When a person has gone through extreme trauma, writing about it can have a healing effect. The act of shaping the words on a page puts the trauma outside the self and becomes an entity of its own that can be shaped and molded. Some trauma victims use writing to expunge emotional baggage—writing it down … Continue reading Shoes, Rap Music, and Guns: Transitional Objects as Objective Correlatives in Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone by Tanya Stafsholt Miller
“It’s Not the Teacher’s Job”: Talking About Death and Death-Related Grief with Picture Books in Classrooms by Jongsun Wee and Heather J. Fye
Introduction Death was not taboo in children’s literature before the 20th century (Clement and Jamali 5), but its presence disappeared from after World War I to the 1970s in Western children’s literature (12). Death is still a controversial topic and difficult to talk about. Some adults may avoid discussing death as they wish to guard … Continue reading “It’s Not the Teacher’s Job”: Talking About Death and Death-Related Grief with Picture Books in Classrooms by Jongsun Wee and Heather J. Fye
What Matters in the Classroom? A Pre-Survey by Jean Prokott
(Download a .docx version of this survey here) Below are various factors that make a successful classroom. Please rank them in the order of which you think is most important (1) to less important (12). On the back of the sheet, justify your order/explain your process. Then, create a graphic organizer that represents how each … Continue reading What Matters in the Classroom? A Pre-Survey by Jean Prokott
Three Poems by Jean Prokott
BIRTH And at night, Uncle Duane would sleep with the upstairs window open in the farmhouse, let the wet, August night saturate the sheets and listen for the gurgling cries of the heifer from her slot in the hot barn. And when he heard the pain of the cow’s echo— not the lull like the … Continue reading Three Poems by Jean Prokott
We Follow by Sheryl Lain
I rode with Dad in our old Ford pickup, through a spring blizzard. Thick white snow blinded us. I was safe and warm inside Dad’s competence as he drove to rescue sheep, bound and determined to follow the leader and die. At the fence corner, Dad stopped and held the door for me, straining against … Continue reading We Follow by Sheryl Lain
From Café to Class: Bringing Book Clubs Into Your Classroom by Hayley Vetsch
It’s easy to discuss books if you like to read. Hobby reading comes easily to most of us English teachers, but I’d wager that it is one of the hardest things to teach in the classroom. In a time where longform is not the popular choice and 140-character essays reign, you can almost hear the … Continue reading From Café to Class: Bringing Book Clubs Into Your Classroom by Hayley Vetsch
The Sustainability of the Empathetic Teacher by Shaina Lane
At 6:30 on a snowy Monday morning, I click my key into the lock of the school office to start my day. There is never anyone there before me, which I prefer because it gives me enough time to get myself together before adolescent bodies start streaming through the door. I set my stuff down, change out … Continue reading The Sustainability of the Empathetic Teacher by Shaina Lane
Opposites Attract: Binary Opposites in Alice Sebold’s Lucky by Tanya Stafsholt Miller
The cover of Alice Sebold’s memoir reads, “In the tunnel where I was raped, a girl had been murdered and dismembered. I was told this story by the police. In comparison, they said, I was LUCKY.” By juxtaposing the incongruous words “rape” and “lucky,” Sebold invites readers to ask, what does it mean to be … Continue reading Opposites Attract: Binary Opposites in Alice Sebold’s Lucky by Tanya Stafsholt Miller
Write Anything: How STEM Connects to the Writing Curriculum by Amber Beattie
I must begin with a confession: I am an English person. Truly, there is little that I love more in life than a new book or fresh sheet of stationery. So when I was hired to teach writing to grades 5-8 at a STEM magnet school, I spent a long time considering what it meant … Continue reading Write Anything: How STEM Connects to the Writing Curriculum by Amber Beattie
Owning Their Stories: Teaching Memoir at an Alternative High School by Amy Vizenor
On a sunny afternoon in May, I sat in the parking lot of Midwestern Alternative (pseudonym), a high school for “at-risk” students where I was interviewing for an English teaching job. Watching the high schoolers spill out into the parking lot to leave for lunch, I felt intimidated by their stereotypically edgy, alternative dress, style, … Continue reading Owning Their Stories: Teaching Memoir at an Alternative High School by Amy Vizenor
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