In a world where the love for books is timeless, as educators, we know the magic of a well-told tale. We ignite knowledge and passion for literature in our students. We spend hours immersed in stories, guiding young minds and sharing the joy of reading. Have you thought of gifting a little magic to yourself or other book lovers? Imagine unwrapping a gift that honors your love for books — and the immense joy that would be! In this blog post, I have curated a list of delightful gifts for book enthusiasts, including a FREE DOWNLOAD Gift Guide for you to skim through as well.

Here’s what we need to remember: the first day of class is the first chance to make an impression, to set a tone, and to signal to students the kind of atmosphere they can expect walking through your doors every day for third period. Once you know what you want your room to feel like and you can describe the kind of experience it will be for the learners in your room, it doesn’t matter WHAT you choose to do on the first day of school as long as it hits everything on your list.

Tackle the AP Language and Composition exam with confidence using any of these four classroom-tested review strategies. This list will give you plenty of ways to prepare for the exam while having fun and working hard to get students as ready as possible for test day.

There is a long history of connectedness between literature and nature. From the important role that setting plays in any given story to the prolific use of nature as symbolism, but I somehow always felt distant from the outdoors inside my classroom. Here are twelve lesson plan ideas to engage your students with nature.

Valentine’s Day is the perfect way for ELA teachers at the high school level to have a little bit of fun and give students the chance to be creative. English classes almost always have a series of novels and characters at the ready, so why not ask students to write some haiku love poems between characters? Here’s the activity, how it started, and how to do it yourself.

If you’re new to the podcast world, let me give you a big, warm WELCOME! Podcasts have been a game-changer for me both for professional development and for adding new texture, voices, and perspectives to my Essential Question based units.

The curated list below is broken into these two categories: podcasts for PD and podcasts for content. Each of these will inspire you with new ideas and restore your joy and love of teaching at your core.

Keeping rhetorical analysis fun isn’t easy, but here’s a simple idea that requires no extra work on your end. Handprint or five-finger analysis is a memorable and creative way to analyze an argument and you can easily customize this organizer to fit any season or text you are studying.

If you aren’t familiar with a makerspace, it is a place where students can create, problem solve, and collaborate. One of the greatest benefits of implementing a makerspace is that it shakes things up from your normal routine. It gives your students the chance to get silly and creative while giving you the gift of seeing your kids in a totally different light. Not only does it foster learning through inquiry, but it also helps to build overall classroom community.

A curse. A desperate staff of household appliances and fixtures. One dinner. How will rhetoric move the needle?

Teachers are amazing humans. Teachers take care of everyone around them, quell fears, and keep marching forward no matter how dire the situation. To show our love for this amazing, exhausting, and vital work that we do, a few creative online teacher friends got together to write a poem. Yes, we wrote a poem together from entirely different parts of the country, and compiled a video version here to share with you.

If you are ready to tackle some fresh, new ideas this upcoming National Poetry Month or during other parts of your school year, I gathered together some of the best poetry minds that I know out here in the teacher blogging community.  Together, we’ve come up with twelve ideas to try during National Poetry Month and I’ve broken them into categories for you: COLLABORATE, PLAY, DIG, CREATE, & REACH.

With a little extra down-time during the holidays, I love curling up with my phone or computer to finally read the articles that I’ve had bookmarked or saved from the past year. With the hectic craziness of teacher-life, I feel like I only half-read articles, even when I’m DYING to read them! If you’re finding yourself with a teeny bit more reading time than usual, you have to check out this list. These are my Top 20 Blog Posts to Read Before 2020 - buckle up and get reading!

This year, I have a mixture of teaching related articles from friends of mine (saving grading time, first chapter Friday, scaffolding strategies), some fascinating photo journalism from The New York Times, a Ta-Neheisi Coates article on reparations from 2015 that I still haven’t fully digested, and more!

If you’ve been following along on my teaching journey for some time, you’ll know that as an Adventurous Teacher, my goal is to always keep trying new things, no matter how daunting or intimidating a strategy or technology might be.  Last year, I posted 10 Adventurous Teaching Ideas that I planned to try, and I’m happy to announce that I accomplished 9/10 of them! As must as I tried, I really didn’t step up my game as far as grammar instruction is concerned, but I’m okay with being just okay in that area! This year, I have a few new things up my sleeve that I wanted to actually write down as I prepare for the new calendar year. Here is my list of teaching strategies, ideas, and other things that I want to accomplish in 2020.

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE WATCHING HAUL VIDEOS. Truly. Grocery hauls, Target hauls, makeup hauls, you name it, I LOVE IT! There’s something so satisfying about watching other people unpack their shopping.

These back to school hauls I watched straight through in one afternoon and I knew that I absolutely had to share about them here. Because these are teachers doing back to school hauls, there’s something even more satisfying about watching these videos: each video gave me a unique idea to take into my classroom, and not all of them even required shopping!

The “summer slide” is a powerful force that knocks students off track who were making progress.  Students struggling with literacy all school year fall further behind during the summer months when the “faucet” (an analogy described by the Brookings Institute) is turned off.  We NEED to do something, but in high school, we face a plethora of challenges.

For this article, I interviewed teachers on social media and drew from my experiences at two different districts.  Here are the problems I found and some solutions that I propose. I’d love to hear your feedback and additional suggestions because we are in this together!

As the school year comes to a close, you might be looking at your calendar thinking, what on earth am I going to do with these random extra days?  Or maybe you have room on your calendar for a final unit, but no idea what to do with your students.  I’ve got your solution right here! Here is a roundup of 13 ideas for ELA mini-units and lessons that can effectively and meaningfully fill between 3-5 days at the end of the year.