Resource Blog for High School English Teachers

Community Library     A community library (or even a school library) is a great resource for students. Libraries provide research materials, reading for enjoyment materials, and people who can be resources to help students learn how to use a library to find resources, as well as how to use the internet to find resources. Having a librarian come to the classroom for additional instruction on research and resources would be beneficial for students because it would give them a professional connection and resource they could always go to for help. Libraries foster a learning environment because they are resource-centered, depending on what each person needs. Libraries can be used for studying as well as research because they are a quiet place to work. This would be part of best practice because books and other materials for projects are numerous and offer a wide selection. This would also teach students how to find resources which they can use even once they have finished ...

“Teaching Resources & Lesson Plans.” Teachers Pay Teachers , www.teacherspayteachers.com/.     Teachers Pay Teachers is a website full of lesson plans and other tools for the classroom. There are resources for all subject areas, and for Language Arts there are lesson plans and other resources on numerous topics, some of which are close reading, grammar, vocabulary, writing, and many others. The lesson plans can be filtered by price, grade, or topic. There are other resource types including assessments, google apps, games, and unit plans. This would be a great resource for differentiated instruction or learning centers because it would give different options for students to choose from, on top of what teachers have already come up with. This resource is also a great way to get ideas for lessons from other teachers who have had success, and it reinforces the idea that teachers support and help each other be successful so students may be successful.

“All About Adolescent Literacy.” AdLit.org , WETA, www.adlit.org/.     Adlit is a website that offers resources and support for teachers and parents of struggling readers and writers, grades 4-12. There are tools and support for hot topics, classroom strategies for before, during, and after reading, blogs, themed book lists, videos for support, and professional development webcasts. The information is research-based and best practice for helping struggling readers. This website is a great tool for every classroom because there will always be a struggling reader. The website acknowledges in the importance of students being able to read and analyze what is read, not just the basics of literacy. Along with different tactics, having themed book lists is a great tool to help struggling readers become engaged and motivated to read the books they choose. Not only does this website focus on what students can do to become better readers, it also looks at the future and how to p...

“NEA - NEA Home.” NEA , National Education Association, www.nea.org/.     NEA is a website that offers professional development focused on public education. There are resources and tools for development, as well as lesson plans, teaching strategies, classroom management, and support for teachers. These resources are available for Pre-K-12th grade. There is a tab for Issues and Actions where current news about education can be found. This website gives resources and tools for every aspect of education and lots of support for teachers. This website also has grants and events that focus on education and recognizing teachers. This website is mostly focused on the support of teachers and education, but has many tools and resources that can be used in the classroom, other than just lesson plans. This website would be great for applying the social cognitive theory, where students can read about current education news. This would also support differentiated learning because of...

“NCTE.” NCTE , National Council of Teachers of English, www2.ncte.org/.     NCTE is a website that offers support to teachers and students in classrooms. There are journals, books, meetings, and web resources for teachers for professional development. There are also tools and guides for teaching writing and improving student and teacher writing. The lesson plans are linked through a website sponsored by NCTE, called ReadWriteThink. ReadWriteThink provides lesson plans, apps for the classroom, professional development guides, videos, and parent resources. There are lesson plans for grades K-12, with many different themes to choose from such as art, nonfiction, poetry, science, and many more. The lesson plans also have different focuses such as collaboration, comprehension, critical thinking, and others. These many options allow for teachers to choose what type of learning they want to teach with which topic. This is an important feature for differentiated learning exerc...

“Teacher Professional Development.” Annenberg Learner , Annenberg Foundation, www.learner.org/.     Learner.org focuses on the teacher’s development as a professional by offering current news and learning for teachers within different subjects. It focuses on teachers as learners, which shows that this website recognizes the importance of lifelong learning. Not only does it offer professional support for teachers, it also offers lesson plans and videos that can be used in the classroom for grades K-12, as well as college. The lesson plans for literature and language arts are few, but can be adapted for use in different pieces of literature. There are also interactive lesson plan ideas that include images, videos, and creating/writing to show knowledge. These would be great for station work. There is a section called “Learner Express” where there are videos for enhancement of student knowledge or professional development. This website offers lesson plans and activities t...

“Study Guides and Strategies.” Study Guides and Strategies , www.studygs.net/.     This website offers tools for students and teachers. Some of the tools for students are how to take notes, prepare for tests, or write papers. These tools are focused on individual use but can be adapted as lesson plan support for teachers. This is a very student-centered website, and gives much information so that students can use it as a resource without having to ask for help. This would be a great tool for different ideas of how to teach different topics, such as different types of writing or reading. There are also guides for how to manage time, organize tasks, etc. on this website, which can be great for helping students who struggle with this. Teachers could use this website in their lesson directly, or they could use it for reading before teaching to give students things to focus on in an upcoming lesson. This would be a great resource for teachers to be actively engaged with dif...

“TeachHUB.” TeachHUB , K-12 Teachers Alliance, www.teachhub.com/.     Teachhub is a free website that offers lessons and teaching tools, video writing prompts, online lessons, as well as current news in education, professional development, and real teacher blogs. Teachhub not only focuses on providing tools for teaching students but also for helping teachers improve themselves. It offers lesson plans for grades K-12, in many different subjects. The video writing prompts give students a little bit of information to get them thinking about a topic, and then the students are able to use that information, plus more, when they write. These video writing prompts would be a great visual activity for students which they can then use to develop higher order thinking. For professional development, there are different speakers that can be booked for topics ranging from Common Core to Guided Reading. These speakers would be great for teacher workshops or in-service days. The speak...

“Teacher Resources, Children's Books, Student Activities for Teachers | Scholastic.com | Scholastic.” Scholastic Publishes Literacy Resources and Children's Books for Kids of All Ages , Scholastic Inc., www.scholastic.com/teachers/home/. Scholastic is a website that focuses on student learning through literacy. There are lesson plans, unit plans, vocabulary lists, and extension of learning tools on this website. Scholastic gives tools for grades K-8, as well as teachers, parents, and students. There are also daily starters, and this would be a great tool for bell ringer activities. There are book lists with discussion ideas, author interviews, and extension activities. There are videos that can be added for different lessons, and this would be a great tool for ELL students or struggling readers. The discussion ideas are centered around books, and this can be a great tool for small group or large group discussion. This website is focused on improving students’ literacy as a w...

“HippoCampus - Homework and Study Help - Free Help with Your Algebra, Biology, Environmental Science, American Government, US History, Physics and Religion Homework.” HippoCampus.org , NROC, www.hippocampus.org/. HippoCampus is a free website that offers tools, instruction, and practice for teachers and students aged middle school through college. It mostly uses videos, animations, and simulations, which makes it a great tool for struggling readers. It presents the information in a different way and would be a great differentiation tool. It addresses many different subjects, but I will just focus on what it offers for english. There is a teaching English blog that has many different lesson plans for all aspects of teaching english such as writing, analyzing readings, and finding sources. Within each lesson plan, there is instruction for what to say when teaching, practical application, examples, practice, and metacognitive questioning. This website offers many different lessons for ...

“Homepage.” Edsitement! , National Endowment for the Humanities, edsitement.neh.gov/.     Edsitement is a website that has lesson plans, study activities, and closer readings in the subjects of literature and language arts, foreign languages, art and culture, and history and social studies. It is a project by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Edsitement offers lesson plans and activities for grades K-12. There are different filters for searching the type of lesson plan or activity that you want, or there is a calendar that has lesson plans and activities based on what happened each day in history and different readings or activities to go along with it. Not only does this website focus on readings or things going on in the world, it also addresses different authors and important people in history. This website focuses on the humanities and connects literature with history or art. This would be a great tool for encouraging deeper thinking and analyzation of eve...

Kirby, Dawn Latta., et al. Inside out: Strategies for Teaching Writing . Heinemann, 2013.     Inside Out is a book all about teaching writing. It touched on all different types of writing, how to teach voice, how to write about literature, and how to get students interested in writing. This book used a lot of instruction techniques to explain how to teach students about how to write and become good writers. It didn’t focus on the writing part to start with but rather focused on students’ voices and thoughts that formed their writing. It discussed helping students find their passion and the reason they write, and then how to use that to become good writers. This book gave tips and tools to use in the classroom to encourage students to write and to get them thinking about their writing. There were also tips about how to help ELL students with their writing. This doesn’t use specific rules to teach writing, but rather focuses on writing as specific to each student. This b...

Showalter, Elaine. Teaching Literature . Blackwell, 2014. This book discusses exactly what the title says: Theories of teaching literature. This included topics such as what literature is, why we teach literature, what we want our students to learn from literature, how we should teach literature, and how we should be as teachers. While discussing why we teach literature, there were many points that were made to support the idea that teaching literature isn’t just important in education but also in life. When deciding what we want our students to learn, Showalter discusses the idea that teachers should guide and facilitate student thinking and learning, not just tell students what they will learn. The book also talked about the skills that teaching literature should focus on, such as language use and the distinction between different language usages, connecting what we read to cultures and the outside world, and how to inform our knowledge and understanding of the world using literat...

hooks, bell . Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom . Routledge, 2010.     hooks discusses the importance of reading literature by racist and sexist authors, and the importance of teaching and using critical thinking when reading literature. This book opens up the conversation for the importance of reading some controversial works that teach students different lessons, even though those lessons may be on uncomfortable topics. hooks also discusses how critical thinking can change discussion and learning. Critical thinking  encourages a student-centered learning environment because students are doing the thinking and discussing about topics. By having students think critically, they can apply this information to their own lives and see how the literature affects them. This can also integrate other subjects in the curriculum because much of the literature read is based on or related to events in history, which can then be taught through a history lesson. This ...

Gallagher, Kelly. Deeper Reading . Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. In this book, Gallagher discusses the components of deeper reading and how to use them in the classroom. One of the main things she talks about is using discussion with literature to foster a learning environment of critical thinkers. She also uses 5 points to guide students’ critical thinking, which include: What does this book mean in terms of my family; What does this book mean in terms of my peers? Why should people my age be concerned with the issues presented in this book; What does this book mean in terms of my community? How do the ideas in this book affect both my community and others; What does this book mean in terms of thinking about my country? What relevance does it play in relation to our national well-being; What does this book mean about the human condition? What can I learn about humanity from reading this text? What are the universal truths it contains? These questions connect the literature back to th...