Archive

According to Forbes magazine, freelancers are expected to become the workforce majority by 2027, in large part, due to the perks of a digital era. Things like automation, video conferencing, document sharing, and infinite digital reach are opening doors to freedom, flexibility, and the chance to work from *virtually* anywhere but an office cubicle. With […]

Coined in the 1950s and popularized by his 1960s publication, Applied Imagination, advertising executive + businessman Alex Osborn’s  brainstorming concept has since made its way through the boardroom and into the high school classroom as a standard means for essay preparation. Prior to drafting the various elements of their essay, we typically encourage students to […]

If you’re not learning with intention, then why are you learning at all? I remember sitting in our high school’s auditorium waiting for–what I expected to be–the usual, run-of-the-mill assembly to start.  (You know, the well-meaning kind that still manages to derail entirely my neatly-timed lesson plans. Sigh…) But this assembly was different.  Way different. […]

If there’s one thing I know about mastery, it’s that experts master the basics first before building upon them… Some of the finest athletic coaches will agree–including Vince Lombardi, former head coach of the Green Bay Packers and arguably one of the greatest football coaches of all time: ‘become the best in the league at […]

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about our learners these days.  As teachers, we strive to make an impact on their lives by pointing them in the direction of their future.  Now maybe it’s just me, but the more I think and the more I dig, I’m beginning to feel like we’re failing to […]

So there I was, thirty sets of eyes on me, fumbling awkwardly at my computer, trying desperately to get the school’s video announcements going before my class went into technological mutiny. The Wifi appears to be working…that’s not it. I tried refreshing the page…that’s not it. I even pasted the link into the browser myself…no such […]

How do we take our writers to the next level?  Sure, we can teach them to generate and organize ideas, but how do we get them to engage with these ideas on a more critical level? It’s all about perspective, brave teachers.  Getting our students to appreciate just how intricate the conversation is involves an awareness of […]

No matter what track they’re on, all high school students are expected to master the art of argumentative writing before they get that coveted diploma.  As English Language Arts teachers, well, teaching this skill is our specialty.  But the content I’ll share in this post also plays nicely with other content areas as well, so long as you’re […]

The art of summarizing is a lot harder than it sounds, but it’s an essential part of the note taking process… Being able to effectively summarize information will help students expeditiously unpack their research to the reader.   To this end, I’d like to share a few useful activities for teaching summary-writing with your scholars. Tweet […]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I originally wrote this post when I was pioneering several brand new,advanced-level curriculums being made available to high school students: AP Seminar, AS Level Global Perspectives & Research, and AS Level English General Paper.  And though I will mention these course names during the course of this post, it shouldn’t be off-putting if […]