Teaching is no joke!
Somewhere between falling in love with literature and falling in love with helping young minds grow, high school English teachers often get lost–in new ideas, administration expectations, office gossip, and naughty students! It’s hard to press on when we feel overwhelmed and ineffective.
I know this feeling because I’ve had it too! I’ve thought about walking out of my classroom door and never looking back. Instead, however, I asked myself, “Why did I do this in the first place? Why did I get this degree and take this job?”
My answer is always the same: literature is pure magic. It has inspired me, motivated me, and taught me throughout my whole life. Everyone deserves to connect to a profound piece of literature. And when I remember that, my job began to feel less like a job and more like a calling.
So here I am, on a mission to help re-inspire teachers like you and get you psyched about the power of literature. As the kids say, “It’s Lit!” Teaching literature, that is.
What’s New?
How to Teach When Students are Years BehindThe curriculum decrees an essay must be written, but your students can barely write a sentence. How can you teach when your students are years behind?
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Want the Perfect Horror Novel for High Schoolers?I don’t know about you, but fall has always meant Halloween season to me--not back-to-school. While other teachers are out shopping for school supplies, I’m literally hiding skeletons in my closet before my boyfriend can reprimand me for bringing more decorations in the house. So October for me means pumpkin spice everything, draping cobwebs all over the house, and reading as much horror fiction as I can. For this October, I’m presenting to you Katie Alendar’s The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall. It’s the perfect horror novel for high schoolers!
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How to Design a Novel Unit that Doesn’t Bore your Students to Death: A Guest Blog Post From Yaddy’s RoomYou have a boring novel unit, now what? Connect a movie to it! Luckily for you, I’m going to save you the blood sweat, and hangovers, and give you my process. I know. I’m awesome.
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Your Students Will be OBSESSED with this Novel!Cute and a little bit dorky, Simon is the rare kind of protagonist that almost any reader can relate to. When he finds himself being blackmailed, he has to choose: risk coming out of the closet and dragging another with him, or go along with his blackmailer’s plan to land the girl? Not to mention the play is coming up, he’s in love with someone he doesn’t even know, and his friends all have their own problems, too. Your students will fall in love with Simon in Becky Albertalli’s young adult LGBTQ novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda.
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Is Dear Martin the Right Novel for Your Class?When I read Dear Martin by Nic Stone, I knew it would be a fantastic whole class novel. In this post, I will help you determine if it’s right for your class, point out the perks of teaching it, and also hopefully help steer you away from some pitfalls.
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