubt asking to have class… Read More »18 Strategies to Scaffold Readers Before They’re Released into the Wild
4.3kviews Okay, English majors: Who else feels guilty when we have to rush through a literary masterpiece in order to meet the end-of-the-year time crunch? In… Read More »Annoy an English Major. Get Your Students to Understand Shakespeare in Half the Time.
5.6kviews Last week, I discussed the serious problem many schools face when administrators absently name everyone on staff a “reading teacher.” This has sincere implications. For one, some educators… Read More »…And The Truth Behind “We’re All Reading Teachers”