0 Poetry Analysis using Carousel

I used the Carousel (Lipton, L., & Wellman, B.,1998) strategy a couple of months ago in my classroom to help students analyze a poem. Students generally do not enjoy poetry and I wanted a way to make it fun for them.  I learned this strategy from Terri Stewart, one of my professors for my grad program at SUNY IT.  Students were given a copy of the poem 'Harlem' by Langston Hughes, featured here:  What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore— And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?  I prepared...

1 Reading Comprehension Strategies: Sticky Notes vs Double Entry Diary and More

Reading comprehension strategies are all the rage these days, and it does make sense. If students are not following along while reading and thinking about things in the reading, they are not truly reading. I don't think some of my students even understand the fact that they need to comprehend what they are reading. They just read the words and think about what they are having for lunch, etc. There are several comprehension strategies I have tried and learned in my degree programs and they have varying degrees of success. Sample of student sticky notes Sticky Notes This is an exercise I did ALL YEAR last year with my seventh graders. Students...

0 Twelve Angry Men Intro Lesson: Simple but Good!

Here's to starting my new blog! I'm not a veteran teacher....I'm far from perfect, but I figure that doing this will give me practice writing (which I need to do more of) and make me a better teacher. Currently I am teaching 9th and 10th grade English in New York. I am hoping to post simple classroom strategies and share things that have worked, and sometimes not worked for me. Part of this lesson idea I have to give credit to my roommate Kim for. She gave me the idea for the drawings, and it's far from my original idea. But what lesson really is? Whether it's googling something online or giving each other copies most teachers know that sharing...