Category: Differentiation

Why “Weight” Should Be on Your Must-Teach Short Story List

In my mission to revamp my inventory of short stories to use with my freshmen, “Weight” is hands down my favorite addition. Keep scrolling; you won’t be disappointed. It’s on CommonLit I hate to say it, but cost sometimes comes into play when figuring out my curriculum. Sure, there are plenty of illegal PDFs floating …

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Strategic Thinking Via Severity Charts

According to Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, Level 3: Strategic Thinking involves problems with multiple valid answers. Severity charts are the perfect way to do just that. Students need to take into account multiple events, details, points of view, etc. in order to determine and validate their answer. Check out some of my examples below. Character Morality …

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Talking to General Educators About IEPs

Begin talking to a general educator about a student’s IEP, and you will usually get one of four different responses: 1. complete enthusiasm, 2. some enthusiasm and some confusion, 3. complete confusion, and 4. annoyance and denial. I’m hoping to help with responses 2-4 with this post. The Legal Aspect It’s federal law all students …

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16 Movie Scenes to Teach Irony and Other Literary Elements

Movie clips and scenes that illustrate different literary terms (irony, theme, foreshadowing, satire) using movies students know and love! Includes links to YouTube clips or gifs to put into Powerpoint presentations.

I love breaking up the monotony of a lesson with a quick video, visual, or audio example of whatever it is we’re doing in class. One of my go-tos is Disney since I have a three-year-old son. But do not let these too-cool-for-school high school students fool you; they love the these classic movie clips. …

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4 Ideas for Secondary English Classes When You Have iPad 1:1

I was part of an iPad 1:1 initiative in Maryland back in 2012. I remember in our first training session they kept emphasizing one specific point with the iPads: it’s not about just replacing pen and paper, it’s about creating and learning in ways that aren’t possible with just pens and text books. With that in …

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