Back when I was a whippersnapper wearing dungarees and walking to school and back in the snow uphill both ways, nothing beat the school book fair. When I was the K-12 English Language Arts and Reading coordinator in a small southside district in San Antonio, there was still nothing that beat the...
The classroom community…is it worth the time and energy?
This is not a rhetorical question. The answer is yes.
Around 2005, I started a more regular and purposeful current events routine in my AP® Government and Politics class. I would supply three articles on Sunday, and students needed to read them by class time on Tuesday. I creatively called it “Current Events Tuesday.” No students cheered, but I soon...
So, you have taken the plunge and are now teaching AP® Human Geography. People will ask “What is Human Geography?” but you have no idea how to answer (yet). I get this question all the time (from students and teachers alike) and I have a short and longer answer that will help kick off your...
It’s not very often that TV shows or movies come before the book version, but it does happen sometimes! The art of writing is alive in visual media with scripts and screenplays, but turning those scenes, characters, and situations into chapters in a book sounds more difficult than turning a book...
The beginning of the school year is an important time for establishing expectations and forming relationships, both teacher-student and student-student. In my district, we teach government and civics and AP® U.S. Government and Politics to sophomores, so I used to spend a good bit of time...
Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ have taken over much of the television industry by taking popular and enticing books or comics and creating a TV series counterpart. This allows writers and directors to focus on details deeper than a single two-hour movie and create more complex character arches. The...
This resource is designed to provide a guided lesson on close reading, specifically imagery, figurative language, word choice, tone, and tonal shift and how these elements can enhance our understanding of a work.
Code-switching is changing something about yourself to fit a certain situation or audience. The way you might talk to your friends versus talking to your parents by using two different tones of voice is an example of code-switching. People code-switch to make tone, wording, and appearance fit the...
Over years of experience teaching an AP® course (in my case, AP® World History), I’ve been able to compile a list of “must do” tips and suggestions for teachers who have never taught an AP® course before. They offer insight into not only surviving your first year teaching AP®, but also how to guide...
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