That carrot is huge

So, that carrot I was talking about…it’s this: If you finish that essay by the end of the day, or if you bring it in, complete, at the beginning of class on Monday, I will let you erase one grade from my gradebook.
For many of my students, this is a great opportunity — they [...]

Sorry kids, I just made this too difficult. Let’s fix that.

It happens every once in a while — that monster you spring on the classroom is more frightening than you expected it to be. You planned on turning that monster into a cute, cuddly stuffed animal, and instead you accidentally added another set of fangs, a tail made of glass shards, and chainsaws for [...]

Two things

First: I had my yearly evaluation the other day, and I thought it went poorly. Actually, I thought it went well, but in my previous evaluation with the same evaluator I found that I was lacking in many areas — especially classroom management. This is nothing new. I’ve had problems with classroom [...]

Light speed — NOW

I made an error in my planning. While I think the Caste System assignment was good and smart, and that the students produced some fantastic materials (both written and visual), I did it without thinking about the upcoming paper on the elements of literature.
Every year we teachers have the students write to a common [...]

Showing knowledge through peer editing

A few weeks back, Dana Huff wrote a post on Best Practices for Teaching Writing, and I’ve gotta say: I’m a sucker for teaching posts. This one is well worth the read, and I’ve definitely taken to heart the ideas she brought up in her post. And the best part is that she [...]

Lesson; Revision; Reflection

After spending a good deal of my weekend grading a series of papers form the students (compare and contrast papers on “The Ransom of Red Chief,” including the Venn-diagram outline, and the elements of literature worksheet they completed in preparation for this paper), I came to a few conclusions:
1. The kids can write more than [...]

Creating a thesis statement (verbatim)

I’ve always had some trouble with teaching the five-paragraph essay as the be-all end-all of essays, but it’s what the state requires we teach — it shows up in state tests, it shows up on the district-wide final, and it shows up in the expectations for the following grades. I think I have the [...]

Compare and Contrast — What worked v. What didn’t

Ever had a lesson go wrong wrong wrongwrongwrong? Just awful. Just bad all around? how did you know it went bad? What were the tip-offs? What led you to understand you were teaching it incorrectly?
For me it was the fact that my kids spent the entire hour talking during the [...]

This is Bullshit!

Or, Beating a Text to Death
A conversation with the science teacher led to this: we think our kids would profit from our classes if we could be more up front. And not just in the cussing realm, but in the personal honesty realm. If the two could coexist, we might just be able [...]

Setting a standard for reading

UPDATE: Several people have said the handout below turns out all wonky. A text-only version is available right here.
Today we began reading the short story “Raymond’s Run,” by Toni Cade Bambara, and I knew the kids would like it. I knew they’d enjoy the main character, Squeaky, and that they’d find ways [...]