A Poem About a Dragon & 5 Daring Activities
Are you tired of teaching the same poems over and over again every year? Want to breathe life into your poetry repertoire? Check out this poem about a dragon! This poem about a dragon tells the tale of a child's journey to discover a dragon's egg, which ends in an...
7 Reading Skills EVERY Student Needs to Master
Teaching reading skills is quite a challenge in today's age. I know when I want to learn a new skill, strategy, concept, or idea, I often get frustrated because I have little patience. I feel I should be able to master something in ten minutes or less, and I'll admit...
5 Focused Lessons for The Lottery Story by Shirley Jackson
I can clearly remember reading The Lottery story by Shirley Jackson in 11th grade. My English teacher, Mr. Canning, gave us zero background information, previewed nothing, and just read the story aloud to us. And I still remember the shock the whole class felt at the...
3 Solid Strategies for Making an Inference in Reading Comprehension
Sometimes, I feel like I don't have a clue. After having 4 children in the last 7 years, my mind just isn't what it used to be. I don't easily pick up on what people are trying to tell me half the time. I don't see any true hints or indications, at least at the time,...
7 Short Stories Popular With Teens
When it comes to selecting what we want to read in our classrooms, we should consider several things like our students' reading level, text language/vocabulary, complexity, literary value, and engagement. Short stories popular with middle and high school students seem...
8 Fun Click Clack the Rattlebag Activities
While searching for short stories my students would love for Halloween, I stumbled upon Neil Gaiman's "Click Clack the Rattlebag." With great pleasure, I sat and read it within 10 minutes. And I was sold! Sometimes, you find a short story that is simply fun and quite...
10 Creepy Short Stories Easy Cheat Sheet
During the fall, creepy short stories catapult into the English classroom with fun and excitement. Who doesn't love a spooky tale around Halloween? Creepy short stories let the readers experience what we fear without the negative side effects of death, dismemberment,...
I Am Poem Example and 5 Unique Activities
Ever since I was a little kid, I have loved to write poetry! It probably started with reading nursery rhymes and then transcended into angsty teen poetry. Now, as an English teacher, I enjoy teaching and analyzing various types of poetry! I also try to make my lessons...
9 Inspiring Ideas to Teach Movies in the Classroom
I will never completely understand why it is considered so "bad" or "lazy" to teach movies in the classroom. As a society, we watch movies ALL of the time. In fact, there are few days I don't see at least some sort of movie clip, usually embedded into social media....
7 Pain-Free Pride and Prejudice Activities
Like many lovers of British Literature, I fell in love with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice in high school! Who doesn't love the tangled conflict between Darcy and Elizabeth? Who doesn't enjoy the descriptions of the manners, beauty, and simplicity of the time...
Hi, I’m KRISTIN!
I primarily focus on integrating multiple disciplines and subjects. The goal is to make teaching simplified and effective!