Interpreting poems about poetry can get students excited about a challenging literary form.  These six poems should help them use their imagination and embrace their confusion.  

Does that syllable get a stress?!  Prosody doesn't have to be hard, and it actually helps students appreciate the playfulness of poetry. This week, I'll go over how I teach prosody and rhythm.  

Be scared, be very scared.  I'm talking about the thesis statement, the be all end all of the essay.  Or is it?

It's fun to assign a personal narrative to start the year.  I'll talk about the ways that I try to inspire my students to write in their everyday storytelling voices.  

Start the school year with a revolution!  I'll talk about the first conversation I have with my students about the functions of language and all the reasons to love reading fiction.  

There are a few simple, easy things we can do to establish great relationships in our classrooms, which is the key to keep students engaged and excited to learn.  

It's way easier to teach Shakespeare by showing a film clip after your students read the text and do a close reading of a passage.  I'll talk about the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet from PBS Great Performances and how it helps students better understand the emotions of the characters.  Visit pbslearningmedia.org and search for "Romeo and Juliet" to view the clip.  

No, not that kind of drama.  Performance.  This week, I'll talk about how you can get all your students into performing, not just the theater kids.  

A few people suggested that I teach Beloved by Toni Morrison, so I gave it a shot last year.  I'll talk about the book and some of the questions Morrison wants us to consider.  

Students love to read fiction so they can understand another world in another time, but they also read to understand the world they live in right now.  In this episode, Elizabeth and B.H. James will talk about writing A Sea of Troubles: Pairing Literary and Informational Texts to Address Social Inequality.