Group items tagged

"a list to help your students more easily connect the literature they're reading to the world around them - and to help teachers find great works of nonfiction that can echo common literary themes."

"Forty-four years later, I wonder how he would have responded to my paper, and I am still singing the five-paragraph-theme blues, having fought the template's rigid lessons ever since.  I also know, from what scores of college students have reported to me (and from students Jennifer Gray interviewed), that it also gets in the way of other writers. Conversely, students tell me that what interests them in writing is teachers engaging them in real composing problems: Giving choice in topic; experimenting with different kinds of writing for a variety of audiences and purposes; and providing opportunities for thoughtful, in-process feedback from multiple sources-teachers, parents, peers, and others. (See post by  Ken Lindblom for more suggestions.) And the more students are interested in writing, the more motivated they are to improve, just as my neighbor who spends hours, weeks, and months on his skateboard wants to get better at his skateboarding skills-falling off, sometimes dramatically, but always getting back up and trying again.  He's interested in skateboarding, is willing to concentrate on that, and has gotten pretty good.  In the same way, if we get our students interested in their writing, they too will develop their writing skills.  From amazing teachers like Donald Graves and Donald Murray, Nancie Atwell, Kelly Gallagher, and Penny Kittle, we have a wealth of ideas about how schools can nurture joy and purpose in novice writers and how we can bring authentic writing experiences into our classrooms."

"Each Friday we collaborate with a classroom in New Jersey to test and publish three short writing ideas that address Common Core Standards and that are grounded in New York Times content. This week, all three prompts focus on the common theme of life on a coastline - a topic of great importance to our classroom collaborators, who recently went through weeks of disruption because of Hurricane Sandy."

"Two years ago, at the suggestion of a fellow actor, Kelly decided to take a different tack: Incorporate music, specifically hip-hop, into a typical workshop. He pulled apart one of his traditional presentations featuring Shakespearean speeches from different plays, and revamped it with hip-hop beats and music. They focused on the rhythm and poetry of both art forms, and even designed a rap version of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet, comparing it with the themes of some present-day hip-hop songs. "We will say [to the students], 'Oh, isn't that interesting? 400 years ago this guy was talking about this [suicide, indecision], so really, nothing has changed, has it?" When they brought it to high schools, "Shakespeare Meets Hip-Hop" was an instant success. "The presentation itself, they loved," Kelly said. "They'd go bananas when we would do it, and they loved all the musical stuff we put in there.""

It's often hard to justify watching a two-hour film when there's so much else that has to be done. But, what about an eight-minute film? That's the average length of our Film Club features, and these short documentary films do much more than just entertain. They challenge assumptions and offer new perspectives. They tell stories that often remain hidden, and introduce us to people and places foreign to us. As with other short texts like stories, poems and articles, mini-documentary films can stimulate discussion, debate, thinking and writing. And, they can serve as a refreshing break from print media to help students explore curriculum themes and practice important literacy skills. Below, we present eight films we've featured in our Film Club series that have already captured students' and teachers' attention. In addition, we offer practical teaching ideas, along with responses from students and teachers, for how you can use these documentaries, or films like them, to teach close reading and critical thinking skills."

"Many of my first-year college students have been battle-trained in writing thesis statements by the time I get them. But rather than opening doors to thought, the thesis quickly closes them. Instead of offering a guiding hand, the thesis carries a baseball bat, muscling its way into writers' thoughts and beating information into submission. What I'm talking about is the thug thesis, the bully who hangs with the five-paragraph theme and similar forms of deductive writing. Unfortunately, this thesis-an anathema to academic inquiry-is the one most students know best. I'm not arguing against teaching students how to write a thesis statement. What bothers me is how thoroughly this convention dominates our discussions about what is meant by strong academic writing. The thesis has been hogging the bed, and it's time to make more room for its tossing-and-turning partner in academic inquiry: the question."

"Inquiry or interrogation? What if you asked your students which of these best describes their experience with classroom questioning? How do you think they would respond? My colleague Beth Sattes and I have posed this question to a wide range of students. The majority choose "questioning as interrogation" as the best fit for their experience. What makes them feel this way? Many believe that teachers ask questions to surface "right" answers, which students fear they don't know. Others think teachers ask questions mostly to find out who is paying attention - or not! Almost all students view follow-up questions as attempts to keep them on the "hot seat" and embarrass them for not knowing. And most perceive classroom questioning to be a competition that pits students against one another - Whose hand goes up first? Who answers most frequently? Very few students understand questioning as a process for collaborative exploration of ideas and a means by which teachers and students alike are able to find out where they are in their learning and decide on next steps. This is one of the primary themes running through our work."

"Modern Love is a series of weekly reader-submitted essays that explore the joys and tribulations of love. Each week, an actor also reads one of the essays in a podcast. Though the stories are often about romantic love, they also take on love of family, friends, and even pets. This teacher finds their themes universal and the range of essays engaging models to help her students find their own voices."

To mark the 200th birthday of "Frankenstein," we have updated our older Learning Network lessons with recent Times resources to pair with the text. We also provide teaching ideas related to theme and suggest activities for students. Continue reading the main story Lesson Plans English Language Arts AUG 31 Social Studies AUG 31 Science & Math AUG 31 E.L.L. & Arts AUG 31 Current Events AUG 31 See More » "

Check this out Penny Wintermute: "Her students would draw on the skills they learned while listening to and studying Serial. They would work in groups (imagine Koenig, Dana Chivvis, Julie Snyder, the engineer who came up with their theme song, Ira Glass). Students would create a series of podcasts told from the point of view of a memoirist they'd read earlier in the year, such as Alice Sebold."

""The best literary precedent for what we're enduring now is not the static image of Big Brother but the turbulent eruptions of King Lear," wrote the Washington Post's Ron Charles in May. Or is it The Handmaid's Tale, also an Amazon top seller? Or, maybe, Brave New World? America's high school English teachers are asking the same questions. After watching the tumult of the 2016 presidential election play out inside their classrooms last year, and after a summer of hate-filled violence, many are retooling the reading lists and assignments they typically give their students. They worry that the classic high school canon doesn't sufficiently cover today's most pressing themes-questions about alienation and empathy and power-and that the usual writing prompts aren't enough to get students thinking deeper than an average cable news segment."

"Zoe Roben, an English teacher at Harvest Collegiate High School in Manhattan and enthusiastic Moth listener, wanted students at her small public high school to have a more sophisticated understanding of how to tell personal stories. So in the fall, she invited Moth educators to Harvest Collegiate to carry out an afterschool workshop with nine kids, while she acted as the teacher liaison. For eight weeks, the students and adult supervisors brainstormed and practiced telling their stories, and at the end delivered their tales before the school and again at a Moth office, where they were recorded. The theme was courage. Students told stories about kitchen disasters, lost hamsters and minor acts of adolescent agitation, like chopping off hair. Anxious at first about their ability to perform, students came to embrace the experience, Roben said. "They were glowing at the end, with the feeling that they could get up in front of an audience and do something this big," she said. "It was knowing they had something to say, and experiencing their own voice as something valuable," she added."

"What are the constraints of teaching the five-paragraph essay? Rorschach argues that its preset format can lull students into nonthinking conformity and questions whether struggling writers need such a format to be successful. Dive into this provocative piece, complete with student writing excerpts."

"A new musical explores life in high school in a way that's eerily familiar. It's called Ranked, and it's set in a dystopian world where your class rank - determined by grades and test scores - governs everything from where you sit to what your future holds." This musical, written by a high school teacher, explores some really interesting questions inspired by the students including: "How do we know the difference between who we actually are and what people want from us?" Usually, Granite Bay announces its spring musical by posting headshots of the performers in the hallway. But this year, it tried something a little different: Holmes asked students to anonymously submit personal text messages, exchanges and emails that depicted the pressure the students were under from parents and counselors. One text exchange reads: A: How was the test? B: I got an 86%! A: Oh no what happened? Another: A: I'm watching you B: Where am I currently then A: Failing class They used the messages in a collage that included headlines from recent news stories ("The Silicon Valley Suicides," "Is class rank valid?") and hung it in the hallway instead of the headshots. A banner at the top reads: "Pain is temporary. Grades last forever."