Tag Archives: high school english

New “Epic Comics” Lesson Explores Epic Simile with Comic Creator Technology

Posted on April 9, 2011 by Scott

Last week I wrote a post about using online comic creator applications to create comic strips based on scenes from Homer’s Odyssey.  Today I’ve published a lesson plan based on this idea.  This plan explores Epic / Homeric Similes, vivid word choices, and tone in the Odyssey based on Common Core Standards for Literature–Craft and Structure.  I tried to keep the lesson basic and easily adaptable, so there is plenty more you could do with these resources but this plan will get you started using online comic creator applications.  I hope you will explore the lesson and share your classroom experiences with the Interactive Language Arts community.  Check out the new “Epic Comics” lesson in the Lesson Plans section of this blog. Enjoy, –Scott

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Students can Illustrate Epic Similes with Comic Creators

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Scott

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE Gearing up for my Odyssey unit, I’ve been searching the Internet for a creative way to engage my students using technology while tackling a challenging read. While looking, I stumbled across Spore Comic Creator, a free online application that you can use to bring Homer’s rich language alive by creating custom comic books. With this online application, students can go beyond visualizing the battles with giant cannibals, the treachery in the cave of a barbaric Cyclops, and the terror of the man-eating Scylla–they can turn the words to images and at the same time learn to recognize and understand the function of metaphors, similes, epic similes, and vivid sensory details in the text. You can also encourage your students to create entire new adventures for Odysseus. Spore Comic Creator gives students the tools to create entire universes complete with unique backgrounds, unusual … Continue reading →

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Quizlet can be a Simple Way to Get Students Collaborating Online

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Scott

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills cites the ability to work collaboratively among some very important skills students will need in order to be ready for the careers of the 21st century.  However, as school district budgets shrink and as our classroom rosters grow, finding opportunities to have our students collaborate can be difficult.  Sometimes, when a class is quite large, setting kids to work in groups creates an exhausting job for the teacher keeping them all productive and on task. So here’s a simple way to include some collaborative studying while at the same time integrating a basic media literacy element with your next vocabulary unit: Have students create vocabulary note-cards at Quizlet.com and then share them using the “Create a Group” function.  All you have to do is create an account, choose the “My Groups” tab, and “create your own” group.  Once your group is complete, you can … Continue reading →

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The Jack London Collection Online

Posted on February 20, 2011 by Scott

Jack London died of kidney disease when he was only 40, but during his short life he was an unusually prolific writer.  When he died in 1916, he left behind everything from the adventure novels for which he is most known, to journalism, essays, and letters.  The Sonoma State University Library has gathered and organized much about this important American author in the Jack London Online Collection.  This site includes an audio book version of The Call of the Wild, a radio drama, a searchable collection of images of him, his family, and friends, and a sizeable assortment of primary documents including letters, postcards, certificates, bookplates, and much more. The Jack London Online Collection has many useful applications for those who teach Jack London or for those doing research.  The site is very well-organized, offering materials by format—audio files, documents, images, etc. as well as sections on “What’s New,” a … Continue reading →

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Real-World Writing Instruction

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Scott

Good afternoon.  I hope my colleagues in the northeast are surviving the very long winter.  I know I am more than ready for spring in Maine.  This weeks’ post is for teachers looking for an opportunity to teach writing in a real-world context. One of the most effective ways to teach writing is to connect it to real-world careers.  This gives students real purpose and an audience beyond just writing for the teacher or simply because they have to.  In an effort to move beyond the “five paragraph essay,” you might consider doing a unit on journalism.  For just such a purpose, the BBC News School Report website offers a variety of excellent lessons, videos, podcasts, articles, and tutorials for teaching students about journalistic writing. In the “Teachers’ Resources” section, the site offers six in-depth lessons for teachers to take students through the processes of finding, gathering, writing, assembling, ordering, … Continue reading →

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Add Some Spirit to your “Boorish” Shakespeare Plans

Posted on February 6, 2011 by Scott

If you are looking for engaging, easy-to-adopt (or adapt) Shakespeare lesson plans, one of the best resources online for anything Shakespeare is the Folger library.  I’m deep in the first act of Romeo and Juliet with my students right now, so I’ve been spending a lot of time browsing the net for new stuff.  One of the problems with Shakespeare online is that there is just so much out there.  I recently searched “Shakespeare Lesson Plans” on Google and got 693,000 results.  And so much of it is the same old material.  Where do you start?  I get a headache thinking about it.  But at the same time, I can’t help but feel after ten years that some of my Shakespeare stuff is getting, well, “weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable” (sorry, couldn’t help quoting Hamlet there).  If you haven’t bookmarked the Folger Library site yet, you should.  Liven up your … Continue reading →

Posted in Audio, Drama, Lesson Plans, Poetry, Reading, Shakespeare, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

LitTunes Blends Pop Music and the Classics

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Scott

One of my favorite lessons as a freshman in high school was when my English teacher sent us home to find music to accompany the oral reading of the mythological story of Orpheus. She sent us home to search for the perfect song to play during his decent into the Underworld in search of his wife.  We brought in our cassette tapes the next day and were very excited to share AC/DC, Ozzie Osborne, and Motley Crue with Mrs. Rentz (I’m sure she was thrilled).  She let each of us in turn play a song selection on an old tape player and the class read the scene repeatedly until we all came to a consensus on whose selection most suited the scene’s mood.  I don’t remember many things about 9th grade English, but this I recall clearly—I thought it was so cool that my “old” teacher showed an interest in … Continue reading →

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Mark Twain Interactive Scrapbook

Posted on January 17, 2011 by Scott

For teachers introducing Mark Twain to their students, the Mark Twain Interactive Scrapbook is a website with a useful variety of multimedia resources from video and audio to images of primary documents and quotes from the author.  The site is produced by PBS and has five classroom activities ready to use with your middle or high school students.  It is aesthetically well designed and organized and the classroom activities come complete with a bullet list of national standards to which each one aligns.  Even if you do not use the ready-made lesson plans, this site is worth exploring just for what you and your students can learn about Twain’s life and work. The audio and video components of the site are professionally produced but they require the free Real Player application so be sure the students’ computers are updated with this application before starting.  The clips of Mark Twain’s writing … Continue reading →

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Prezi.com Makes Presentations Fun

Posted on January 4, 2011 by Scott

As an English teacher, I am always using metaphors or other imagery to explain the concepts I want students to grasp.  For example, when telling students about building a good paragraph or essay, it can be helpful to use the analogy of a good essay being like a sandwich or a hamburger with bread slices as the introduction and conclusion and the meat and other stuff as the body of the essay.  If you like using visuals when you teach (does anyone teach without visuals?!?), I have found a great online application called Prezi that you should try.  Prezi.com is a fun and effective tool for creating presentations that are media rich.  Sure you can use the old fashioned Power Points but Prezis are way more fun and engaging and they can be manipulated to create animation. The best part about designing with Prezi is that you don’t have to … Continue reading →

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Learn and Teach Out Loud: Add Some Audio or Video Flare to Your Lit Units

Posted on January 2, 2011 by Scott

When recently looking for electronic resources to add to my short story unit, I came across LearnOutLoud.com where hundreds of recorded works are available free for download.  Learn Out Loud doesn’t just have audio recordings of books and stories (though there are plenty of those); they also have podcasts and videos. Some of the resources cost money, but there are plenty of free downloads (hundreds across all content areas.  And, for those ambitious teachers among us, you can even upload your own teaching content (lectures, etc.) and try to sell it through Teach Out Loud.  Next time you do a particularly good job of dynamically introducing Romeo and Juliet, maybe you can turn your introduction into some cash.  In the Teach Out Loud section, you can also browse content already published from other teachers.  Teach Out Loud has hundreds of downloads available including readings from Shakespeare’s Sonnets for $1.99 and … Continue reading →

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