Almost all of my tutoring students in the last 10 years have made the same mistakes while taking the Reading portion of the ACT and SAT. They struggle with... ...

So you’ve crafted the perfect discussion question about a chapter, but the room is full of crickets. Or, just as bad, you have to wrestle apart two students who have taken things personally and are now ready to rumble, Outsiders -style. How does an ELA teacher sneakily prevent literature discussions from going haywire, and what should we do in the heat of the moment when the drama begins? Chatting with me today are two AWESOME fellow teachers, Jonathan and Lisa from Created for Learning . ...

Most of us became English teachers because we love reading. Some even have the passion and self-discipline to remain consistent readers while teaching. I, however, am not one of them. I’m terrible at balancing reading into my teacher life, which is made worse by the fact that I’m a picky reader. (There - I said it. Don’t turn me in to the ELA Police!) ...

This battle of wills is perhaps the most epic, universal, and notorious problem that English teachers face, even more than grading struggles: getting students to ACTUALLY read that book, short story, article, or poem. ...

One day, while tutoring, I asked a sophomore what he’d been doing in English class lately. To my horror, he replied, “Oh, we’re just doing a short story unit. But don’t worry, I don’t need your help with my homework for it… we’re just filling out some worksheets about each one .” Ouch. My English teacher heart was broken, because I’m pretty sure his English 10 teacher designed the unit with better objectives and intentions than just worksheets… but to the student, that’s all he was doing. That conversation has driven me to get more out of every text, short or long, and to make every story memorable through the skills, the experiences, or the factual knowledge gained. Teaming up with me to talk about this is Lauralee Moss from the Language Arts Classroom . ...

If you have any variation of independent reading in your middle or high school English class, you've undoubtedly faced challenges at some point in the experience.  Unlike the enthusiasm for reading in primary grades (think stickers, SSR, take-home bags, cute reading nooks, etc.), it's a huge accomplishment in secondary to get students to read anything , much less doing so with a stocked classroom library, fair assessments, and anything resembling enthusiasm.  ...

There's a standard that should be awesome but seems to give me (and many others) pause: ...

( This is long but worth it, I hope. Stay with me .) A best friend and I recently concluded that, at age twentysomething, a switch has randomly flipped in our brains, and we now love non-fiction. This revelation is a big deal , coming from us. She works in publishing; I'm an English teacher. We both have English degrees. We both have deep appreciation for fiction in all centuries. And even though we LIKE non-fiction topics (and read books on teaching pedagogy and feminism and psychology),  we used to approach non-fiction like broccoli - good for you, but not particularly enjoyable (unless there's a reward, like ranch dressing...) Our broccoli attitude about non-fiction is also the reason why our kids don't like it. ...