The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is, in my estimation, one of those books that everyone should be required to read. In the immortal words of no less a person than Ernest Hemingway, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn American writing comes from that. There…
Juliet and her nurse have a very interesting relationship. Students may not be familiar with the concept of the wetnurse, so when I teach Romeo and Juliet, I explain that the nurse was hired by the Capulet family to nurse Juliet, a common practice among wealthy families for centuries. I also explain that the nurse…
I love teaching Romeo and Juliet. I have taught this play for seven of the ten years I have been teaching, and the only reason I didn’t do it for those three is that I was teaching pre-K and middle school, and it wasn’t part of either curriculum. Romeo and Juliet might be my favorite…
My department is engaged in textbook selection right now. I’m fairly certain that we have decided which textbook company we would like to work with; however, I think we still need to pin down which peripherals we will order to supplement and exactly which books in the series we will use. I won’t tell you…
For seven of the ten years I have taught, I have taught American Literature. I feel a close kinship with the subject, and I can almost plan for that class in my sleep now. I change up things a little bit each year because each class is different, but some constants remain. I have to…
I am taking Mr. Teacher’s advice and posting about some of the lesson ideas you can find on the handout page. Arguably the two greatest American poets of the nineteenth century were Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, yet two more disparate poets would be difficult to find. For instance, Whitman wrote in free verse, while…
It’s that time of year again. We did long chapters on phrases and clauses from Warriner’s, and we only have two weeks before finals. It’s a good time for a high-interest short novel. It’s a good time for The Catcher in the Rye. I introduced the novel today, of course telling my students about Mark…
The other day, one of my students made a special trip to my classroom to give me a folded newspaper clipping. He asked me if I had read the paper — and as I’m remembering it, I can’t recall the day he asked about — and I hadn’t, so he shyly handed me the article….
A favorite resource of mine, the Folger Shakespeare Library, is somewhat skimpy on lesson plans for Julius Caesar. I have only taught this play once before, earlier in my career. I don’t remember that anything I did then was in any way spectacular, memorable, or brilliant, and I would really like my current students to…
I was not really happy with how vocabulary instruction went in my classes last year. Our school purchases really good consumable vocabulary textbooks, but I had the feeling that my students’ grades were impacted too much by vocabulary. In some cases, students who did really well on vocabulary quizzes and always did the workbook exercises…
