I've been teaching research for my entire career. It began horribly, and honestly, it was because I was downright lazy. I demanded citations for everything but did little to teach my students how to make them. More importantly, I never instructed them why ethical research was important.After a few ...
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How to Integrate Creative Writing in AP Lit
Creative writing and AP® Lit don’t usually connect. In fact, if you were to examine the AP® Lit CED, the course document which explains the enduring understandings of the course, you likely wouldn’t see it mentioned at all. And because the course is usually used to prepare students for the year-end ...
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Media to Pair with Fahrenheit 451 in the Classroom
There are some texts that teachers absolutely insist on teaching. With AP Lit, I have to teach Frankenstein or Beloved. In World Lit, it's Cyrano de Bergerac. And with my sophomores, it's Fahrenheit 451. I think there are several reasons that I love the novel. First, I read it when I was a sophomore ...
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On This Day in ELA: A Year of Literary Events
Back in 2019, I got the ambitious idea to research and identify a literary-related event for every day of the year. I published each under a now-defunct Instagram account and listed them on my old website. I even created posters for classroom use that had each daily event on it. Not long after ...
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How to try a silent discussion
In my last blog post, I mentioned that my AP Lit students’ first discussion on a short story revealed the need for more processing time and introspection. I have a lot of verbal processors who resist think-pair-share style lessons. I’d heard about silent discussion techniques but had never tried ...
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How to Plan an AP Lit Lesson in 5 Minutes
Today was the last AP Lit lesson of our third week of school. My AP Lit kids are capable and hard-working, midway through their study of How to Read Literature Like a Professor. I was scrolling through my prepared notes on HTRLLAP, only minutes before my lesson, when I realized something.I just ...
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