I heard Dance Monkey for the first time after watching the NYT analysis. My response was limited to “catchy and cool”. All my mentor texts are new to my ELLs and they read them for the first time when I bring them to class. Their response is similarly limited to “nice and good”.
I know that I am “preaching to the choir” as we say in the South, but the start of school gets earlier and earlier every year. So let’s get moving quickly into something you can start working on DAY ONE with students. Most state tests ask students a variety of questions rooted in analysis, specifically […]
Mentor Text: Emile Nelligan by Carmine Starnino Techniques: Poetry Analysis Background – Whenever I’m near a magazine rack that carries it, I grab a copy of The Feathertale Review. Though I grabbed my first issue because the cover illustration featuring a monkey was silly, I’ve come to love the offbeat approach to being a literary magazine […]
Mentor Text: McSweeney’s Bingo Cards by various Techniques: Brainstorming and Idea Generation Analytical writing Background – So, I often take a quick social media brain break at lunch. And today, after discussing the initial planning stages of some essay work with two of my classes, McSweeney’s sharing the “NIMBY Public Comment Bingo” card got me thinking […]
Honoring the in-between–those stretches of time between reading a story and writing about it–requires respect for how idea inspiration may arise. Conditions that advance the writing life involve elements that nurture the “seeds”: nurture prewriting time. Soil: space and time rituals for turning over the memory fossils in the ground. Air: room to let the […]
Mentor Text: Leading Us To Revelation: On Rita Dove by Jericho Brown Techniques: Analysis Introduction & Conclusion Titling Background – I’ve had a subscription to POETRY Magazine for a few years now. And I almost never finish an issue. Issues travel with me in my school bag. Issues are lugged to dance and swim practices in […]
Mentor Text: Fairy-tale Logic by A.E. Stallings Techniques: Using poetry as analysis Background – In my Grade 9 class right now, we’re working on our essays discussing scary stories. We do a little short film study, allowing us to practice analysis skills, and give us some fun ground to cover in an early essay this semester, […]
Mentor Text: The Empty Sentiment of The Last of Us by Jackson McHenry Techniques: Criticism Making connections to make arguments Background – As a insomniac geek teacher who loves stories in pretty much any form, the combination of streaming services and the internet is a gift. There’s lots of stories to immerse myself in, and there’s […]
Mentor Text: How a Poem Snapshots a Moment of Drama by Adam Sol Techniques: Analysis Background – I try to build little brain breaks for myself into the school day. That’s been vital these last couple especially challenging years. Access to a digital library has been incredibly helpful in this regard, as I don’t have to […]
“How do you know what you’re going to do until you do it?” The Catcher in the Rye nearly concludes on that question as Holden Caulfield embarks on an uncertain, perhaps tentatively hopeful, future. In the classroom, we could adapt his question to ask: “How will we know how this turns out until we try […]
