My daughter was busily sketching out a test for me in the backseat this morning when I recalled something that had occurred to me a long time ago. Though a cliché, the adage goes like this: ‘teaching is the best...
On the first day of A.P. Language and Composition (popularly known as “A.P. Lang”), I’ve taken to asking my classes a few simple questions: 1) Why did you enroll in this class? 2) What is A.P. Lang all about? and...
After hearing about the details of a student’s educational situation and determining the best tutor/coach fit for that student, the question of where to conduct the tutoring quickly arises. When I ask, “would you like to do the tutoring remotely...
One of the questions that parents, fellow teachers, or administrators frequently ask an English teacher is… ‘how do you teach writing’? They ask with a bit of awe and wonder, likely still colored by their own 12th grade compositional struggles;...
If you’re anything like me, you were a bit excited to get to be your child’s teacher in the spring when the pandemic started. After I dropped my kids off at school, I barely heard anything about what they did...
“If a student is unmotivated, you might as well not even teach them, because dead cats aren’t good learners.” -Probably Mark Twain Diagnosing a student’s motivation can be difficult, and yet any teacher will tell you without an understanding of...
I often see a shortcoming in the instruction involved in integrating evidence in analytical essay in high school teaching. There is this notion that you have to have a complete sentence followed by a colon to introduce text. This understanding...