Teacher Blog Home Page | Julie Faulkner

Meet the Teacher-Author

Meet the

Teacher-Author

I'm glad you are here! My educational resources for teachers are creative, practical, innovative, and classroom-tested for middle and high school English, Yearbook/Journalism, and more! My education includes a Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary Education with a minor in English, a Master’s Degree in English, and an Educational Specialist Degree in Instructional Leadership with a Principal Licensure. With those degrees, I have been fortunate enough to serve since 2004 in education in the state of Tennessee. I taught English at middle, high, and college levels throughout those years. For over a decade, I was the yearbook sponsor as well. Those years have been served in rural and suburban settings as well as with students in on-grade level, honors, and inclusion courses, which has given me a unique perspective on students’ learning styles as well as an appreciation for how much of a role a student’s background plays in the educational process. I look forward to teaching the students who walk into my classroom every day, and I am passionate about fostering classroom success stories through the lessons, materials, and resources I create -- but most importantly through the relationships that I am fortunate enough to develop. If you were to step into my classroom, you would see engaging, student-centered, collaborative, hands-on, critical thinking. I believe all my products are user-friendly, keeping the students and teachers in mind. To me, my job is about creating classroom success by teaching students to see, make, and appreciate real-world connections. The world around them is full of opportunity, and I want them to notice that and seize it. With that, I love helping you create your own classroom success stories!

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Latest on the Blog

Mastering Academic Feedback on Writing: Strategies for Teachers and Students

By Julie Faulkner • January 2, 2025

Providing effective academic feedback on writing is one of the most impactful ways educators can support student growth. Research and experience consistently show that timely, meaningful feedback clarifies expectations and helps students develop critical skills for success in writing and beyond. Whether you’re following evaluation rubrics like TEAM or preparing students for AP Language standards or EOC writing tests, creating a system for giving and receiving feedback is essential. In this post, I’ll summarize five key strategies to make academic feedback a game-changer in your classroom.

Student-Centered Teaching Strategies: Engage Your Class Without the Stress

By Julie Faulkner • November 27, 2024

There are those times when "teachering" just isn’t optimal. What do I mean by that? "Teachering," as defined by me, involves delivering new material, expecting students to produce immediate results, or spending the entire class in direct instruction when students are already overloaded or overstimulated. These times include—but are not limited to—the days before a break, the holiday season, the week of a full moon, half days, or even the day after Halloween. During these moments, the best approach is to shift the focus away from you and onto your students. Let them lead, apply what they’ve already learned, reflect on their progress, and take ownership of their work. This hands-off teaching strategy creates a structured yet low-stress classroom environment where students stay calm, focused, and productive.

Insights from a Student Teacher of High School English

July 25, 2024

It’s a unique situation for both parties of a student-teaching experience: on the one hand from the point of view of the student teacher, you are entering someone else’s classroom and you may be teaching solo for the first time, and on the other hand, you may be the classroom teacher who is welcoming someone else into your classroom to take the lead. To say the least, this is a tricky space to navigate. That’s why I thought it would be interesting to speak directly to a student teacher – to hear her thoughts and experiences. Whether you are a cooperating/mentoring teacher of a student teacher or you are a student teacher heading into the classroom, this interview with a student teacher of high school English (Miss M), who just completed her placement, is very enlightening.

Latest on the Blog

Mastering Academic Feedback on Writing: Strategies for Teachers and Students

By Julie Faulkner • January 2, 2025

Student-Centered Teaching Strategies: Engage Your Class Without the Stress

By Julie Faulkner • November 27, 2024

Insights from a Student Teacher of High School English

July 25, 2024

Everything You Need to Know About How to Sell the Yearbook

July 25, 2024

You’ve worked hard for half a year or longer to create this beautiful time capsule — the yearbook. You’ve sold advertisements, taken pictures, written headlines and captions, and included as many students as possible. BUT — what if no one sees what you and your staffers have created? That may be a little hyperbolic, but it is super important to have a strategy in place not just for creating the yearbook but for selling it as well. Here’s everything you need to know about how to sell the yearbook!

Make Your Yearbook More Diverse & Inlcusive with These Easy Tips

July 25, 2024

Our yearbook staff’s motto is “Everybody’s Story. Everybody’s Book.” That means everyone! Not just the seniors, the athletes, the staffers and their friends, certain cliques – everybody. Why does that matter? For one, if we are creating a book for people to purchase, they need to be reflected in it; or they won’t purchase it. But the bigger, more important reason is simply that we are telling the story of a year, and without every person represented, considered, and included in the yearbook design, we haven’t done our job: We haven’t told the true story of the year at all if we let bias or favoritism creep in or if we get lazy with coverage and choices. The yearbook must be an accurate time capsule with reflections of each person’s interests, styles, talents, abilities, and backgrounds. Therefore, you can make your yearbook more diverse and inclusive with these easy steps! Tips for your yearbook pages and beyond.

Planning the First Week of Yearbook Class

July 25, 2024

You’ve just been assigned the yearbook, or last year didn’t go so well, and you want your first days plans to be solid, effective, and fun! Does this sound like you? I’ve been there. The first week of school is a whirlwind, but in yearbook class, the first week back to school is even more topsy turvy, to say the least. You might have looked through my Tips for New Advisers post or How to Have a Picture-Perfect Start to the Year posts for adviser-facing suggestions, and you feel good-to-go from that side of things. However, now it’s time to decide what to do when students are walking through the door — AKA planning the first week of yearbook class! When I think about what to do the first week of school in my yearbook class, I try to think of it like one my English classes in some ways, and in other ways, it is completely different! In this blog post, I’ll share my student-facing plans for the first week of yearbook class.

What the COVID-19 Pandemic Did Not Change About My Classroom

July 25, 2024

The 2020-2021 school year was the year of the unexpected, the year of changes, the year of disappointments, the year of frustrations, and certainly the year of loss. It goes down in my book as the hardest year of my teaching career — that includes the first year I taught in middle school, the first year I was a lead in an inclusion classroom, the year I taught while building a house, the first year I was the new yearbook adviser, and the year I taught while having multiple surgeries for some serious medical issues. And let’s not forget that I actually contracted COVID-19 THE. FIRST. DAY. BACK of teacher in-service. However, I didn’t quit. I did survive, and I’m going back. That said, I am choosing to look at the positive — shall we say, “COVID Positive” — Bad pun. Anyway, despite all change that occurred this year — schedules, classrooms, assignments, students, and more, there were a few things that I’m thankful that the COVID-19 pandemic did not change about my classroom.

5 Ways to Use Class Time After the Yearbook is Complete

July 25, 2024

The yearbook is complete, submitted, done. Now what? You have several months of school left, and you aren’t sure how to keep your students on task for the remaining days. Does this sound familiar? With spring delivery or even summer delivery books where students take yearbook/journalism as a class, it’s often difficult — and even daunting — to come up with creative and constructive ways to use that time. As we all know, doing nothing is not an option! In this blog post, I’ll share 5 ways to use class time after the yearbook is complete.

How to Re-Purpose Lesson Plans & Materials for Digital Classrooms

July 25, 2024

Whether you are teaching via full remote learning, on a hybrid schedule, or blending your in-person classes with virtual classrooms, you’ll need your lesson plans and materials ready for digital classrooms. The good news is — you can re-purpose lesson plans and materials for digital classrooms without reinventing the wheel or making all new activities, worksheets, files, etc. In this blog post, I hope to share some hacks you can use to easily convert, edit, and share what you have from your traditional classroom right into your digital classroom.