Creative English Teacher — Teaching Ideas

A Message from My Podium: My Teaching Philosophy

August 14, 2019 • Encouragement • Teaching Ideas

Recently, I was asked to write up my philosophy of education. I hadn't done this since my college days. (You know, before I knew anything about teaching!) Needless to say, a few things have changed about my philosophy. To structure my philosophy, I used the three messages on my classroom podium, but I have to give credit where credit is due. Those messages were created by my wife, who has them in her classroom as well. (I'm a copycat.) So here is my philosophy of teaching. Hopefully, it will reinforce in your mind what an important job we have as teachers! Across...

Book Review: The Writer's Journey by Chris Vogler

March 15, 2019 • Book Review • Mythology • Teaching Ideas

Although I am a teacher of typical English courses as well, it was a mythology course that gave me the biggest challenge of my life. (You can read more about that adventure here.) Teaching mythology challenged me to develop my teaching style—prompting the creation of almost all the materials you will find on this website. So, needless to say, mythology is special to me. Beasts, quests, and monsters are all part of mythology, but at its heart is the hero. Not surprisingly, one of my favorite things to teach is heroes and the concept of the Hero’s Journey. If you...

How to Use Script-Stories in the Classroom

February 23, 2019 • Readers Theater Script-Stories • Teaching Ideas

This post will focus more on how to use script-stories in your classroom!Implementing a new style of learning (even for a single lesson) may seem daunting at first; however, script-stories are not difficult to use. In fact, they streamline the oral reading that most teachers do already. Many teachers read aloud to their students, and many also call on their students to read aloud. Script-stories simply streamline that process by dividing the story into parts. This breaks up the work for the teacher while engaging the students on a deeper level.

Defeating the Doldrums

January 22, 2019 • Encouragement • Teaching Ideas

The doldrums are a region of the sea where the prevailing winds become erratic or fade away completely. Since January is sometimes seen as the doldrums of the school year, here is some encouragement to get us through!

Script-Stories: Making Reading an Experience Instead of a Struggle

November 10, 2018 • Encouragement • Readers Theater Script-Stories • Teaching Ideas

Just because in a traditional classroom students may be able to find the answers to multiple-choice questions by picking through a “reading” passage—ironically, without actually reading it—is this really what reading is all about? It may be a good test-taking skill, and it will hit the standards that we are supposed to cover. But what about those deeper, personal “standards” that we have secretly inside us? What about those of us who want our students to love literature?