Gallery Idea!

I mentioned before that I really wanted to figure out something to incorporate into the National Day on Writing’s Online Gallery. And I realized I don’t think I mentioned that I did it! Well, my students’ work hasn’t been submitted yet; however, I did set up our gallery!
OK, so I may be way more interested [...]

Images, writing, and video recording

I recently had my students work with Glogster (edu version) creating an important scene from their most recent novel Cry, the Beloved Country. I like glogs because they provide a really interactive medium for students to create a multimedia image representation (think: poster) of anything. Just like if they were to create a collage by [...]

National Novel Writing Month!

My students laughed when I mentioned the National Day on Writing and thought that I was just making up random days for English “stuff.” Then, I showed them the legislation behind the National Day on Writing, and they realized I was telling the truth.  (They also couldn’t believe that we have a National Grammar Day.)
With [...]

Grading essays

You all know the feeling. As you sift through the pile of papers in front of you (or in the online dropbox in my case), you think to yourself, “Oh, boy!” You spend a large amount of time carefully crafting your revision comments, corrections, and what I like to call “what the author did very [...]

Me, myself & I

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while now, but forgot to hit “publish.” Anyway, during my last English Dept. meeting, my dept. head asked us to think about what is keeping us from being the teacher we want to be. Our answer couldn’t be “having more time” because everyone needs time (though [...]

Reading and writing…and reading and writing some more

Two important things I’m currently pondering:
First, I really want to have my students participate in the National Day on Writing. Of course when talk of this surfaced awhile ago when I was still in graduate school (last fall), I kept thinking “when I’m teaching next year, I will totally do this…” And then here I [...]

“A Storm With No Name” –> No school???

The weather man just coined the term for what’s taking place down here around Atlanta:  A Storm With No Name.
I can’t seem to get away from water! I’m fortunate my home is dry now, but if you haven’t seen on the news lately everything around and north of  ATL, GA is currently under water. It [...]

How could I forget?

How could I? (HA!) And as some of my students are probably reading this, I’m sure they will laugh, too.
One thing that has really blown my mind is students’ desire to know EVERYTHING about me. Literally. Everything. It’s a bit overwhelming, as I’ve told them every time they bring it up. And I try to [...]

Legit lessons

Now that life has calmed down some (ha!), back to reflecting…
You may remember students referring to me before as being “legit.” Well it seems this group of kids think the same thing as I’ve been hearing this same comment recently. Not going to lie, it makes me feel good. I want students to realize we [...]

Sharpies, smiles, and a cup of soup

Not going to lie…I’m exhausted. However, I realized that no matter how tired I am, I need to get these thoughts out NOW because I have so many. On top of that, one of the most important pieces of advice I gave to new, pre-service teachers was to reflect no matter what. Thus, welcome to [...]