What Scoring 800+ Essays on the AP Exam Taught Me About the Common Core
Some kudos from my Table Leader In early June, I put my teaching assignment on hold to work as an AP Reader in Louisville. Downtown Louisville transformed into AP central with a small army of five...
View ArticleBetter Know a Standard, Part 5: RL 4.5
By Tom In my last post I discussed standard 4.4, which is about determining the meaning of words and phrases in context, especially those which come from mythology. 4.5 is all about contrasting poetry,...
View ArticleEducational Safari: How 4-3-2-1 Writing can Improve your Practice and Student...
Oh man, I don’t know about you, but this year is both flying by and becoming more overwhelming every minute. Some of this is due to major changes at my specific location, but some is definitely due to...
View ArticleNGSS Transition: What’s Going On Around the Country?
NSTA Conference in Chicago… So here we are in year 2 of transitioning to the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). By “we” I mean Washington State and my school district, but since these are...
View ArticleAdvertising For Good: An Experiment in Activism & Love
More than once last spring I spent my prep period wondering if I had lost my teacher mind. It was an exhilarating semester. It was also frequently overwhelming. It was like falling in love. Last week...
View ArticleOne Major Misconception about the ELA CCSS
Misconception: Students should write argumentative, expository, and narrative essays. Your students should not write argumentative, expository, and narrative essays. Few would argue that students need...
View ArticleThe First Year: Implementing ELA Bridge to College
When I attended the August training for the Bridge to College English course in 2015, my family and I had moved from one Eastern Washington town, Pullman, to another, Davenport, just five days prior to...
View ArticleDitch the Short Stories. Go for Vignettes
It’s always the same routine dining out for lunch when away from my classroom for a conference. Instead of being across the hall in my department lounge that day with teachers I have known for a while...
View ArticleWho’s Afraid of Big Bad Technology? Not me!
I like to consider myself technologically savvy. As a person, I manage no less than 3 email accounts, Facebook, Twitter, and on the rare occasion I want to see what job someone from high school has,...
View ArticleWriting across Contents
This past week, a wave of educators swarmed Seattle’s downtown to attend AVID Summer Institute. As an attendee, I had the chance to attend one of their newest offerings: writing across the content...
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