Effective ways to enhance reading and writing experiences. Recently, I was teaching a language arts class in Logan, West Virginia. The objective of the lesson was to analyze the impact of tradition on human behavior using narrative text. Sounds really dull, doesn’t it? It could have been, had I not used engaging strategies to facilitate
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Teaching students to skim and scan can hone their skills for college and beyond. Regardless of their achievement level, students sometimes reach the end of a difficult reading passage with no recollection or understanding of what they have read. Even highly proficient readers may find themselves struggling with long and intricate textbook chapters and research
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Films can—and should—be more than time-killers in your classroom. We all know the stereotypical image of the teacher who, tired of direct instruction, dims the lights, turns on the DVD player, and sits quietly while students stare at the screen. The problem here is not that students are watching a film in class—it’s that the
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Using writing as opportunities for students to grieve and grow. Teachers are perpetual students. Each day we learn some new piece of information from a book, an article, or a podcast, but we often learn a great deal more from our students. This following story is inspired by an experience with an 11-year-old student named
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Imagine students wanting to improve their writing—just because! What if students improved their writing because they wanted to, not just to get a good grade? What if their motivation to do better was fueled by teacher conferences and quick feedback? That fantasy could be closer to reality than you ever imagined. At Danville Middle School
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Exploring the five plagues of complex text. One of the most important aspects of teaching literacy in the classroom is text selection, the process by which teachers choose what their students will read. For many teachers, text selection boils down to choosing something that will engage students and motivate them to read. Reasonable diversity in
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