"...and Not to Yield": Explorations in English Education

I have finally begun a video lecture series that my students can reference as they write, work, and study. I attended Andrew Easton’s ( @EastonA1 ) 2017 NCTE session on “Genre Exploration through Immersive Game Units.” At the time, I was gamifying my classroom and his presentation was inspiring. However, the piece I most connected with was short video-recorded lessons to help in personalized learning. I knew I at least needed to have video lessons for students to refer back to. Also in the past two years, I read Catlin Tucker’s (@Catlin_Tucker ) blog posts on station rotation models. This post explores the “in-class flip.” It was only earlier this school year that I began recording mini video lectures. Andrew suggested keeping videos to five minutes or less. To capitalize on the rhyme, I decided on “Mr. E in 3” (minutes) as my video series name. I did not do any editing or any real tech work. I pulled up the notes and organizers I utilize in class and delivered my mini-l...

As I’ve implemented a readers-writers workshop approach over the past 18 months, I have noticed a challenge between different sections of my freshmen and sophomore English courses. In my Honors courses, workshop time generally entails brief coaching sessions on the big picture of writing tasks or brief chats on fine-tuning style. Conversely, my standard and inclusive (“Academic,” “college-prep” level) English classes often require more re-teaching or intensive scaffolding. This differentiation between the two types of courses has become more evident the more I get in-tune with my students’ needs and the workings of a workshop. Coaching in Workshop For my Honors-level students, workshop provides time for students to delve into their learning, and my Gifted Support co-teacher and I can ask a few clarifying questions, answer a few inquiries, or model sentence construction. For the most part, the students in our Honors courses pick up quickly on new ideas, so I can model combinin...

My Instruction and Assessment Philosophy Over the past couple years, I have been reading into standards-based grading and “healthy” grading practices. Along with a variety of blog posts, @TG2Chat/#tg2chat and the #sblchat community, the following resources have assisted me in developing my standards-based assessment (and, in turn, instruction) philosophy: ·          Grading from the Inside Out by Tom Schimmer ( @TomSchimmer ) ·          On Your Mark by Thomas R. Guskey ( @tguskey ) ·          Assessment 3.0 by Mark Barnes ( @markbarnes19 ) ·          Standards-Based Learning in Action by Tom Schimmer ( @TomSchimmer ), Garnet Hillman ( @garnet_hillman ), and Mandy Stalets ( @MandyStalets ) I believe that students must seek learning, not points, and that their grade in my course should be a reflection on tha...