Last week was incredibly busy. I was in tech week for our school’s one act, training a student teacher, plus the usual of being a teacher and mom. My AP Lit students wrote timed writings on the third day of the semester, but I still hadn’t looked at them. I’m usually pretty quick to give feedback, ...
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My 2025 Year in Books
2025 was stressful. Therefore, 2025 was the year I read more books than ever. In 2024 I read 38 books and this year I nearly doubled it. I ended the year reading 64 books, far too many to write a short blurb about (like I normally do). So instead, I’ll remark on some reading trends I went on this ...
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Romanticism but Make It Modern: 7 Examples Students Actually Understand
My AP Lit students just finished Frankenstein and I asked them for individual reviews of the book. Most gave it a 4/5, liking the story but disliking the pacing. (That review doesn’t surprise me, especially in the age of suspense-in-everything). One thing that did surprise me is how many of them ...
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Why aren’t new books being taught in more classrooms?
In July, The National Council of Teachers of English released the results of a survey that had many readers talking. According to the survey, “The list of the most taught books remains largely unchanged from 35 years ago.” Some ELA teachers and I got a chance to talk about these results with a ...
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The story behind my new AP Lit essay template
In my 20 years of teaching, I’ve avoided the use of essay, thesis, and other writing templates. I know that students like them and they’re popular teaching tools, but I have always felt that they limit a student’s natural writing curiosity and creativity.
However, I’ve noticed something in the ...
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Your Favorite Poems to Teach in AP English Lit
I’ve written two different blog posts with my favorite poems and poem lessons for AP Lit. But I wanted to create a database of strong poem suggestions for new and veteran AP Lit teachers. In this list, I combed through suggested poems from the AP Lit Facebook group as well as poem suggestions from ...
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