As I was organizing things for the first class of the year yesterday, I found a gem from the archives. We had been learning about the past perfect tense and how weird it is to try to write in it in any extended way. Instead of just blabbing at the kids about this, I hadContinue reading “James Bond and the Past Perfect: teaching grammar through poems”
Tag Archives: teaching poetry
Three Minute Poetry
Here’s a quick idea to get the creative juices flowing this summer: Three Minute Poetry. Good for adults too! Three minute poetry is a great way to help people break through the idea that they can’t write, or that they are not creative writers. It works best (and is most often relevant) for late elementaryContinue reading “Three Minute Poetry”
Horizontal Weasel Cookies
Here is a great exercise for breaking through our own boringness, getting exposure to the texture and beauty of foreign languages, and just practicing getting words down on paper quickly. I’ve found even some of my most reluctant writers to thrive on this one, and it’s a perennial favorite. I learned it as a poetryContinue reading “Horizontal Weasel Cookies”
Ze is awesome: adventures with gender-neutral pronouns
English is missing a word. (Well, probably many words.) However, this is a really useful word: it’s a gender-neutral singular pronoun for people. In the good-old-boy days, they just said “he” but that’s not cool anymore, nor should it be. “It” is gender-neutral, but also implies a lack of humanity. “He or she” is correctContinue reading “Ze is awesome: adventures with gender-neutral pronouns”
FROG HOLLOW SCHOOL 