Gatsby!

If you're teaching Gatsby this year, go check out my new chapter one materials, posted for free at Teachers Pay Teachers. It links to some more great materials, if you're interested.

I've also been posting some cool Gatsby ideas on a Pinterest board. I hope you find something you like.

Featuring: Common Core English with Ease

Today, I'm featuring a teacher making a splash on TPT. She goes by "Common Core English with Ease."  I asked her what the most creative project she's ever done with students was, and here is what she wrote.

"The most creative project we did was a social justice project where students were able to research any cause and organization and then use a detailed packet to independently write a fictional grant proposal for their organization. Every day, I have a student start the day by paraphrasing an inspirational quote for the "Do Now". I list one sample quote a week on my blog!"

You can check out her creative project here. 

Summer Revitalization

What do you do with your summer vacation?

For years I spent the summer getting my masters of English at the Bread Loaf school. I traveled to Vermont, New Mexico and England for my courses, learned and saw so much. It was awesome! Now that I have my M.A., I spend the summers at the lake, canoeing in search of frogs and turtles with my three-year-old and cooking as much as possible. I don't focus too hard on curriculum, though I enjoy a bit of work here and there.

As a teacher, do you think it's more important to be revitalized by the summer or to get ahead in your work?

I used to work hard to get ahead over the summer, planning units and projects like mad. These days, summer feels like the time to let that part of my brain rest a bit. Perhaps it all depends on how long you've been teaching, or how stressful your job situation is. I'm not sure. But I love to hear the wind in the trees and smell freshly baked cinnamon rolls in my oven. Somehow it helps me get ready for everything else that is to come when the leaves begin to change color.

Launching my 50 Follower Challenge and Giveaway

50 Follower Challenge / Giveaway

Hi Everyone,

If you'd like to learn how to create a classroom blog this summer and save yourself oodles of time and energy by linking in your homework assignments so you never have to deal with the make-up work paper trail again, read on.

This week I developed a great product for Teachers Pay Teachers that gives you a step-by-step guide to starting a classroom blog on Blogger and uploading and linking any documents you want to share at Google Docs. My class blog got over 5,000 hits in its first year - that's a lot of questions and e-mails I did not have to answer!!! 

I'm going to make this guide free to my followers as a flash freebie as soon as I hit 50 followers at TPT. Since I'm new to the site, I don't have many followers yet. But I'm not new to teaching, and I have dozens of great products available. Come on over, click the green star, and get us a bit closer to that blog product giveaway. Thanks! You'll soon find that Teachers Pay Teachers is quite a resource, both for sharing your own curriculum and finding wonderful resources developed by your peers.

Saving Grading Time and Energy

Nothing overwhelms me as a teacher like having an essay due in every class. Or a stack of finals to grade. I love writing curriculum and working with students, but the hours and hours of grading are really tough.

After seven years and thousands of essays, I've found that 95% of my students errors come from the same eight mistakes. That's why I've developed a simple handout that addresses them all. I'm giving it away over at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Grab it. Print it. Insist that your ELA students use it in their self-edits, peer edits, and maybe even lunchtime conversations. If they can get the hang of these eight simple things, they will be so much more prepared for college, and your grading hand will finally stop cramping up...

This I Believe!

I love doing "This I Believe" essays with my students. Listening to the amazing radio clips from NPR from essayists all over the world is a wonderful experience for them. There is so much variety - humor, poignancy, incredible written detail that comes through aloud. Some of my students have even had their essays posted online by NPR - a wonderful culmination for them.

If you've never heard the series or taught this type of essay, be sure to check out the amazing resources at NPR. I've been so impressed by their efforts to create curriculum.

One of the resources available at the above link is the poster shown here, which you can download and print for your own classroom.

FLASH FREEBIE - GET IT NOW!

Here is one of my best resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. I'm giving it away for the next 24 hours.

Use these 15 fun activities to kick off discussions as you start the next school year. You won't be sorry! Your students will be warmed up and ready to go instead of stuck thinking about the last period and whatever is going on with their friends.

I'm giving this away so more people can see what kind of products I design and consider following my store. Please consider following along if you enjoy the product! Or take a moment to review the product so others will know what it is like. Thanks!