English Teachers Need to Defend Literature from Myths of the Common Core
I teach English, and I am feeling a little defensive lately. In the past week, I have had two separate “literature-threatening” incidents. The first came from a reader to an opinion piece I wrote that...
View ArticleArrrg! No Need for a Reading War on Common Core Text Complexity
To some educators, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) could be consider the work of control freaks. To other educators, the CCSS could be interpreted like the line spoken by Captain Barbossa in...
View ArticleInformational Texts Purchased at the Expense of Fiction
What SHOULD be a tenet of the Common Core State Standards. The 11th Commandment from Common Core State Standards (CCSS)? Thou Shalt Read Informational Texts. This edict from on high, from current...
View ArticleThe Wamogossey-A Freshman’s Modern Odyssey in the Style of Homer
“Dawn spread her rosy fingers…” Our 9th grade classes have been reading Robert Fitzgerald’s excellent translation of The Odyssey. At the beginning of every book, “young Dawn spreads her fingertips of...
View ArticleClose Reading with Saki and the Sophomores
Author H.H. Munro also known as Saki H.H. Munro was the NYTimes crossword across clue last week, and as it so often happens, I just happened to be talking about H.H. Munro to the sophomore English...
View ArticleStarting “Of Mice and Men” in Song: “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”
The English I Honors teacher in my department recently suffered a serious concussion; no reading or writing for several weeks. Her classes must go on, however, and the new unit on John Steinbeck’s Of...
View ArticlePerplexed in CT by Recommendations for EngageNY Curriculum
Perplexed: adj. 1. bewildered; puzzled. 2. complicated; involved; entangled. (o _ 0 ) ? I am perplexed as to why this word is on the EngageNY first grade vocabulary list, and again perplexed when I...
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