tweenteacher.com

Know a teacher who got a pink slip?  Maybe my newest post at Teacher Magazine can help.  Click here for the article. It's Step 1 of my Top Secret New Teacher Handbook.  Hope it creates some shortcuts, a machete even, through ...

This weekend I'm presenting at the CATE conference in Santa Clara, CA.  It's a session on developing high level, critical-thinking commentary in expository writing.  My feeling is that great commentary is the Voice in Expository, it is the Show, Not ...

So, please, somebody tell me how this scenario is best for the child: Recently, I received a student, a full quarter into the school year, from our ELD classes.  That's not the problem as much as the fact that she doesn't ...

Every year, I do this activity when teaching Narrative Plot.  I've used it from 3rd grade to 12th grade.  I learned a version of it first in 1993 at a UCLA Extension class on "Teaching Reading to Secondary Students" and ...

I commented on Joanne Jacobs article, "Stop Facilitating and Start Teaching," based on Fred Strine's article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Strine indicates that more student-centered teaching is somehow less taught and, consequently, less learned.  Jacobs paraphrases that the "'sage on the ...

An (aspiring) Educator is hosting this week's Carnival of Education #178.  I've tweaked my How to Take Control of Your Teaching list and although it's still in an evolving state, you can read it here.  Enjoy the Carnival and the ...

Here is a short Oral Presentation Rubric that I developed for my Teach the Teacher unit.  Haven't used it yet, but the students have heard all the terms and definitions before. I'll hand one out to each of the students to ...

Look, we all know the statistics.  Many of the hardest-to-teach classes are being taught by the least experienced teachers.  According to Education Week, a study was recently conducted in Philadeliphia evaluating 9th graders, "the make-or-break year for many students on ...

I loved Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant.  Let me say it again: I loved this book.  It's edgy, dark, and hilarious.  I haven't read a vivid character like this is a long time.  Skulduggery is in one breath a rapscallion, a ...

Student-made films are nothing new.  In 6th grade, I, for one, wrote, directed, and starred in a brilliant re-creation of the epic tale of the Greek myth of Narcissus complete with a leap into a very unheated pool at the ...