Room 2209

In Texas we have this handy dandy standard: (11)  Reading/Comprehension of Informational Text/Procedural Texts. Students understand how to glean and use information in procedural texts and documents. Students are expected to: (A)  evaluate text for the clarity of its graphics and its visual appeal; and (B)  synthesize information from multiple graphical sources to draw conclusions about the ideas presented (e.g., maps, charts, schematics). and it has been left so open-ended that it be interpreted any number of ways.  I know that in class we're always evaluating images and maps.  They will come up eventually, so I will not have to worry about hitting the standard that way.  But I don't think I'll have another opportunity to go over an infographic. And even if I do, infographics are fun. So what better way to kill two birds with one stone: handle the standard while also gauging what the kids know and where I need to focus when it comes to essay writing. I lov

Here we go again... 1.  “What makes a good life?  Lessons from the longest study on happiness” by Robert Waldinger Okonkwo is obviously an unhappy man.  Turns out the key to happiness is the relationships we build.  I guess someone should tell Okonkwo that... 2.  “How movies teach manhood” by Colin Stokes I love the ideas presented in this talk.  I think the messages that we're sending to our kids through film aren't always inspiring.  Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in censorship.  However, when society has a test to determine how female inclusive a film is and most films fail it, there's a problem. 3.  “The Five Major World Religions” by John Bellaimey Many of my students don't know anything about religion outside of their own.  This video was, for many of them, an introduction to other religions.  I connected it to the book through the theme of imperialism. 4.  “How Africa can use its traditional knowledge to make pro

Yes, I know it’s March.  But I just found my PowerPoint and so I’m sharing now. 1. History vs. Christopher Columbus by Alex Gendler Why do we still celebrate this holiday?  This animated TED ED talk goes into what’s not taught in elementary school about Columbus.  Cliff Notes: he was a bad dude. 2. Can Art Amend History? By Titus Kaphar So I teach a lesson about the first Thanksgiving.  Days 1-3 delve into the English version of the holiday and what most people believe about Thanksgiving.  Days 4 and 5 discuss the Native American perspective, which isn’t discussed enough.  This TED asks the question: Can we learn about the unpleasantness of our history through art?  Is it more palatable to digest that way?  Super entertaining talk. 3. Black Friday: An Accident of History by Hank Green Not technically a TED Talk, but it’s good.  Hank Green talks about Black Friday and its origins.  We all get a little preachy about the meaning of Christmas (vs. the commerc

I can’t believe I’m about to talk about fear and mystery right after Valentine’s Day, but here goes. 1. What Fear Can Teach Us by Karen Thompson Really great TED Talk about how instead of shying away from our fear, we should embrace them, turn them into stories, and then act upon them. 2. Vampires- Folklore, fantasy, and fact  by Michael Molina An animated vampire talks about the mythology behind vampires.  It’s kind of corny, but it’s interesting to see the origin and various country interpretations. 3. Zombie Roaches and Other Parasite Tales Ed Yong describes a parasite that attaches itself to its host and takes over their body.  He also talks about the tapeworm and other such gross things.  The talk is entertaining and actually changed the way that I think about the creepy crawlies that I’m afraid of.  Especially the ones that might take over my body. 4. Where Do Superstitions Come From? By Stuart Vyse In this TED talk, several popular superst

I love Disney.   Honestly, at this point, it’s probably a bit irrational.   My husband doesn’t understand it.   My kids don’t understand it.   But Disney movies in the 90s were the companion to an only child, i.e. me.   So anytime I can go back to my happy place I will.   Therefore, I use a lot of Disney in my teaching. When I do my big unit on gender stereotypes, I reference Mulan a lot.   One year, I had almost an entire student group tell me that they hadn’t seen the movie.   I dreamed that night about all the lessons I could plan around the movie.   Besides viewing it as literature, I had the students identify any point in the movie that supported the idea that gender norms/ stereotypes can be beneficial, and any point in the movie that supported the idea that gender norms/ stereotypes are not beneficial.   I had them transfer those into a graphic organizer that also had a bubble outline for a persuasive essay.   They then had to choose a side and write a draft using the

There is a certain time of the year where I feel like I eat, breath, and dream ethos, pathos, and logos.   State of Texas, can I please teach mythology?   Or archetypes? Or WHOLE NOVELS?   I’ll even take Julius Cesar at this point. But alas, it’s always coming up persuasion. Anyway, audience is always a tricky subject.   Either the kids get it, or they don’t.   Either I have time to teach it fully, or I don’t.   Depending on the group of students and depending on the year I’m either dedicating a few days to the concept or barely making it a topic of discussion. I guess my point is to say here is a worksheet that I use to evaluate if the kids get it.   If they do, I move on.   If they don’t… well, then I use more in-depth measures.

I know that everyone who has to teach persuasion has done this at least one time in their teaching career.   So I’m not proposing anything new.   I’m just putting mine out into the ether. Hands down, the best way to get teenagers to understand persuasion is to appeal to their hungry little consumer on the inside.  It seems like, for about of month out of the year, I become an expert in commercials.  And once the kids begin to break it down, see how advertisements work, see how marketers use formulaic methods to get people to buy their stuff even without realizing their being marketed to, the kids want to try their hands at it.  The Advertisement Assignment is pretty simple: the kids work in pairs to create a print ad or a commercial for an assigned product.  They get a blurb of what the product is about, and they have to create a name, a logo, and a tagline with a clear message, all while using persuasive elements that they’ve learned from over the course of the unit.  Othe

Last week I mentioned hashtag summaries and then realized that I had never mentioned them before.  Sounds about right... Anywho... #hastagsummaries have changed my life: they're quick, they're fun, they're creative.  And I've had quite a few kids tell me that this is the easiest way for them to retain information when it comes to those long boring essays that they have to read for the state.  So #winwin.  Here's the process: Whenever we have a nonfiction article, I have the student's number the paragraphs. Read the paragraph. Come up with a cute, clever #hastag that summarizes the paragraph in a way the student would remember.           For example, we were reading an article about the 1920s.  Here's the paragraph: Women were delighted by the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave them, at long last, the right to vote.  Feeling emancipated and in rising demand on the labor market, young, urban and fashionable flappers joined men

I'm not going to get on my high horse about what happened to Cracked.com.  That isn't what this post is about.  It is, however, a post about one of their articles that I've been teaching for a while. The 6 weeks before STAAR become STAAR prep.  Therefore, all of the units that we work on become debatable thematic units.  The first one I usually tackle is gender stereotypes.  For some reason,  it is super engaging (more than I thought it would be) and the kids enjoy tackling an issue that is very much applicable to them.  However, they don't understand that gender norms are a fluid thing.  The things that we have come to associate with a particular gender aren't the things that have always been associated with that gender. Back on track... ... I start my unit off with an article from Cracked called  5 Gender Stereotypes That Used to be the Exact Opposite  as an introduction to the above idea.  It does have bad words in it (I print out an edited version for m

I've talked about my love of TED Talks both here  and here .  When we did our Anthem unit at the beginning of the year, I found more in the other channels that I subscribe to on YouTube than I did on TED that related to the book.  So here they are: six videos I used to supplement  Anthem by Ayn Rand.  If you're interested in the PowerPoint I use, you can find it in my TPT store here . #1: "Changing Educational Paradigms" by Ken Robinson This is the RSA Animate version of the longer TED Talk "Do Schools Kill Creativity" by Robinson.  In it he discusses the idea that culture and learning have changed, therefore schools need to adapt to the way kids are learning.  The whole video is an interesting watch, but what I used to relate to Anthem was the bit about divergent thinking.  We had a whole group discussion about divergent thinking and how it relates to Equality.  The students were also able to relate other parts of the video (such as the assembl

Every year I teach Desiree's Baby.  It's my favorite short story to teach students; the look of shock on their faces at the end... it's awesome. The first year I taught it, I was shocked at how little the kids knew about race.  A lot of my students know what race FEELS like: they know what it feels like when someone underestimates them because of the color of their skin, they know what it feels like to see people praise a person who villainizes them, they know what it feels like to grow up having a different experience than the ones they see in the shows they watch.  But a lot of them don't KNOW race: the history, the science, the misconceptions. Enter my favorite Webquest thanks to PBS! Race: The Power of Illusion is an interactive website that explains almost everything you could ever want to know about the idea of race.  And it was just what I needed to get my point across in as little time as possible. I needed the students to understand that race is j

I don't know if I've said this before but I love TED Talks.  My kids watch one every Tuesday that relates to our main text.  Last six weeks we read A Midsummer Night's Dream , so here are the TED Talks I paired with it and why. 1.  Mandy Len Catron: Falling in Love is the Easy Part A Midsummer Night's Dream is filled with the idea of love: what is it, is it serious, or is it a flight of fancy? After falling in love using a questionnaire, Mandy Len Catron discusses the idea that it doesn't take much to fall in love, but staying in love takes work.  I use this talk at the beginning of the unit to hit the theme of love and to also get the kids thinking about what it means to truly love someone. 2.  Amy Adkins: Why Do We Dream? I love mixing facts with fiction.  The loss of reality and dreams are major themes in the play.  This video gives real-world theories as to why human beings dream.  I ask the students to choose one reason and use it as a de

I love reading A Midsummer Night's Dream  with my kids.  Over the years I've realized that a lot of them do not have the context to understand the first scene of the play.  I discovered the animated show Horrible Histories  while searching for a quick way to give them that context in a way that they'd actually pay attention.  To make sure that they did while watching, I created a guided questioning handout.  I also realized that the video wasn't going to be enough.  So I found an article on CommonLit that dissects the class system.  Because students need to understand Hermia's plight and why the mechanicals are the comedic relief (I use a subsequent lesson to drive this idea home), the assessment is two paragraphs where they have to use both resources to explain what life was like for women and the working class.   The lesson plan is below.  If you're interested in the handout I use, you can find it in my TPT store here . Groovy Greeks Introduct

I love teaching Harrison Bergeron.  I take a whole week to go through it.  And my kids seem to love it too... which makes me love it even more. Things You Will Need to Teach This Lesson: ·          Instructions ·          Harrison Bergeron PowerPoint  ·          Index Cards ·          Bill of Rights ·          Day 1 Opener Handout  ·          “Harrison Bergeron” ·          Harrison Bergeron Plot Points  ·          Harrison Bergeron Plot and Inference Chart  ·          Harrison Bergeron Plot and Inference Chart Answer Key  ·          2081  ·          Harrison Bergeron vs. 2081 Handout  Lesson: Activity One: What is your best quality? As the students walk into class, hand them an index card.  Using slides 1 and 2, introduce the story that you’re about to read.  Have the students write their best quality on the index card.  Once students have completed the task, split them into four different groups based on their best quality: ·          Th

Is everyone feeling it?  That current of tension that runs through the English Department right before the STAAR test?  I'm feeling it again, and I have to admit that, this year, it's getting to me. But this post isn't about that. This post is about something I created. I wanted my kids to understand the key term UNIQUE in the STAAR rubric.  And so I created a worksheet where kids can reflect on what made each of these 4s unique and how they can incorporate that uniqueness into their own writing.  Since we're all a little burnt out on the right vs. wrong mentality, I made this worksheet subjective.  As long as their answer is thoughtful and shows true reflection, they receive full credit. Click here for the worksheet.

One thing that my kiddos are constantly struggling with is author's purpose.  Despite the initial P.I.E. lesson that I know they all receive in middle school, coming up with a reason why an author writes the things that she/he does is difficult.  So... we practice it a lot. Also on the list of things they need to practice are short answer responses, or analysis paragraphs.  After an entire term in which we discuss persuasion and how advertisement works, I show them the following video. We then have a discussion about what the video is trying to achieve.  Is it informing?  Is it persuading? Is it trying to entertain?  And how does it achieve that? Then I have the kids write a short answer response answering the question: What is the purpose of "This is a Generic Brand Video."  It's that simple.  It takes an entire class period and usually garners great discussion about advertisements, brands, and how they use images to convey their messages.  If you're i

Ok, so I cheated a little.  Not all of them are TED Talks. But... that's not the point.  I use TED Talks every week.  Some of the kids love them, some of them hate them, but every Tuesday for about 10 minutes at the beginning of class (sometimes they run a little longer) the kids watch a TED Talk where they have to identify the title of the talk, the speaker, the speaker's thesis, how it relates to whatever we're reading, and how the speaker uses ethos, pathos, and logos. So here are the TED Talks I use for Animal Farm, in no particular order: 1.  Karl Marx I like to start the unit off with this one.  It explains who Karl Marx was and his philosophy.  It also lightly touches on the Russian Revolution of 1917.  Just a note: the creators of this video use art to make their point, and some of the art is nude.  Use at your own discretion. 2.  Is Capitalism Bad for You? Wisecrack is amazing.  And this series takes heavy abstract theories and uses video game i

We had three weeks this month: the first week was taken up by STAAR retesting.  The third week was all about semester exams.  This left me with only the second week of December for anything instructional.  It also meant that December was going to be a themed WEEK instead of a themed MONTH. What better than the true meaning of Christmas!? [ DAY 1 AND 2: FREEWRITE AND ARTICLE ] I first posed the question:  What is the true meaning of Christmas?   I made sure to tell the kids that there was no right or wrong answer; I only wanted to know their opinion.  Then I gave them some guidelines: They had to write for 5 minutes. Their answers had to be thoughtful. They needed to write at least three sentences (I know… I know… but for some of these kids writing is torture.). Then we shared out.  And oh boy.  Most answers included presents, spending time with family, and getting time off from school.  I did have one kid explain that Christmas wasn’t about presents, but about char