Student Blogs

I think that the easiest way to help students do this type of writing is to give them practice at it. A majority of the assignments posed to secondary students offer nothing in terms of depth or purpose. Students are deficient at many types of authentic writing because we so rarely ask them to produce [...]

Students need to know Language is universal. Something we all share.

The best part of an English class is the number of opportunities to actually get to know your students, and to engage in meaningful conversation.  This type of atmosphere is tough, if not impossible, to achieve in almost any other class, so making the most of such occasions is obviously paramount to success. The first [...]

I think that the best way to help students develop and use language is  better informing them on how language as a phenomena works. Most people use language so often that they take it for granted. It is a medium that makes communication possible, a medium that facilitates our own thoughts, yet many people see [...]

How can I help students write varied texts effectively for a wide variety of audiences and purposes? For the unit I just completed with my tenth grade honors class, I created lesson plans centered around this question. First: I acknowledge what I’m trying to do. My teaching style is more democratic, and I think high [...]

One way I think we can get students to start developing their ability to use and appreciate language is to have them write about something they care about. Why not? And who says that professional writing, or writing for an SAT essay or an SOL, can’t be fun? Why can’t that loathed five-paragraph-essay be about [...]

The most effective writing a student produces is writing that comes naturally to them.  This means that as a teacher, you should encourage your students to explore writing that is meaningful to them.  For instance, on a research paper, instead of assigning topics, let your students choose a topic that is interesting to them and [...]

In the text Adolescent Literacy is an article by Donna Alverman called “Multiliterate Youth in the time of Scientific Reading Instruction” that states “It will be important to reconcile narrowed definitions of reading (and hence reading instruction) with the need to develop young people’s critical awareness as they engage with multiple sign systems”.  Technology is [...]

Authentic writing is the best way to help students with their writing skills. It introduces them to a wide variety of audiences and purposes while giving them a reason to write. I constantly hear from students, “why do we have to do this?” or “when will I use this in real life?” Students (and most [...]

One of the best ways to help students develop their ability to use and appreciate language is to begin by exposing them to language that in a friendly way. All of my students in my practicum love to talk (in fact, I have problems getting them to be quiet when I am teaching). All I [...]

Having students engage in authentic writing is extremely important because it makes the writing assignment relevant to them.  It gives it a purpose.  Too often, teachers just give writing assignments to students without giving the assignment some sort of purpose.  I know when I was in high school, I hated assignments that didn’t have a [...]

Getting adults to appreciate language is difficult enough; getting a high school student to do so seems nearly impossible.  BUT . . . I THINK I HAVE AN IDEA! One of my main goals in teaching English is not to get the students to become passionate about the literature they’re reading; it’s to get them [...]

It should be fairly easy to get students to write in a variety of ways, considering their assignments come from the instructor. Journals, research papers, argumentative papers, advertisements, biographies, instructions, and many other types of writing are all perfectly valid lessons to include in the curriculum, and luckily enough they’re all relatively easy to connect [...]

How can I help students write varied texts effectively for a wide variety of audiences and purposes? By allowing students multiple opportunities to practice writing for a variety of audiences and purposes, educators are better preparing them for a range of real-world writing.  Milner asserts that the teacher’s role is to “not only set up [...]

How can I help students develop their ability to use and appreciate language? How knowledge is transmitted from teacher to student plays a significant part in whether or not students will find 1. an initial interest in language 2. a lasting appreciation for language.  From kernal lectures to whole-class discussions, Milner makes it clear in this chapter that how we teach language [...]

Language appreciation is something students often struggle with.  I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard “why do we need this” in various classrooms, and the general consensus is that if students do not understand why something is being taught or written about, their interest drops significantly. The best bet is to appeal to [...]

I think that the key for writing with a wide variety of audiences and purposes is simply to do just that…to write to a wide variety of audiences and purposes. As teachers, it is our job to create these types of assignments, by developing curriculum, or units, or lessons, which do a lot of different [...]

Language is the key to most everything in life.  From an early age to a late one, communication is the most essential part of social interactions, which are a central part of a well balanced life.  Because of this it becomes increasingly important to enhance our communication skills, and thus our overall grasp of the [...]

I do not think there is such thing as too much poetry—although, I may be a little biased, being that I love poetry.  Despite this, however, I do think a teacher can overload student students with it.  This ‘overloaded’ feeling often arises because the teacher does not make the poetry interesting for the students.  Also, [...]

In our text Bridging English (Milner), study of literature is suggested as a cycle in which students enter a text, explore a text, and then extend it.  This cycle is also applicable to the genre of drama When entering a text, first and foremost, I think it is important for students to understand what it [...]