Archive

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 […]

The following is part of the ‘Remix Archives’ from my days at the Global Pen (circa 2012, y’all!). This archive involves those posts my audience has known-n-loved over the many years we’ve been colleagues and friends, so consider these ones ‘back by popular demand’! Enjoy! The original version of this post was published on: JULY […]

In a recent post, I talked about why our students are learning without us these days, and how it has a lot to do with an imbalanced emphasis of cognitive work over building those tangible (AKA, ‘soft’) skills which are just as necessary in doing the real work of the world. Now don’t get it […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Quarter 1 has a lot to do with getting your students acquainted with global issues, filling the “blank slate”–so to speak—with those basics that’ll lay the groundwork for deeper research later. While it’s true you simply can’t cover every contemporary and/or controversial issue out there, you do have the Quarter 1 obligation of helping students feel […]

When they first arrive on our doorstep, our students are convinced that they’re masters of argumentation: So confident they are (I say this in love), that when we tell them we’re going to write argumentative essays this year, they challenge our very intelligence and purpose altogether: “‘Persuasive,’ Miss, you mean persuasive essays.  We learned those in middle school.” …to which […]