Newsletters
Smart A$$: (Gamifying M.C. Practice)
To continually skill-n-drill students with multiple-choice tests is futile, especially if the goal is to improve their…
Read issue →Alternative Grading Method: 100, 90, 80 70 Roulette
Here's something I'm convinced of ... There isn't an ELA teacher in the vast-wide-land who has a stipulation in their…
Read issue →Teaching Synthesis With "Choice" Topics
It occurred to me the other week: Literature circles work so well because students thrive (and actually engage) when…
Read issue →Altnerative Grading Method: Shark Tank
Quite early in my career, I made the decision to ditch the traditional grading paradigm for the following reasons: 1.…
Read issue →Mad Libs: Tier II Vocabulary Lesson
A staple component of my instruction is my Word Study Academy. Not sure about you, but when my students enter class on…
Read issue →Explicitly Teaching Sentence Patterning
In order to have a classroom of syntactical ninjas, I explicitly teach Strunk & White's Rule # 18 (the concept that…
Read issue →Change My Mind: The NFL Is Rigged (Synthesis Essay)
Engagement tends to lag at this time of the year in these parts of the woods, so I dug deep into my bag of tricks for…
Read issue →Teaching Line of Reasoning with Children's Bedtime Stories
Knowing full-well that some of my students will intellectually shut down when I begin to blather about syllogistic…
Read issue →