on the other side of the river

welcome to my final entry

2009-07-21T20:11:43Z

It's been three weeks since I left behind Mississippi, and my two years of teaching English in a rural Delta school district (and two partial summers of mentoring and coaching new teachers!). I've been meaning to sit down and give an "ending" to t...

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live from room 228

2009-05-23T13:27:13Z

For their final exam, I decided my students were simply tested-out from this spring of state-testing craziness. So I borrowed a unit from a great teacher-friend of mine, and used the final project in place of an exam. After reading and analyzing t...

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life imitating art

2009-05-05T00:41:10Z

My Learning Strategies class is in the midst of reading A Raisin in the Sun. Like my previous classes, they are loving it. They love having their own parts to read, the incorrect grammar, the occasional swear word for emphasis. The opening act inc...

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a letter to my students

2009-04-26T23:42:01Z

Last-Minute Advice (and Thoughts) from Room 2** Dear English II students, With the state test quickly approaching, I thought I would write you all a letter to share my last-minute thoughts and advice. First of all, let me say that I a...

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more inspiring than susan boyle

2009-04-24T14:58:22Z

I've had a dearth of positive blog posts this spring (stemming mainly from the stress and chaos of teaching a state-tested subject in the final countdown to the test!) so I thought I would repost an incredibly inspiring story for good measure. I ...

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dear future first year,

2009-03-29T18:00:52Z

If you are reading this, good for you, you are thinking ahead. A word of warning: it doesn't matter how much you read, how much you "prepare", or how much you mull over your future life in your head. Nothing will really prepare you mentally, physi...

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required: response to executive summary

2009-03-25T01:15:31Z

A lot of the things I thought about when I read the executive summary have already been written, in a much-more thought-through (and probably better-written) entry by a colleague of mine. The Executive Summary is the kind of statistical research...

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just learn some manners

2009-03-25T00:36:31Z

We need character education. Our school attempts to run a character education program. We have a “character word” of the week, which is announced, along with a brief explanation each week over the announcements. But we don't actually teach behavio...

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required: we've got a major quarterback problem

2009-01-11T23:49:46Z

This post is a response to a New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell titled Most Likely to Succeed. It examines the difficulties in predicting who might make a "good" teacher before they actually begin teaching, and how we have a critical shortage ...

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freewrite: ENGLISH II

2008-12-10T14:59:55Z

I found out last week that I will be teaching English II. My principal unceremoniously walked into my room, and while my students were quietly working asked me "If the state test scares" me. "No, not really" I replied, trying not to get my hopes ...

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