High School English and TPT Seller Resources
Blog posts pertaining to writing in the high school English classroom.
Turning essay writing into an engaging learning experience is definitely a challenge. The content requires a certain amount of lecturing, modeling, reading, and writing. But your essay writing unit doesn’t have to be one long...
Read MoreEven though students start learning about the 5-paragraph essay in middle school (sometimes even elementary!), it seems like they magically forget everything by high school. In this post, I hope to share some tips for...
Read MoreWhat used to be a “basic” writing skill like writing a letter now feels archaic for our students. But just because they haven’t written many letters before high school doesn’t mean they won’t need to...
Read MoreEvery year, teachers are asked to do more--close the gap, make learning fun, use technology, encourage independence, provide quality feedback, collaborate, and so on. It’s not easy finding a class structure that perfectly meets the needs of students, administrators, and classroom evaluators. When it comes to teaching writing with mini lessons, however, you can get pretty close.
Read MoreYou’ve probably heard a million times that you should be using differentiated instruction in your classroom. If you’re in a stricter building, it may even be required that you document your differentiation strategies. But how, exactly, are we supposed to differentiate writing instruction for our advanced, gifted, special education, trauma-sensitive, and ELL learners in a single class period!? It seems impossible! At least it does until you consider scaffolding writing instruction.
Read MoreNow, when I attend conferences and professional development, using mentor texts and sentences seems like a prerequisite for every quality unit. In this post, I hope to answer any and all questions you might have about mentor texts. I’ll try to include plenty of examples, links, helpful resources, activities, and lesson ideas.
Read MoreHave you been told that you need to start using a claim, evidence, and reasoning (or C-E-R) framework for writing in your classroom? Maybe you need to closely adhere to the Common Core State Standards but aren’t quite sure where to begin. If you’re like me, you may have been told by administration-on-high that the whole school would be using C-E-R language in their classes to build consistency and teacher equity for students. Regardless, here you are wondering, what the heck is claim, evidence, and reasoning anyway? In this post, I aim to break it down for you.
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