Hosting a book club meeting with my high school English students is generally the highlight of my week. There is the possibility, however, that for some reason -- sickness, school cancellations, breaks, etc. -- that your regular in-class book club meeting might not take place within the four walls of your classroom. (If you want to read more about what my traditional books clubs are, check out this post first.) That doesn't mean, though, that you and your students have to miss your book activities and discussions. Here are five tips, ideas, … [Read more...]
What Not to Miss When Teaching Fahrenheit 451
There is so much to teach and learn when reading Ray Bradbury's magnum opus: Fahrenheit 451. I'm compiling this list of not-to-miss points when teaching Fahrenheit 451 after having taught it for years and years, but also with the disclaimer that every time I teach it, I see something new. However, these five aspects of the book surface each time through as the topics that spark the most learning and enjoyment. 1. The Language & Allusions: I suppose this wouldn't be a proper English-teacher approved blog post, if I didn't include the … [Read more...]
Setting Up a Classroom Book Club Meeting
You may have read my "Why I don't do literature circles and what I do instead" post, and now you want to try my classroom book clubs method. But you have some questions: What does it look like inside a "book club" meeting? What types of activities do you do? What questions do you ask students? What do you discuss and how? How do you keep it all organized? In this blog post, I hope to shed a little more light on the anatomy of my book club meetings. If you haven't already read my first blog post about the concept or structure in general, … [Read more...]
End-of-Year Reflection: Top Five Classroom Success Stories of 2018
It seems to me that 2018 has been quite the long year... but then again it does feel like I was just rounding the corner of 2018 not too long ago, and here we are already at 2019. One of the most important things we can do as teachers is reflect, and so that's why I love this annual blog post. It's been my new year tradition for the past several years (2015, 2016, 2017), and choosing only five moments is always so hard, but here goes: My top five classroom success stories of 2018! This year in review... 1) Read-o-Lution: Reading is the … [Read more...]
Book Clubs for Secondary Classrooms
An English teacher’s life is packed, and for the most part on top of that, we are doing more than just teaching English. For me, I’m the yearbook adviser, the graduation coordinator, senior class sponsor, member of the leadership committee, etc. I’m sure your situation is similar. So, when I can cut down on what I might be doing in my English class that causes me more work (and doesn’t really benefit the students more than another choice I could make) I look at revising it. Therefore, one year the cut came to literature circles. In fact, I … [Read more...]
