Archive

As a writing teacher, I’m sure your students write a lot, right? But how often do you give them time to ‘make’ their writing? How often do you let them get lost in the ‘parts’ of writing instead of merely plugging out draft after draft? How often do you let them create? In this Facebook […]

According to Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith, who offer up 10 characteristics of today’s learners in their text, The Google-Infused Classroom, it’s pretty standard practice for our students to speak in images these days. From emojis as a frequent replacement for text, to snapshots and video ‘stories’, images are the Gold standard for teen communication […]

Just as you can count on fireworks on the 4th of July or leftovers on Boxing Day, you can expect a good ol’ fashioned debate in the high school classroom. Whether it take the form of a single-day activity or a weeks-long research project, many of us rely on the classic ‘Debate’ activity as a […]

It’s been roughly 30 years since Stephen Covey wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and it’s still, hands down, one of the most relevant reads of our time. Why? Because it offers gems like this: Seek first to understand, then to be understood. Stephen Covey, Habit #5 Amidst the noise of political polarization […]

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 […]