Kat's comments (member since Jun 10, 2008)

Kat's comments from the High School English Teachers group.

I find that having bellwork for the kids to do as they come in really helps in a lot of ways. It gives me a chance to mentally prepare for the new class entering, it helps them get settled and into the routine, it gives me a chance to take attendance (and stragglers don't miss "class"), it gives individual students a chance to voice questions/concerns about homework/lessons/whatever before "class" starts, and it can get the kids already thinking about the day's lesson, depending on how you use the bellwork. I favor sentence editing (practical grammar), but I'm working on a plan for switching that up with vocabulary and plain ol' journaling.

Routine seemed to be the best medicine for my difficult classes in the past. Good luck.

I just finished "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan, and I really liked it. I'd definitely recommend that series for your classroom library, even though I've only read the first one. Recommend it to any of your kids who seem to really like mythology, they'll get a kick out of recognizing characters and monsters from the stories.

From talking to my husband, sports isn't always what's desired by boys. Try fantasy and sci-fi novels as well. My husband never read until he moved in with me and finally found books he wanted to read. Now he reads as much as I do. :) The books that hooked him were the Drow series by R.A. Salvatore.

Simple fact: TIME. That's why a lot of us teach selections. Also, sometimes that's what's in the textbook, plain and simple. Yet another reason is that sometimes a little piece is all a person needs, and sometimes is much better than the whole (read: Beowulf taught to seniors at 7:30 AM, reading just the main battles and leaving out the speechifying works a LOT better. Along with giving them coffee.).

I've got a lot to read this summer, as we jsut revamped our whole curriculum for senior English. I'm reading Night, re-reading Othello and Tartuffe (I LOVE these plays), and a whole bunch of other stuff. I have a whole mini-anthology to look over and create brand-new lesson plans over.

www.webenglishteacher.com is a lifesaver, by the way. :)