As an educator, I've always been passionate about instilling critical thinking skills in my students. It's a topic that I recently had the opportunity to reflect on during a professional development session, and I want to share with you the insights and strategies that I believe are essential for deep engagement in the classroom.

Dr. King’s legacy is especially powerful in the ELA classroom: his words, his rhetoric, and the passion with which he speaks them is not only worthy of study in its own right, but the overlaps into our content area make the analysis of the layers of his work that much more rich and impactful. Here is a free lesson walkthrough for your middle or high school English class celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

The art of pacing out the reading during a novel unit can be tricky, so we’re going to take some time today to talk through the process. Whether you’re teaching a classic or a contemporary YA title, there are special considerations to be made for the design of your calendar and how we backwards plan for ELA. Let’s jump in!

And here's the thing:  if your students are talking about Taylor, then so should you.  This is an open door into engagement and skill building that is not to be missed.  Here are three ways to pull the power of Taylor into your classroom and spike engagement among your students…

Now, more than ever, we need to have Fahrenheit 451 in front of our students. From the new onset of AI technology to the daily threats of our intellectual and academic freedom, Fahrenheit provides windows, mirrors, and doors into our present and our future. While Montag’s transformation, the working symbolism, and general dystopian world-building are all incredibly important pieces to focus on, I’d like to argue that it’s possible we need Clarisse McClellan the most.

During the introductory phases of teaching rhetorical analysis, you need to start off with texts that are approachable and teachable. This helps to build student confidence as the texts get harder and harder each year. Here are 20 places where you can start that journey confidently!

One of my favorite units to teach is a unit that focuses on the American Dream. It’s the perfect way to hone in on complex characterization and the layers of complexity are widely accommodating for skill level. Whether you’re building the unit to teach as a whole class novel unit or as a literature circles unit, this book list is here to save you time and energy in narrowing down the search.

If you’ve ever found yourself searching the internet for “contemporary short stories” or “modern short stories” because you’re tired of teaching the same classic stories over and over again, I have THE HACK to change everything for you!

Lackluster literature circles? Boring book clubs? The remedy: lose traditional “role” sheets, declare freedom from organization by topic or genre, and build essential question-focused literature circles or book clubs instead. An EQ as the throughline for your lit circle/book club unit kicks up the impact that comes from having kids talk about what they read in a way that just does not happen with any other method. Here’s why…

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.

Lackluster literature circles? Boring book clubs? The remedy: lose traditional “role” sheets, declare freedom from organization by topic or genre, and build essential question-focused literature circles or book clubs instead. An EQ as the throughline for your lit circle/book club unit kicks up the impact that comes from having kids talk about what they read in a way that just does not happen with any other method. Here’s why…

One of my favorite units to teach is a unit that focuses on relationships. It’s the perfect way to hone in on complex characterization and the layers of complexity are widely accommodating for skill level. Whether you’re building the unit to teach as a whole class novel unit or as a literature circles unit, this book list is here to save you time and energy in narrowing down the search.

Poetry is one of my favorite vehicles to have these critical thinking discussions about social justice. The voices in poetry are so raw, real, and products of the moments from which they came. This list of 22 came from talking to teachers online about their favorites to use in the classroom, as well as my own experience teaching poetry and creative writing.

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.

Over the years I have tried many different ways to promote reading in the classroom including, reading logs, AR tests, and journaling. But the one way that I have found that helps my students read more and apply it to topics we learn in class is through reading sprints. 

Rhetorical analysis is a skill that needs practice and reinforcement all year long. Using various moments from movies and film offer a great chance to examine both the rhetorical situation and the arguments themselves. Check out these eleven movie suggestions to teach rhetorical analysis including various Disney movies, The Notebook, and We Are Marshall.

Rhetorical analysis is a skill that needs practice and reinforcement all year long. Use this template and three commercial suggestions to help you get going with rhetorical analysis in your classroom.

Try beginning your rhetorical analysis lessons by focusing on the rhetorical situation before heading into deeper analysis. When you’re ready, dig in using SPACE CAT and a great song from a musical that has a premise and an argument to examine. Here’s what we’ve done in my class using “Mother Knows Best” from Tangled.

Close reading is often confused or made synonymous with things it most definitely is not, making it seem too scary to even approach. Maybe you’ve tried it, hit a wall of frustration and abandoned-ship. Well, it’s time to replace frustration, uncertainty and fear with the truth, and bust three common myths of close reading.

Teaching The Great Gatsby is a massive task, but setting up students during prereading is a critical moment to help them feel successful as they’re tackling the novel from the start. Here’s how to use a Gatsby Party as a stations activity that helps students get to know each of the major characters in the novel.