Mentor Texts: The Say Something Nice series at Birth.Movies.Death Writing Techniques: Criticism Counterargument Tone and Voice Background – Our students consume a fair amount of pop culture. They’re able to budget their time in such a way that they’re consuming media at an insane pace, binge watching like mad, and watching everything Netflix has to […]
I love showing Dead Poets Society to Grade 12 students. There’s something special about that movie and that group. They’re not much longer for my building, and will soon be sallying forth to “Carpe diem.” But, if I must be honest, I’ve always applied the Stink of English class to it by attaching an academic […]
Mentor Texts: Another Nightmare in America – Cory Branan (listen here) American Tune – AJJ (listen here) Writing Techniques: Voice Adopting a persona Writing a protest piece Background – I’m a music fan. I use music in many ways in my classroom. It matters in my life so it features in my work. As I […]
When I was at Teachers College, we had a professor, Rick MacDonald. He was the chair of the high school program, as well as the Social Studies department. Everybody wound up in his courses at one point or another. Ours was a small teachers college, made progressively smaller by the fact that I was a […]
Mentor Text:Which Famous Musician Who Died at the Age of 27 are you? A BuzzFeed Quiz by Eirean Bradley Writing Techniques: Poetic form Theme Social commentary Presenting research Background: I decided to use popular culture as the anchor for the Lit course I’m currently teaching. It’s been going quite well. In my prep work for […]
Mentor Text: “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams Writing Techniques: Poetic form Focusing on main idea Brevity Background: Last year, I made a conscious decision to dedicate April’s Mentor Text Wednesday posts to poetry, in honor of it being National Poetry Month. I plan to continue that tradition. This week, I want to share […]
In the stack of marking that I took home, promising myself I’d do before Spring Break ended, sits a stack of Of Mice and Men literary analysis essays. As we worked on them, we had a fair number of conversations about what we were doing, and why. We talked about how, often, exercises like lit […]
Mentor Text: Someone Will Come Along: Rogue One, Logan and Hope by Jessica Plummer Writing Techniques: Writing Literary Analysis Essay Structure Background: If, as Stephen King would say, you are a “Faithful Reader,” then you know I’m a bit of a geek. If you’re here for the first time… Hi, I’m Jay, and I really […]
I had a meeting this week, during the school day, in my building. It meant prepping a sub plan, but, since I was in the building, something I could get going before running out to the meeting. As often happens, this wasn’t the best time for my Grade 9s to be without me. We’ve just […]
Mentor Text: Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman Writing Techniques: Creative Writing Voice Humour Considering Audience Background: A beloved part of my day is right before my daughters’ bedtime, when we read. I have a six year old and a four year old, and each is currently obsessed with a different book. My oldest is […]
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