Welcome to English Teacher's Friend, a site dedicated to helping middle and high school English teachers.

 

Every week a new featured lesson is posted on this page and can be delivered directly to your email if you simply sign up for the newsletter in the box to the right. Remember, you can always email me if you would like the Word version of any of the featured lessons so you can add/remove material to best suit your needs.

 

New Contests and Technology Tutorials are posted monthly. Contests are designed to be used as lessons in the classroom with great cash and prizes as incentives to try something new. Take a look at the contests just posted for February as well as the new techtorial on the benefits of MS Office OneNote.

 

I hope that you enjoy the lessons and the information posted on this site. As the site continues to grow and change, I appreciate any comments and/or suggestions you might have. Tamara@englishteachersfriend.com

 

Have a great February and happy teaching!

 

Tamara

Analyzing Film 

This week the featured lessons include resources for teaching students how to analyze film.  This is an area that often gets placed on the back burner of priorities as so many other seemingly more important things take precedence. But the great thing about teaching film is the level of engagement with the students. With video streaming capabilities it is now easy to show clips in class with ease. Many of the same literature elements are found in film and you are therefore making excellent use of time. This week I have found some of the best lessons on the web to include here.

1.  http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/on-the-scene-analyzing-scenes-in-film-and-literature This New York Times lesson uses scenes from Up In The Air,  Precious, and other films to provide students with a director’s look at film making. Lots of additional links and resources accompany this excellent lesson. Also see the other lessons on media litearcy in the NYTimes Educator's bank of lessons.

 

2. http://www.frankwbaker.com/film_links.htm  From the Media Literacy Clearinghouse, an excellent site for all things media related.

 

3. This document from the Center for Media LIteracy contains lots of excellent material about how to teach media literacy. Scroll to the pages of teaching cards for student questioning skills.

 

4. Here is a lesson for analyzing the To Kill a Mockingbird film in relation to the novel.

 

5. A 3 page list of film terms.

 

6. The poem Jabberwocky--for fun as Alice in Wonderland debuts.

 

  

As always, email me at tamara@englishteachersfriend.com  if you would like to have the editable word document.

 

Registration for Summer Workshops Now Open

Please join me in Orlando the week of June 14th - 18th as I present a series of workshops designed to prepare you for an efficient and productive new school year. Take any combination of the three classes offered over the course of five days. 

 

Below is a brief overview of each workshop. See a more detailed description as well as a  registration form to mail a check or PO. 

Click here if you would like to register online using a credit card.

 

 

Workshop 1  Writing at the Core: The Efficient Classroom

This two-day workshop provides teachers with relevant and practical instruction on improving student writing while also maintaining efficiency. Working through the writing process makes the best use of class time as students learn communication and literacy skills. Walk away with a renewed sense of what good writing instruction looks like and learn efficient ways to handle the paper load and the myriad of other requirements for today’s English Language Arts classes. All participants will be provided with 200 pages of ready-to-take-back-and-use lessons as well as a CD which includes a pdf of the manual, powerpoints, podcasts, and video tutorials.

 

 

Workshop 2  The Six Traits of Writing and Beyond

In this two day workshop teachers use an analytical rubric to define and assess the six traits of writing. Through the course of these two days, teachers will recognize the instructional worthiness of this model. This workshop goes beyond simply teaching the assessment portion and shows teachers how to realistically incorporate six traits into their classroom. This training provides a year’s worth of ready-to-use lessons.

 

 

Workshop 3   Technology for the English Teacher

Let’s not waste time with technology that looks hi-tech and 21^st Century but does little to improve student learning and teacher use of class time. This one-day workshop will provide teachers with practucal uses for technology in the classrooms. MUST BRING A LAPTOP to this session.

 

 

If you have any further questions please email me at Tamara@englishteachersfriend.com 

I hope to see you in Orlando in June.

A CD with 30 Powerpoints

is available for purchase here. Some of these are very large files and would be too time consuming to download. $12 includes material, tax, and shipping. You will receive your order within a few days. Click below if you would like to order. 

 

 

Here is a list of the PowerPoints included on that CD:

1. 150 Writing Prompts: This is a blend of one word prompts, quotes, standard prompts, photos, and more for a variety to use every day of the school year.

2. Sentence Fragments

3. Commas

4. Reference and Research

5. Text Structure

6. Organizational Patterns

7. How to Summarize an Article

8. Run-on Sentences

9. Be Gone "be" verbs

10. Tense shifts

11. Parallel Structure

12. Active and Passive Voice

13. Wordiness and Sentence Fluency

14. Copyright: What's Right and What's Wrong

15. Author's Purpose, Point of View, Tone

16. Shakespeare Introduction

17. Imagery

18. Metaphors and Similies

19. Transitioning from the FORMULA essay

20. American Literary Periods

21. Intro to Greek Mythology

22. How and When to Show Instead of Tell

23. Point of View: Defining and Writing

24. Scattegory game lists

25. Dialogue and Quotation Marks

26. Semicolons

27. Subject / Verb Agreement

28.  Propaganda

29.  Word Choices

30.  Elements of Fiction

 

Stories of Former Students                       

I hope to make this a regular section on the site. A place to share stories of the successes our students have seen. It is such a rewarding feeling to see students years later as they are making great strides in the world.

 

This week I want to highlight Melanie Richards who recently sent me the link to her online literary/art magazine.  As my former literary magazine editor and yearbook staffer, I had no doubts that Melanie would and will do great things. She is a talented designer and an amazing poet. As she works through her program at the University of Florida you has managed to do this project "on the side." Here is the link to her magazine as well as a call for submissions. Send in your best work, or ask your best writers and artists to submit. 

 

http://issuu.com/egobruise/docs/egobruiseissue2   

http://egobruise.blogspot.com/2009/12/call-for-submissions-issue-3.html

 

Please send me your stories. It doesn't have to be long. I especially want to hear the stories about those you thought might never even graduate and then turned out to have a pretty fantastic future. I think stories like this keep us grounded and patient with those students who might not be the most enthusiastic in our classrooms.  

 

Send your story to tamara@englishteachersfriend.com

 

LandBImprints.com  

is our new sister site. Visit and check out over 30 designs that only an ENGLISH teacher would appreciate. Order shirts, cups, mousepads and more. As we wrapped up our final conference this past weekend we are now eager to sell the remaining inventory. Each week we will post a new item for a discounted price. This week the special is a black shirt that reads: Try Revision: All the cool kids are doing it. The shirts are 100% cotton crew necks in Ladies and Regular, sizes S- 2XL.  We only have a limited quantity and will sell at this price until they are gone.

Price is $12 and that includes tax and shipping.

 

 

 

Sizes

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