If you have a world literature course, or any upperclassman English course for that matter, A Thousand Splendid Suns should be in your curriculum. Full stop. This is by far and away one of my personal and my students’ favorite novels and if you’re not teaching it, you’re missing out. There are so many things about this novel unit that are perfect for skill-building and ripe for deep, meaningful discussion, but if I had to boil it down to my top three, then here they are…

I settled on remaking an old game from the ‘80s to show the complexities of how a bill becomes a law. In the game, students roll a dice and try to move their game piece along a ‘stream’ that represents the often troublesome path that a bill often takes when trying to become a law. If a student rolls a 1-4, they continue to the next step in the law-making process. Rolling a 5 or 6 means they are stopped at one of the many obstacles that often prevent a bill from becoming law. Here’s how it went…

As the days of December count down, I’ve started looking back at the book stack of my year and realizing that this year of books has challenged me in ways than ever before. The authors, subjects, genres, and reasons why each of these books came into my life this year have particularly reflected something about my own growth and the shifting tides of my own life, and I didn’t want the year to pass without meaningfully taking the time to document the impact these books have had on my life.

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.

Things get hectic at the end of any semester, but not if you have the right game plan! For teachers in the ELA classroom, we have five sure-fire ideas to keep you focused and doing the most authentic work that you believe in.

AP Language and Composition shouldn’t be the only place where students learn certain skills. In fact, these skills are so important, they should really be spiraled down into all of the grade levels leading up to Lang. Here are my top four recommendations to consider in your vertical articulation in your English Department.

Raise your hand if the first unit of your school year is a short story unit with figurative language terminology review? Yes? This is unit one in thousands of English classrooms and this makes me wonder…if they’ve done this so many times, why aren’t they experts? How is it that by unit 2, the next time we encounter an example of personification, they’ve forgotten the term altogether?

The thought process here is logical: provide terms, provide definitions, provide examples, practice, practice practice = learning has succeeded. But we see this doesn’t actually happen. So what’s not working?

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.

October is a rich month full of seasonal topics to layer into the ELA classroom. I’ll admit, though, I didn’t always think that seasonal activities were all that important in my classroom. Most activities felt cheesy or forced, but as I’ve grown as an educator, I’ve found that the right lessons at seasonally relevant times of year hold a special power and break from the typical everyday ELA lesson plan.

In order to facilitate high-quality classroom discussion, we must set up purposeful scaffolds on the front and back end of each discussion; however, in order for students to engage with the practice needed to meet these goals, we have to let the discussion happen organically and without our interference. These are the time that we stay in the background and when to speak up.

Poems and poets come from all over the world and deliver POWERFUL and NEEDED perspectives to our students in a short, compact manner. Poetry studies don’t take the time that novel studies do. Pairing our texts alongside poems that provide additional voice and contrast is a critical practice that all English teachers should be working to make a regular occurrence in the classroom.

Bring LatinX voices into your ELA classroom and curriculum all year long. Here are five easy places to start with a more diverse approach.

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.

Keeping the pulse of your students’ social-emotional well-being is a high priority, so let’s blend it into a daily routine: taking attendance.

Knowing your students begins with knowing their names. It begins with pronouncing them correctly. Prioritizing this part of the back-to-school phase is critical and this blog post offers some easy ways to use technology to learn names quickly and correctly.

Decorating, organizing, and preparing your high school classroom spaces is critical for new and veteran teachers alike. Here are four ideas to get your classroom prepared to support and inspire your students and keep you motivated to deliver incredible lessons!

Don’t let the end of the school year pass you by without putting a meaningful, purposeful end to the time you’ve had with your students. Here are 10 ideas you can implement today!

Swapping out a few titles is not the only work of building an equitable ELA curriculum. Here are some reflection questions and suggestions to take to your department to have the real conversation today.

Take students into a deep dive discussion of any reading assignment by just using 6-8 words isolated on a Google Jamboard slide. This is a student-centered, critical thinking rich discussion set up that you have to try!

Get started with your close reading lesson planning for any Shakespeare play right here! Use this video walk through tutorial to help you get started in your own classroom.