In the education profession, you’re trained to approach lesson planning a certain way. Your key question is, “What’s the objective?” You’re supposed to write lessons around learning objectives — what will the student be able to do at the end of the lesson? But I’ve found that, in practice, the exercise of writing lesson objectives …
The Pegasus and the Pantograph. Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” And if you teach English like me, you’ve seen your fair share of essays that open with Albert Einstein quotes. The guy is just so quotable. Heck, that quote was a favorite of mine in the seventh grade, and I …
Rubrics are Hell. Essay rubrics. Project rubrics. Oral presentation rubrics. As a social constructivist, I’ve always disliked them. But I can’t escape them. We teachers are actually wedged between rubrics on both sides. We use them on our students’ work, to try and streamline the complex and demanding cognitive process of evaluation. And our administrators …
I’ve been teaching the technique of freewriting to high school students for a dozen years. Peter Elbow invented it. Buy and read his book, Writing without Teachers. The theory in a nutshell is this: you can more efficiently clarify your thinking, invent thesis statements, or whatever, if you warm up your brain by writing some …
All-right, five-paragraph essay. You and I have struggled long and hard. In middle school, you rolled up on your Razor kick scooter and, laughing, rubbed my nose on the asphalt. In high school, I fumbled my hand up your shirt and thought I was in love. In college we fought; I’m fuzzy on the details, …