HC English Department

"Be visual and conversational. Be concrete, make your reader see and stop trying to impress. Beware "the curse of knowledge." Have someone read your work and tell you if it makes sense. Your own brain cannot be trusted. Don't bury the lead. Clarity beats suspense. If they don't know what it's about they can't follow along. You don't have to play by the rules, but try. If you play it straight 99% of the time, that 1% will really shine. Read Read Read. The English language is too complex to learn from one book. Never stop learning. Good writing means revising. Never hit "send" or "print" without reviewing your work - preferably multiple times."

An interview of Stephen King in which he shares some of his teaching experiences. Jessica Lahey "asked King to expound on the parts of On Writing [she loves] most: the nuts and bolts of teaching, the geekiest details of grammar, and his ideas about how to encourage a love of language in all of our students."

TED's educational arm is launching TED-Ed Clubs, an effort to support students who research, write and present and record their own ideas in a TED talk format. "The goal is to stimulate and celebrate the best ideas of students around the world," said TED-Ed Director Logan Smalley. TED-Ed piloted the project with 100 schools, focusing mostly on middle and high school aged students. Most of the pilot schools started with TED-Ed clubs held during lunch or after school, but some teachers incorporated materials into the classroom. TED-Ed also offers free guiding materials for 13 club meetings, taking students through the step-by-step process of creating a TED talk.

"A while ago, I wrote a post called Doing It Differently: Tips for Teaching Vocabulary which spells out (get it?) the process and rationale for selecting certain vocabulary words and also describes six steps for teaching new words. Here, I'm going to add to that earlier musing on this topic by offering up some must dos that took me a few years down the teaching road to figure out."

"Characteristics of Meaningful Reflection For student reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others. Let's look at each of these characteristics in turn."

"With all these new things coming down the pike for teachers, there is only one thing that suffers - and it's the most terrible observation to make -we have no time. If I had all the time I needed, here what I would do:"

"A recently published game called "Gone Home" is testing the traditional progression of learning by flattening the story. Players have questioned whether it qualifies as a game since it doesn't include traditional points, prizes and leveling up (the game is self-titled as "a story exploration video game"). Critics have praised "Gone Home" as a new way of storytelling, and it's beginning to make its way into the classroom, as a viable substitute for traditional text. The game is non-linear and players have a great deal of agency for filling in the gaps to arrive at their conclusions.*"

A series of videos for teachers (and students) that teacher the basics of making quality videos

"The Scholastic Kids & Family Reading ReportTM: Fifth Edition is out and offers a snapshot of where young people are when it comes to reading independently. Here are some of the findings of a nationally representative survey conducted last fall by Scholastic in conjunction with YouGov. Some of the results are surprising, including the fact that kids prefer to read books in print. Following the findings is an analysis of what they mean for parents and teachers:"