I started using the word “positivism” in pep-talks to myself while I was living in Honduras. Usually these pep-talks would take place on my short ride to school while musing with my roommate and listening to Michael Jackson infused reggaeton on the radio. The pep-talks were necessary because of what I recently described to a [...]
In preparation for an interview, I was asked to create a lesson plan on Yala Korwin’s poem “The Little Boy with His Hands Up.” I thought it would be a good chance to create Prezi. Click here to see what I made. I’ve been thinking a lot about technology at school and how it’s used. [...]
I have been to several educational conferences: A conference on teaching about the Holocaust showed me how to teach literature as primary source. An AP English institute reminded me to be bold and send emails to the people who write ‘the books.’ It also taught me how teachers share. A conference I helped plan for [...]
The curfew is over, but now I’m feeling boxed in by curriculum questions and my new responsibilities as a department chair. In my first year of teaching, I loved having the freedom to teach how and what I wanted to. I spent time exploring great books with students. I listened to them, encouraged them, provoked [...]
For the last two days, schools in all of Honduras have been closed. People have been asked to stay in their homes until there is some political resolution. Although the curfew has been lifted, things are still unstable. Our school is closed until Monday. The ‘Crisis Politica’ has been a disappointment for many reasons. Janelle [...]
I started the year with a lot of short, structured writing assignments. We wrote almost every day for the first four weeks of class. We wrote literary letters, quotation responses, college application essays and Anglo-Saxon boasts. Some of my goals: to learn about the students and their writing to establish a writing environment in and [...]