Bring a new energy to your class with a year-long project that will inspire all of your students and get every hand up in the air. Students deserve a chance to express their thoughts about the world without the pressure of academic analysis. My new online course just opened and you can find it at Teacher's Workshop.

ELA teachers have a ton of work including grading essays, class notes, reading notes, and quizzes, not to mention lesson planning, emails, and meetings. Let's think about how to handle it all.

Students love to talk about how a character grows and changes because they also experience a lot of change in high school.

It seems like it's getting harder and harder to get students to speak in front of the entire class. Learn some strategies to make it easier for kids to share their thoughts.

Instead of listing literary techniques, students should focus on determining their purpose and function. I reduce it to three main purposes to make it easy.

Start the year with a personal narrative and your students will understand what makes a great story. Or maybe it will help them get into college.

Start this school year by having more fun and experiencing less stress. I have three main techniques to get you on your way.

All of your students may not be as obsessed with novels as you are. Free Literacy Blocks will rope in the kids who want to talk about modern topics.

End the year with a creative podcast project instead of a traditional essay.

Students want to find meaning in literature, and they can do it with the three P's of relevance: the personal, the political, and the philosophical.