Informative Essay Word Wall- Word walls normally exist in elementary classrooms; however, this one is a perfect set of terms for essay writing in any middle or high school English classes.  I printed these terms out on Astrobright paper and posted on one of my walls for continual reference.


75 New Biographies of Mighty Women-   Nonfiction books make up a significant chunk of what I read each year.  This list by one of my favorite sites, A Mighty Girl, is sure to spark your interest as well as that of your students.  I am excited to check out the biography of Ruth Batter Ginsburg, Prarie Fires, and Code Girls.  If you have not subscribed to get the weekly Mighty Girls emails, you need to get signed up for the weekly newsletter.


 4 Things I’m Doing to Minimize Decision Fatigue-  From one of my blogging friends come tips for the teacher looking to streamline their lives.  I love creating task lists for the week ahead at school and for the day at home.  These task lists help me stay focused and accomplish something every day.  Teachers make thousands of choices in any given day, so make your life simpler by reducing the number of decisions you make in a day.


Tips for Packing a Week’s Worth of Healthy Lunches- My 18-year-old daughter and I have been working in 2019 on streamlining our lunch packing for our morning routine.  We both love to sleep and hate getting up early.  To help with our dragging rears in the morning, we prep lunched for the entire week on Sunday afternoon.  We love Gathered Living’s ideas for grown-up lunchables.  She even has a shopping list:



Brian Sztabnik’s The Best Lesson Plan According to Research-  He outlines the most important parts of a lesson according to research from greeting students at the door (something I have always struggled to do consistently) to questioning and discussion to the closure.  Brian does a great job of creating an outline for each of us to use.


PTSD in Teachers from the Educator’s Room-  Yes, PTSD in teachers is a real thing.  Educator’s Room struck a chord with me because I believe I suffered from work-related PTSD as an educator from the last 3 years I spent teaching at my last school. I am thankful to be in a new district now, but there are moments when I catch myself reacting as a result of past treatment.  I am getting better at recognizing it, stopping myself, and changing my thinking to better match my newly improved work environment.  Talking through my struggles helps.


Enable Blue Light on a Chromebook-  I use my Chromebook exclusively at home and own a Google phone.  After reading about the impact that blue light can have on your sleep and melatonin production, I made the switch to reduce blue light after sunset.  It hasn’t been long enough yet to notice a change, but my eyes feel better already.


In One Milwaukee School on One Day, What a Difference a Small Class Size Made-  This one-day snapshot of a classroom gives everyone an eye-opening real-life tale of what happens when student numbers are reduced in one class.  Just do the math, and realize that 60 minutes spent with 15 students as opposed to 30 allows twice as much one on time with their teacher.  I have seen this first hand with my composition classes this year; we get more accomplished in those smaller sections.  As the teacher-author explains, behavior problems reduced, transitions are smoother and more efficient, and overall more gets accomplished.


Classrooms in Crisis- Violence has happened in my classroom.  I know elementary teachers who can recount episodes of violence like the ones described here.  Neither my college courses or professional development prepared for the emotional trauma that enters and sometimes happens within the walls I am responsible for.  Many educators experience this but do not receive support even when they ask for it.


Florida Teacher FIred for Giving Zeros-  This article highlights a struggle I wrestle both internally and as part of a school system.  While I am aware of the mathematical impact of a zero, I struggle with giving students something when they have done nothing.  Now, in this instance, the school had a policy in place that no student would get less than 50%, and the teacher violated policy.  Regardless of my moral leanings on grading, I will do what I must to keep my job.

1-  I have created this quizlet to help my students practice some literary terms before the quiz.  Students have to understand the elements: their definition and application before they can begin to analyze an argumentative piece of writing or a speech.  Some of these are fairly easy for students to grasp (anecdote and statistic) while others like tone and allusion are more complex.

2-  Many teachers start a rhetoric unit with ethos, pathos, and logos.  I, however, prefer to do that after a broader collection of literary terms.  My students use this sketch note freebie to begin learning these three rhetorical elements.  They can take their own notes and glue the pages in their notebook to serve as a reference going forward.  I always limit any piece to only one of the three because otherwise, it becomes too routine.

3-  Stacey Lloyd has a great post with ideas on how to teach rhetoric and persuasive writing using speeches and advertisements.  She even included a link to a free lesson on teaching some of the terms, and the lesson is a great starting off point.   I was especially happy to find her link to recorded speeches to use for analysis.  Each of Stacey’s ideas is a great point of entry for students doing this type of analysis for the first time.



4-  Building Book Love created a way to visually graph the literary/rhetorical techniques used in a passage.  With a shared texts students can pick out examples of different techniques and display them on the board as visual of what is most common.  After students pull our the items, they can discuss what might be the best choices to write about in the essay.    Her example is from Animal Farm, but she also has done this with Julius Caesar.  I am going to try this activity with The Crucible.

5- Rhetorical Analysis with a PAPA Square by The  Daring English Teacher.  Her PAPA Square (purpose, argument, persona, and audience) analysis brings a more creative way to going over the basics of rhetoric.  I would love to do this in small groups giving each group one speech from a collection of famous speeches on different topics.  I like that she has her students select one of their own sources from their research writing for completing this project.  She also is offering a freebie of her PAPA Square Analysis Project if you sign up by email.

6-  The College Board site for the Advanced Placement English Language Exam has exams going back to 1999.  Every year has a rhetorical analysis question that is passage-based.  You can even get sample analysis responses with scores and commentary.  I use the passages for reading practice and annotation.  Students can even do some scoring on the sample essays themselves.  I also use them for sample analysis with questions for students to see great examples.

7-  John Grisham’s A Time to Kill is a great novel.  The movie with Matthew McConaughey is also stellar.  His closing argument is all kinds of fun to use with rhetorical analysis; plus, who doesn’t love Mr. McConaughey?


8-  Pernilla’s English Classroom’s post on writing an argument speech has a great image, which is also available on her posters tab and a link to another video of one of President Obama’s speeches that illustrates ethos, pathos, and logos.  Given the current political climate, I am leery of using the current president or former president’s speeches and prefer to go back farther for examples.



9-  The Rhetor’s Toolbox’s post on How to Teach Analysis Like a Boss gives a basic process for working through rhetorical analysis.  I love chunking the text and looking for patterns and shifts.  Plus, I am always a huge fan of writing the introduction and conclusion last.  As a bonus, there is a link to another post on writing a thesis statement for the rhetorical analysis essay that I am using regularly. 

10-  Open Classroom’s Rhetorical Analysis Bookmarks are a stellar reference for students. There is both a foldable, two-sided bookmark and a one-sided bookmark that you can download and print for free.  Any reference that students can have on their desks as they read is a bonus.