I see great classroom potential in Jon Krakauer’s latest — Yesterday, I flipped through the newest book from Jon Krakauer, Classic Krakauer: Essays on Wilderness and Risk. Once again, I was transported to the far reaches of possibility. With Krakauer as my guide, I rappelled down 1,000 feet into Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico; I walked along the sulfur-scented volcanic…

It’s a breath of fresh air while “social distancing” — My high school Novels class is currently reading this classic novel by Norman Maclean. I’m reading it again alongside them and this morning I arrived at page forty. It’s only 110 pages long, so it’s a quick read. If you haven’t read this novella, do; it’s a breath of fresh…

The Coronavirus and Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” — Holed up at home at my dining room table, I’m continuing with my lesson planning as scheduled during our two-week school closing. After our recent Ernest Hemingway unit concluded last week, my plan was to introduce my juniors to Robert Frost. Lucky them. Frost’s poetry is poignant, honest, and direct and comments…

How I discovered Robert Redford Dessert. Finally. — Lemon-baked Tilapia with Mango Chutney Seasoned Wild Rice Garnished with Parsley Dinner Roll White Tossed Greens Ranch Italian Lemon-Poppyseed Choose One Robert Redford Dessert My eyes lingered over the last line on one of the menu options planned for Tuesday, January 7 at the Presbyterian Village, a retirement community located…

In this post: Treasured Object Poems mentor texts and lesson tips — Need a fun poetry activity to use with your students? One that will also hone their sensory language and revision skills? Show them how to write a short free-verse poem about an object they value. …

Take word choice, for example — Last December, when I read a student’s second draft of their Treasured Object poem and saw that it contained the word “get” four times, I thought Really? Get? Four times? It surprised me because I thought I had taught not only sentence variety, but word variety as well. It’s good…

This student-written essay illustrates transition ideas — A few weeks ago, I wrote this story about how the nonfiction author James Swanson’ transitions from paragraph and from chapter to chapter in his nonfiction narrative Chasing Lincoln’s Killer. The story discussed transition words (such as therefore, however, in contrast, nonetheless, and others) that we all know and love…

Stick with your plan; give your lessons time to work — I recently designed some daily bell-ringer activities to teach my students some new vocabulary words. To create these on-going brief lessons, I continue to use Vocab Gal’s “Power Words of the Week” from Sadlier’s ELA Blog, and “Vocabulary Words of the Day” from Prestwick House.

What a four-day school week means to me — Last summer, my husband and I moved to a new city. Since we had learned about our upcoming move way back in January, I began searching for a new position about a month later. The local school district in our new hometown didn’t have any positions available for the following…