shurley english
During my undergraduate days, I was headlong into all of my pre-teaching training courses. I truly enjoyed all of them. But, as I neared my junior and senior years of college, I began to get more into the philosophies of teaching. It seems that, at that time, the prevalent theories
shurley english
Just like many of you, teachers across the United States are experiencing lots of change during this time of year like switching classrooms or schools, learning new curricula, and welcoming a new class of students. Changes like these push us outside of our comfort zones. I used to look at
Back-to-School
Last week, we discussed how practicing the art of self-care IS your duty. Learning how to set boundaries at home and work helps you take care of YOU so you can take care of others. One valuable way to break your pattern of self-sacrifice is by learning how to gracefully
Back-to-School
Are you familiar with the frog in boiling water metaphor? (Of course, do not attempt this at home!) Imagine a pot of cold water sitting on the burner of a stove. A frog is peacefully swimming in it. The heat is turned on, and the water starts warming up. The
Writing
There’s nothing like the dreaded feeling of sitting at your desk with a blank sheet of writing paper staring back at you. You see some of your classmates busily jotting down ideas; you see them creating their prewriting map; or you see some classmates looking upward with a pleasant
ELAsuccess
The word there is a commonly used word that can be difficult to classify because of its various roles in a sentence. There can be used as an adverb, pronoun, adjective, and sometimes as an interjection. But in grammatical constructions like there is or there are, there is considered an
Grammar
How many times have you asked your students to revise their work, only to have all of the papers returned to the hand-in basket within a few minutes with little to no changes at all? The problem is that many students lack the necessary grammar skills required to revise. Simply
homeschool
I’ll never forget returning to my 6th-grade language arts classroom after winter break. Being the social type, I had stopped between classes to say hello to some of my friends, and I barely made it into the room before the tardy bell rang. To my surprise, the desks had
ELAsuccess
Lately, I’ve noticed some confusion with the way people use the idiom “used to” in a sentence. Some write “use to” and others write “used to?” Do you know which one is correct? “Use to” and “used to” cause confusion for a couple of good reasons. We unravel the
beginner's mind
As a kid, do you remember the first time you took the training wheels off and tried to ride your first bicycle? In the beginner’s mind, it was the next step in being a big kid, and it meant being open to making mistakes and being willing to take
Writing
Poetry is a special form of writing that allows a student to express ideas, emotions, or experiences directly through words in verse. It is probably the most artistic of all genres of writing because of the delicate juggling act of (a) rhythms, (b) sound devices, and (c) subject matter. The
Holiday Lessons/Resources
Many students seem to have a difficult time locating even the most basic parts of speech like the Subject Noun and Verb. If they’ve had little to no grammar instruction in grades 1-8, it’s no surprise. With that being said, there is a curriculum that can completely turn