Standards...I'm sure that caught your eye (insert sarcastic tone); it most likely prompted an eye roll, but we all know how important standards are to our teaching. So I ask you these questions: How do you know what you are covering when? How often are you covering the same standards, and what standards are you not consistently covering? And finally, how effective are your units in being the vehicle to help your students become proficient in these standards? Now I got you thinking, or maybe now is the time you go back to Facebook and begin scrolling or trolling again. Well don't because I'm about to make your life easier!

Art in English...Say what? Years ago, when the Common Core Gods created the standards, they placed the "Integrations of Knowledge and Ideas" strand under Reading Literature. Part of this strand states students should "Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment." For years, I just ignored this thinking to myself 'What good could analyzing art be in English?' Stop booing me; I realized I was wrong!

After having a come to Yeezus moment, I realized that teaching students to analyze different artistic mediums involves a similar skill set related to closely analyzing literature. When analyzing literature, we tell students to read closely looking for specific details  to better understand the text. We also ask them to consider an author's craft and structure and how the craft and structure helps to reveal important elements of the piece.  Analyzing art can function in the same way and can be used to help further our understanding of the texts we are reading. For example, my 12th grade students read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (cue the Gothic music), and I incorporate an art analysis activity when we finish the novel. I accomplish this activity by having my students analyze different artists' creations of the monster, and they have to relate the artist's interpretation to a theme in Frankenstein. I place my students into seven different groups, and each group is given a different artist's portrayal of the monster (click here). The students first begin by individually analyzing the image using a guided image analysis sheet (click here); this handout asks students to describe, infer, inquire, and connect this information to a major theme of the novel. Then after they have individually analyzed the image, they discuss their findings in a small group. Working together on their analysis, the students come up with a 2-3 minute presentation about what their image reveals about a theme in Frankenstein. They present their ideas to the class. My students enjoy seeing the different portrayals of the monster, and how each of those portrayals reveals something different about the novel. This is such an easy activity to put together, and it lends itself to conversations not only about the novel but how we can analyze art and literature in similar ways.

So, are you ready to turn your regular students into art connoisseurs? Ha, that's wishful thinking, but we should definitely be exposing them to art and its connections to literature. See, I told you I realized I was wrong.

Keep on stressin' on,

I-n-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t, do you know what that mean, mayne? If not, I'm talking about independent reading. It's BAAAAACK... I think there was a time in my career when I felt like silent, independent reading in my classroom looked like I was taking a 15-20 minute break, and I didn't want my evaluator to walk in and see the students just reading! How dare I let them read in class, but I don't care how it looks anymore because it is soooooo good for students.

There are sooooo many websites out there that teachers should know about, but there is one in particular that I just can't get enough of right now. Let's talk about Teachers' Discovery. No, they aren't paying me to say this, but yes I will gladly accept money if they decide to do so. The Teacher's Discovery has amazing resources that I've actually tried in my own classroom. For example I love their literary tic-tac-toe cards as well as their info-text tic-tac-toe cards. I use the literary TTTCards when my students do literary circles. You can find that assignment below. I use the info-text TTTCards throughout the year during our non-fiction Tuesday activities. What's so great about both sets is that each set easily allows for teachers to differentiate. What the students don't notice or know, is that every card within the set has a certain color: light green cards are for students who are "developing;" orange cards are for students who are "meeting;'" and blue cards are for students who are "exceeding." Not only does this allow for differentiation, but each card also allows for student choice. The students enjoy the assignments, especially because they decide which ones they want to do. You can easily use these cards for independent reading or with a whole-group novel. They are awesome!

Another great resource from Teacher's Discovery is that they offer weekly current events with great questions FOR FREE. All you have to do is sign up here. Each week they will send you a hot-topic, current event. The current event also comes with "questions using close reading and critical thinking." You can have your students independently answer the questions and then work in small groups to go over their answers and discuss where they agree and/or disagree. Speaking of writing, they also offer writing prompts books. I use these writing prompts with my students every Thursday; it is their writing warm-up. My favorite part about these writing prompts is that they ask students to change their mode of writing depending on the prompt. On the left corner, they have what mode students should use: narrative, explanatory, or argument. They also ask the students to use new vocabulary words within their writing and provide a list of those vocab. words that relate to the topic. I made my own writing warm-up sheet to accompany their prompts (see below), and it works really well for my students. The students enjoy writing on the topics because they are normally controversial and engaging. We usually share our responses from the writing prompt, and the discussions are interesting and most often cause a civil debate in class. This is when we practice using accountable talk if we agree and/or disagree with our peers. The students don't realize it, but they are practicing writing and speaking and listening skills. Two birds, one stone!

Sometimes, I feel like my email is inundated with useless websites all promising to make teaching easier, but Teacher's Discovery really does. They have everything from literature to social emotional learning. Go check them out!

Keep on stressin' on,

Let's get lit and by lit I mean Commonlit.org. I've been hanging around teenagers too much. Anyway, I'm sure you have seen it before, but if you haven't you need to know that it was created by angels who know teachers "ain't got time for that." Before discovering Commonlit.org, I used to scour the internet looking for non-fiction texts that related to what we were currently reading for our literature unit, and it would take me hours. Then I found the Holy Grail. This website offers many, different non-fiction and fiction texts for teacher and student use. I will often go to the search bar and type in whatever novel we are reading to see what texts they have to accompany our text. You can also browse by genre, literary device, text set, unit, grade-level, and/or theme. Its access to texts is AMAZING!

So, how do I use it?  I use commonlit.org for all of my non-fiction Tuesdays. My non-fiction Tuesday texts most often connect to what we are reading for our literature unit (e.g. Medea, Frankenstein, Fahrenheit, etc.). When we read Othello, I use non-fiction texts from Common Lit such as Who Was the Bard?; What Makes Good People Do Bad Things?; Teaching Shakespeare in a Maximum Security Prison; Shakespeare Had Fewer Words but Doper Rhymes, than Rappers; and Why Do We Hate Love? . Each of these articles directly relates to Othello, and we make this connection each time we read. I usually have students read the article, answer the multiple choice questions, and a few of the open-ended questions.  I also created a vocab./connection activity to go along with each of these non-fiction texts that the students must complete too. The vocab. activities  I created for each of these texts cover three of the languages standards under the CCSS:

Are you tired of reading the same old literary analysis essays over and over again throughout the year? I had the same problem last year during fourth quarter, so I did a little research. The clouds parted and the light shown through when I found this post from Living in the Layers on graphic essays. A graphic essay is a visual that uses words, color, and other visual representations (like symbolism) to make a unified statement. Graphic essays allow more creativity, but assess the same skill sets when it comes to assessing an essay for a claim, facts, and commentary. I suggest assigning the graphic essay further into the year after you have assessed your students' abilities in the aforementioned areas. It should probably come at a time when students have been exhibiting proficiency in these areas, so they can focus more on the creative side of the assignment. I'm getting ahead of myself here, let me tell you how I took the information from Living in the Layers and made it my own.

Each year, my students read The Catcher in the Rye. Don't groan; you are forgetting what it's like to be an angsty teenager. As we read, we focus upon symbols and how those symbols directly relate to the theme of the novel. My students use a particular handout to track these symbols throughout our reading. Once we are finished with TCITR I assign the following:

"Literary Analysis: In The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger uses many symbols to support the thematic idea that maturation and the loss of innocence are an inevitable rite of passage for all of humanity. Prove this thematic statement using one particular symbol from the novel. Discuss the symbol’s meaning and how it connects and aides the development of Salinger’s message. You must use at least three quotes from the story that relate to that symbol and to Salinger’s message about maturation and the loss of innocence. But…. Your final product WILL NOT be a four-paragraph essay; it will be a graphic essay."

At first, this is confusing and daunting to students because they've only known essays to be a four-five paragraph written assignment. In order for them to better understand the task at hand, I give them a graphic essay outline. They work through the outline to organize their ideas before they start creating their masterpiece. I give them a week to work on this outside of class. The day the students' graphic essays are due, we do a gallery walk so the students can see each others' graphic essays. The students thoroughly enjoy looking at each others' essays, and I thoroughly enjoy actually grading them! This was an assignment I'm definitely repeating this year. 

Keep on stressin' on,

When I say pattern, you say folders! Pattern.....folders....pattern.....folders. Sorry that is the total English, nerdy side of me. Have you heard of pattern folders? I'm not going to pretend I made this idea up because I am a true teacher; we steal everything. If you haven't heard of pattern folders, and you want a detailed description, I strongly suggest watching this video . Otherwise, here is my version: A pattern folder is something students can use to track certain literary elements or topics throughout a piece of literature. For example, when I teach Hamlet, there are four main ideas I want students to pay attention to throughout the play: ambiguity, deceit, elements of a tragic hero, and madness. As my students read the text, they have to find examples in the text of the aforementioned topics. Once they find a piece of evidence that connects to one of those ideas, they write down the pg. #, a specific quote, and they explain how that piece of evidence is connected to the topic. Then the student places the note card into the corresponding pattern folder pocket (see below). You can do this with any piece of literature. Take Fahrenheit 451 (click assignment) for example; in this particular unit, my students focus on literary elements such as satire, symbolism, and books' effects on characters. As they read, when they come across a symbol, they make note of it on a note card and place the card in the pocket labeled symbol. They do this for all three topics.

So what? Why pattern folders? There are many ways students can track literary elements and/or ideas, but I have found this to be one of the most effective ways for students to gather specific evidence in an organized manner. Once my students collect all of the evidence throughout the book, I give them multiple essay prompts to choose from having to do with our areas of focus for our pattern folders. The students get to choose whichever essay prompt they would like to write; the prompts vary from argumentative to explanatory. Check out my essay prompts here. The students are then allowed to use their note cards as evidence for whichever essay topic they choose.

If you are interested in pattern folders, you will need the supplies. Here is a list of what you need:

File Folders
Demco Pockets (low back) 
Index Cards
That's it for today! Keep on stressin' on, teachers:)



 

Argument...No, I'm not talking about the kind of argument you have in the teacher's lounge about who gets to use the microwave first to heat up a frozen SmartOnes meal. I'm talking about teaching students everything they need to know about argumentative writing. See, what sometimes we fail to show students about argument is that it could be the holy key to a later curfew, a night out with friends, a bigger allowance, you get the point. If you sell it that way, you'll have a whole bunch of half-engaged teenagers! I digress, back to my point: the skill set of argument crosses the threshold of multiple content areas including social studies, science, etc., and it's incredibly important for students to be able to not only write arguments, but to effectively analyze arguments. Flash-forward to ten, short years from now when they are evaluating speeches given by politicians. Do we want them to eat up every word any politician shouts from a podium, or do we want them to analyze word choice, tone, and appeals to make an informed and educated choice? Can you tell election day is tomorrow? Anywho, that is where my argumentative writing unit always begins: analyzing.
Analyzing an Argument...
I first begin the unit by giving a presentation on "Analyzing an Argument."  My students take guided notes as I present to them the foundations of a good argument. I want my students to understand the necessities of a great argument before we begin writing our own arguments. After going over the notes, we read the speech "Ain't I a Woman?" by Sojourner Truth. Then we SOAPStone it, and we highlight and annotate the speech looking for examples of Ethos (pink), Logos (yellow), and Pathos (orange). I also encourage my students to look for other devices we have discussed such as rhetorical questions and repetition. I complete this format using the think-pair-share strategy. I want my students to have great discussions about argument; I don't want them sitting there analyzing it alone, allowing for their minds to sidetrack off into teenage, hormonal land. I ask them to discuss how the use of appeals and the devices help to further Truth's message and to fill out the rhetorical analysis sheet seen below. Once we have a solid practice under our belts, the next class we take on Susan B. Anthony's speech "On Women's Right to Vote." I once again, have them SOAPStone the speech and highlight and annotate looking for the appeals as well as other devices; they also must fill out another rhetorical analysis sheet. This is great practice for understanding the foundations of an argument. Students can later use these sheets as evidence to write an argumentative essay on which speaker is more persuasive when it comes to women's rights. I'll save that lesson for another day! Until then, stress on teachers!

Welcome to my teaching blog: Spiritus Mundi. For those of you interested in the name of my blog, it came from William Butler Yeats' poem "The Second Coming." Yeats believed that a poet's inspiration came from what was called Spiritus Mundi, which is the collective soul of the universe. As much I'd like to be as clever and intelligent as Yeats, I am not. This blog wasn't created for the sake of my talents, which are few, but this blog is meant to help any teachers, specifically ELA teachers, to find different resources I have created or found! Please come check out my blog when you have a chance. Hopefully you will find it helpful!