teaching tips
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A Book Blog For Teachers
Friend and reader Tara Warmerdam just pointed me to her wonderful blog, A Reading Corner for Teachers and Writers. I’m so glad she did: she writes about books in a way that is meant to be helpful to teachers, and it really is. Some recent posts discuss a great book about teaching Shakespeare to young people, using picture books in… Continue reading
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Essay Structure: The Cake Analogy: Blogiversary Post #5
Here’s a nice little post with a link about using a “layer cake” analogy to explain essay writing to students. I’ve never actually used this analogy, but apparently a bunch of other people have, because the original post got a LOT of shares. So if your students aren’t getting how to put an essay together,… Continue reading
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Science, Art, and the Myth of the “Discipline”
I’m always delighted to read about college teachers who are are taking unusual approaches to pedagogy. Jailson Farias de Lima is one such teacher. In an article published on ProfWeb yesterday, he describes an innovative project he has designed for his chemistry students, challenging them to express their understanding of scientific concepts through art-making. Science… Continue reading
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Classroom Blogging
I’m having my students keep blogs again. I’m both excited and wary. Student blogs are a lot more fun to read than papers, but they’re also more difficult to evaluate. The setup process has gone fairly smoothly so far, but it’s still been a lot of work. Reading a ton of blog posts every week… Continue reading
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Evaluation Rubrics
I’ve been asked to sit on a panel in January to discuss evaluation. One of the topics under discussion will be the use of rubrics to evaluate student work. I’m curious about others’ experiences with using rubrics. I have no idea how I’d manage without rubrics. I sometimes decide to “give myself a break” by… Continue reading
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Essay Writing: The Cake Analogy
This week, I am working on essay structure with my post-intro students. After 22 years of teaching essay structure in various forms, I am, as you can imagine, sick of it. But then I came across this little analogy: how to bake your essay like a cake! It’s cute. It’s tasty. There are things here… Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.