A Fun Activity You Can Do with Any Text
If you’ve been following Next Time Teaching for a while, you know I am all about activities that can be used with multiple texts. I’ve presented on them before, and I’m excited to be presenting again at IATE this year. Geometric Character Analysis is one I’ve been doing for so long and with so many different texts that I don’t remember where it came from. If you know where it comes from, shoot me a message, I’d love to know.
I like Geometric Character Analysis because it’s a sneaky activity. Kids are engaged and having fun, but when you listen in on their conversations, they’re talking about important ideas and thinking in interesting ways. It’s perfect for the Friday before a break or other days when you want something fun and creative but still focused on the text you’re teaching. Continue reading
So last time we were talking about 
I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for six months and I haven’t mentioned 
When I first started teaching dystopian literature about a dozen years ago, I actually had to define dystopia. Not any more! Kids love the stuff, and they already have a lot of experience. But I still think it’s great to teach because you can dig into some of the more nuanced ideas and even some aspects of literary style or sentence construction.
Last time on Next Time Teaching we were talking about 
One of the frustrating things about teaching English is how much time we spend looking for what to teach–the timely article, the thought-provoking poem, the text that will make an idea come to life for our students. But finding them takes time. And the more time we spend looking for what to teach, the less time we have to think about how to teach.
I know very little about music. A lot of what I do know about music, I’ve learned from students who knew way more than me. Isn’t it nice when that happens? But one thing I am really interested in and have thought a lot about is metaphors for teaching and how other careers relate to teaching. I think we’ve all had the experience of feeling like a stand-up comedian on a really bad night. (Tap, tap. . . is this thing on?) Zookeeper comes to mind at times, too. But I’ve been thinking that conductor might be one of the best metaphors. Which is funny, because I’m still not sure I understand what a conductor does. But that’s the point: good conductors apparently do something (a lot of things) that naive people like me don’t recognize, but which allows the musicians to play their best music. And I think teaching is a lot like that. Good teachers are doing an enormous number of subtle things that even they may not realize they’re doing that allow their students to shine and learn.
August may be a wonderful month. I’ve heard that in many European countries it means relaxing in a lake cabin with friends. But as a teacher, August has always meant one thing: freaking out about the start of school. Freaking out that you haven’t finished all of the summer to-do’s, freaking out that you haven’t thought through all of the connections in the curriculum, and freaking out about the first day itself. Let’s talk about how not to freak out on the first day.
And why you should do them anyway