Quick question, what is the name of the literary device in which an abstract concept, like inflation, is presented as a physical object? Personification, but for in inanimate objects. A visual metaphor?

I’ve got all the obvious (cover letter, resume, reference letters, etc.), but I’m wondering what you believe works best in a portfolio to illustrate student work and my instruction best. Specifically for high school English? What has worked best for you or gotten you good feedback?

I’m getting a new student on Monday in the middle of teaching a novel. I’m unsure what to do with the student. Should I give her a specific amount of time to catch up? Should I summarize the novel and the learning up to this point? What about the summative?

Hey everyone, I’m looking for recommendations for magazines with well written stories or articles, be they news oriented, creative writing, science, history - you name it. I’m looking to get away from screen time at my house, and plan to subscribe to one or two good old fashioned magazines, and would like to keep the old copies that start to pile up in my classroom for kids to read during down time if they don’t have their own book. That way they aren’t on a chromebook playing games or watching YouTube. I love The New Yorker, but occasionally there will be a poem or story that is adult oriented, and I don’t want to get into trouble. My district is pretty conservative.

What is National Geographic like these days? The Atlantic? Harper’s? Are there cool niche publications I haven’t heard of? Especially ones that deal with literature, culture, science, or history. I’ve always liked The Economist because they seem objective and informative. Again, one of my main concerns is that the material not dip into any arena that might be considered vulgar, offensive, or politically biased. You know how it is these days. Back in the day if a New Yorker short story had an F-bomb or talked about sex no one would bat an eye and people would see the literary merit it presents as paramount to whatever brief offense it might cause, but these days it feels like the kind of thing that could get a well meaning teacher fired.

Thanks for your help!

I am finishing up my student teaching in Kansas this month and have been wanting to move to the St Paul, Minnesota area to begin my career. I have heard for four years how many jobs there are and I am becoming really stressed because that doesn’t seem to be the case for me. I have applied to the three public schools that are open in the area (one got back the next day saying the position was filled, one was part time, and the last I haven’t heard back from). I am trying to plan a move but obviously it is hard to secure housing without a job offer. I don’t know what to do and would appreciate any input you can offer!

"Good teachers are the ones who can challenge young minds without losing their own." –Unknown

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Feel free to post moments that have inspired you over the past few days or weeks, a quote that has helped you in your classroom, or something that could help others out.

Hey everyone! I was asked by admin to brainstorm some ideas for two different things, and while I have a list of my own, outside ideas are always helpful. For reference, I teach eighth grade in a fairly small, somewhat rural district. My school isn’t Title 1, but some schools in the district are. These ideas would apply to the whole school.

First—currently, we have a built in independent reading time for the whole school each day. Kids stay with their homerooms for 25 minutes and the expectation is that everyone in the building is reading. This does not happen in the majority of classes, because so many teachers fail to see the value in independent choice reading and are resentful of the fact that they lost about five minutes of class time each day to make this period exist.

I was asked if it would be more beneficial to give this time back to the class periods and then have ELA classes be responsible for facilitating independent reading. I’m fine with this—but admin wants an accountability piece. Does anyone have independent reading accountability that is actually effective and reaches your hesitant readers? I typically just do conferencing and go heavy on book recs and hyping up reading, but not everyone is on board with that.

Second—we do NWEA Map testing three times a year for math and reading. Admin wants to increase buy in for students, but we’re having trouble coming up with a measurement for this. Does anyone have a system that works, OR some solid reasons why this is a bad idea in general?

Thanks y’all!

For context, I teach 10th grade inclusion. This past year we read The Book Thief, which is over 500 pages 🙃. My Special Ed. coteacher LOVES the book, but this year it took us around 12 weeks to finish it. It dragged so much and the students (and myself) were miserable.

My coteacher says she really only wants the students to read about 10 pages per night. We do read in class, at least once a week, but our periods are only 40 minutes and the students quickly get bored. (We do audio, independent, & we read to them). How much do your students read per night, especially the inclusion students? I don’t want to not teach the novel next year, but it took far too long and ate up the entire year. Help!

Hi everyone!

I'm a former writing educator and content leader that's launched a new gamified writing platform. It's called GrooveLit (groovelit.com), and it has:

• Turnkey whole group and asynchronous activities
• Customized game lengths (3-60 minutes!)
• Use for Do Nows, CFUs, Post-Lesson Enrichment, Quick Writes, and more!
• Argumentative and creative writing games
• Standards-aligned assignments

Throw away a boring quick write, and gamify it. We'll be launching new updates and games in a heavy volume in the coming weeks.

Warmly,

Gavin

Anyone know of any online resources for the AP Lang writing MCQ’s? Something besides AP Classroom. Looking for practice tests, specifically.

Hi! I’m looking 👀 for resources to teach like a river a civil war novel. TIA!

2nd career, 1st year teacher. Teaching Lord of the Flies to my inclusion 9th grade class. Bullying has recently become a major issue. My co- teacher and I have been able to shut it down fairly quick after it begins. Even still, it's disruptive and disturbs the peace of the class. The bullying of one particular student isn't reserved for my class only; it continues throughout the school day & <surprise surprise > has spilled over onto the world of social media. Admin is aware and conducting an investigation.

Anyhow, since we are reading LotF I thought this is the perfect opportunity to explore bullying with this class. Does anyone have any suggestions for text (fiction or nonfiction) pairings that focus on bullying? How about lesson activities that revolve around bullying? While I doubt anything I do will be a wake call for these self absorbed bullies, I would feel like it was a missed opportunity for opening up their minds and hearts if I don't at least try. Ty

Hello fellow ELA teachers! I’m teaching AP lit for the first time this year and got a question from a student for which I couldn’t find a clear answer.

Are they allowed to discuss more than one text in their literary argument FRQ? Are there any advantages to doing so, or does it only present the extra challenge of having to fully address two texts?

Thanks!

Hi everyone

We're starting a persuasive writing unit, and the big summative is going to be a speech that the students deliver on a key social issue of their choosing. In service of their goal, I want them to read through a bunch of historic speeches. I already have some great candidates in mind, but there are so many great ones to choose from. I know speech units run the risk of getting dry, so I wanted to know if you guys had any speeches that usually elicit a positive response from Grade 8 students and are more accessible to that age group.

As a bonus, any tips you guys have for doing rhetorical analysis at that level are more than welcome.

I've been teaching AP lit now for 3 years, been in education for 10. Our AP lit kids' writing is DISMAL, and surprise surprise, we don't offer AP lang (we only offer it through an off-site campus and many students are unable to attend due to transportation issues).

My question is this: has anyone here attempted to teach both Lit and Lang at the same time? Possibly even with a third prep? (I also teach senior English). No other teachers here want to offer it, but I think it could be really helpful for many of them, even if they don't go into Lit. I know l'd have to stagger papers and workloads, but how overwhelming would it really be?

TL;DR how much would I hate myself if I taught both lit and lang next year?

For some context: I teach at a school who has out materials and curriculum supplied for us. We do have freedom to change that curriculum as we see fit, but it’s often difficult to acquire new materials. As such, I avoid changing novels too much (especially if I think they are good).

In my 8th grade class, the curriculum has us reading Lord of the Flies late in second semester. I’ve had a few parents push back against this book because of the violence and bullying. I sort of believe that this book is appropriate for 8th graders, but I also want to respect a parent’s position of authority in their child’s life. I’m curious to know others’ thoughts about this text for that age. Is it too much?

Also, in order to future proof my unit, I’m looking for some other texts with classic merit to replace if I need to. Do you good folks have any ideas? If it’s helpful, our unit is focused on how characters impact a theme and includes heavy emphasis on symbolism.

Looking for how Summer Reading is structured at your school - mandatory or optional? One book or choice? Also, what does the assessment look like?

Likewise, if your school does not do summer reading, I am interested to hear that rationale as well.

Context: My HS has tried various methods (one book one school, one book per grade, limited choice per grade, and whole school wide choice where we disrupted the schedule and teachers from all depts facilitated book talks) - nothing has seemed to move the student engagement needle 😞

All insight/suggestions appreciated - thank you!!

Hi all! I’m teaching “Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe” for the first time to a group of middle schoolers. It’s going really well, but I’m noticing that they don’t have a lot of context as a group to understand the second and third-gen immigrant experiences in the book or the LGBTQ history. I was wondering if anyone has any texts or films they read to fill in knowledge gaps re: Chicano culture and/or LGBTQ history in the US. I was thinking of “We the Animals” (2018) or “Mosquita y Mari.”

Hi all!

My school is on a modified schedule for state testing. We have a two hour testing block in the morning followed by all six class periods. (Each class is a little over a half hour.)

I'm looking for some fun, short, not-too-strenuous activities I can do with my kiddos during the week. I figure they'll have spent a lot of their mental energy on testing, so I'm looking for something engaging and fairly low-stakes that we can use to fill up these weird short periods. (I have sixth, seventh, and eighth graders.) Thanks!

I'm on my argumentative writing unit with my 8th graders and I'm not sure if i want to:

A. Either give them a list of topics/prompts (about 10-12) they can write about.

B. Assign 4 students as a group the same topic but two are to write in support and two are to oppose.

Which would be the most effective?

Good Morning,

As the title says, our ELA department is full of textbooks/lit circle books we don't use anymore; and I mean full. The school is saying that we cannot simply "throw them away," nor do I want to, but our printer/book storage is completely overrun. How/where can I get rid of these books?

I am a new department head and I want to make some healthy environment changes for our ELA staff (6 teachers) of < 3 years. People always bring up donating them or sending them to a "less fortunate country," but anytime I look for something online, it just brings up selling textbooks for college students.

I am looking for resources and or websites to send these books if anyone has anything to offer that I can bring to my admin.

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Thanks!

Greetings!

I am currently reading Deathwatch by Robb White with my 7th graders and they are struggling with scenes involving Ben climbing the butte. They can't visualize them. I can't draw to save my life; my drawings would probably confuse them more. Does anyone have any images/ sketches that depict those scenes, specifically the scenes when Ben is scaling the v-shaped crack and running along the funnel wall?

Thank you all in advance!

I have 48 mixed-level learners that I share with a maths colleague. I'm using Commonlit.org's "360" Unit Not That Different and my colleague has been teaching measurement (lengths, perimeters, areas, volumes), which--being honest--turns out to have been very challenging to mesh. How we wound up here is complicated - don't ask.

Anyway.

We've just finished term 1 of 2 of this semester-long unit and I'm looking for ways to manage my classroom a bit better. Thus far, it's been a bit of a one-size-fits all sort of thing, but this has left the five or six top-flite students frustrated and frequently bored (resorting to other schoolwork while everyone catches up or doing "extension" tasks which really just put them even further ahead and increase the marking load), and the bottom end students dragging behind leaving work incomplete &c.

What I'd like to do is split the class into six groups of students and have them cycle through six stations set up around the classroom. It might go like:

1. English: Go to Google Classroom the post titled "T2 W01 - EXPLORE: Why Was Communism In America Viewed As Both An Opportunity And A Problem?" and follow the instructions.
2. Maths: Statistic / measurement lesson with maths teacher
3. Connection/bonding: Play a card game
4. English: Paragraph writing lesson with me
5. Maths: Go to [online maths tool] and complete the task "Measurement: cylinders and trapezoids" 
6. Connection: Board game discussion activity

Ideally, each group would spend 40 minutes (half a learning block) at each station, and cycle through so that they complete each station over the course of the week.

So: what are your expert thoughts on that?

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I am currently at the end of my 3rd year. My first year, we were departmentalized but I taught Math and Science. Last year and this year, I taught all subjects. My school started with the EL Curriculum this year, so we decided to re-departmentalize.

Does anyone have experience with a half-day split- teaching ELA to two 4th grade classes? Advice?

Bonus if you teach the EL Curriculum. Thanks!

What happens to the eagle? Is he diving for prey or falling to his death?

The Eagle BY ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

This is what a 9th grader asked me today. In April, after months of vocabulary assignments where we have used an online thesaurus.

Except he hasn't. He's just been sitting there, playing games and texting, hoping to come up with a synonym or antonym on his own. Just guessing.

I just don't know sometimes.

The script sucks-anyone have fun creative ideas for Lightning Thief? Please help! 21 years in and reinventing the wheel here….plus bumped down to a new grade!

Title says it all. In a dystopian unit right now and trying to incorporate more stories by POC. So far all we've read is The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. LeGuin, There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury, and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut. Seriously lacking POC, and I know there's some great ones. Thanks in advance.

Hello everyone. Years ago I developed an exercise for teaching college freshmen to conduct a basic cultural analysis of texts. It's just to get them to move beyond reading texts at face value to prove they've read and understood the material: "what does this text tell you about the culture that produced it?" In the exercise, the students begin to "close read" random bits of texts, but I've never assigned a reading alongside these.

I was describing this exercise to someone I met briefly about a year ago and she really liked it--she told me that she thought it would pair really well with a reading she always assigned, which reading she described to me. It sounded perfect and we meant to follow up with each other but never did ( I can't even remember her name). I believe that the text she described was some kind of basic anthropological essay, but I can't remember much else about it. Now I'm updating my assignment and I'm looking to find either the essay this woman described (long shot, but maybe it's actually well known and I just haven't heard of it) or else another very basic essay to get students thinking about what it means to read for more than just information. Any suggestions?