In my last three posts, I have described how my teaching partner James and I approach teaching Tommy Orange’s novel There There. In this final post, I will explain how we wrap up the study of the novel, suggest additional resources to use in teaching Native Voices, and share a summative assessment we use with…
In my previous posts, I shared how my teaching partner James and I prepare students for reading There There and how we teach the novel’s Prologue. In this post and subsequent posts in this series, I will not share day-to-day lesson plans; rather, I will share some resources that James and I have used. Our…
In my previous post, I discussed how my teaching partner James and I approach pre-teaching or setting the context forTommy Orange’s novel There There. The Prologue introduces readers to a lot of history that many of them might not know. James and I decided that this year, we wanted students to unpack the Prologue and…
Is it just me, or is February the busiest time of the year? I’ve been meaning to start this blog series on teaching Tommy Orange’s phenomenal novel There There for a long while, but trying to carve out the time to write the blog posts has been challenging. I teach this novel as part of…
About a month ago, I shared my conviction that it’s important to teach contemporary authors in the classroom and wrote a series of blog posts about the resources I use to teach Yaa Gyasi’s novel Homegoing. My next series will focus on how I approach teaching Tommy Orange’s novel There There. Stay tuned for these upcoming…
Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop coined the term “windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors” as a metaphor for what media representation means. In case you haven’t encountered the metaphor, watch this quick video in which Dr. Sims Bishop explains the metaphor. The reason why representation is important is captured so well in this infographic created by…
Something I never really learned in school whenever I studied the United States government was the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) influence on the U. S. Constitution. In fact, I don’t think I learned about this until I was a high school English teacher, teaching American literature. I am fairly certain the Prentice-Hall textbook I was using had…
One of the best things that my undergraduate professors did for me was to emphasize the importance of joining professional organizations and going to professional conferences. I haven’t always been supported in going to the annual NCTE Convention””my previous school often gave me little to no money and required that I use personal days. My…
