The Amazing Race

 I teach mythology as an elective and one of the things I have tried this year has been a lot of work, but at the same time, a lot of fun.  The structure can be tweaked to be used in any class, but since it was mythology, I've called it The Amythic Race because, well, because why not?

I love creating games for the class to play long-term because I have found motivated students enjoy them and non-motivated students will work for something like game-points where they wouldn't for a grade incentive.  

The basic format is this:

• Break the semester into 5 legs, each approximately 3 weeks (though some adjustments need to be made for breaks, snowy weather, etc.). 
• Students change partners each leg.
• Each leg corresponds to something we are learning in class (for mythology, I have based it on the stages of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey)
• Each leg has four tasks, each worth up to 50 points.
• Each leg also has a side quest for students who choose to do it to boost their individual score.

For my own enjoyment, I bought a bunch of yellow envelopes to make it more show-authentic.  

I keep all the scores on a Google spreadsheet.  Top student gets his/her name on my wall as The Chosen One for all students to see for years to come (this is a huge draw for students).  The top ten are exempted from the final exam (since this is an elective, I can offer this incentive).  

If you want to see the notes I use to keep it together, check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tGDMyNQC0LWFZZZeXvjsn0PtQ6PONFX0XM_TyZd6cv8/edit?tab=t.0

If you want to see the web page that students use to check their progress, you can see it here: https://www.lordalford.com/mythology/A-Mythic%20Race/a-m-race.htm 

You are free to steal any idea or concept from these resources if you decide to make your own.  Many of these are designed specifically for my school building, so this isn't a ready-to-go activity for you.  It took a lot of work to set up, so maybe I can save you some time.  

New Lord of the Flies Series

 There's a new Lord of the Flies series coming out.  Here is the trailer:

The first episode has already dropped and I believe there will be a total of four.  Unfortunately for me, it is a BBC show and not available (to my knowledge) in the US.  I'll have to wait for it, but if any of you are able to watch it, I would love to hear your feedback on it.  

There is also a book called William Golding: The Faber Letters which promises some great behind the scenes insight on Lord of the Flies and other Golding works, though I'm not quite ready to drop $40 on it just yet.  If you are, learn more about it here.

Finally, if you are a fan of teaching Lord of the Flies, check out the XET Survival game for it.  It's by far the best selling item in the store and something I am rather proud of creating.  

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

TPT Sale Upcoming

While I certainly would love for you to start at my shop, this sale is site-wide.  I just thought you would like to know.

If you cannot see the image, Feb 9 and 10 - up to 25% off - use code FEBSALE26

Shameless Plug - Wuthering Heights

 Wuthering Heights - teachers either love it or hate it.  I fall in the former category and have ever since my senior year in high school (1989) largely because my teacher loved it so.  Will your students like it?  Well, that largely depends on your passion for it.  If you do love it and teach it, here are five ready to go activities for you!

Get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Wuthering-Heights-5-Ready-to-Go-Activities-15178033

This pack contains 5 ready-to-use activities for Wuthering Heights. Originally, they were created to be used for AP Lit students, but you are being provided with the Google Doc, so they can be modified and scaled to meet the needs of your students.


Activity #1: Gothic Scorecard - This activity is designed to encourage specific details, a quality often lacking in students of all skill levels. It does so by having students look for six gothic literature qualities found in Wuthering Heights. This is a great activity to start the book so that students may start looking for the elements.


Activity #2: Heathcliff as a Byronic Hero - This activity has students look at fifteen attributes of a Byronic hero and give a specific example of how Heathcliff displays these attributes. It also has students find two other Byronic heroes from any story or movie they wish and identify how each displays the attributes.


Activity #3: What Is Love? - This activity challenges students to track who displays the qualities of love more - Catherine or Heathcliff? For each quality they need to find a specific example of how either Catherine or Heathcliff shows (or does not show) this quality of love. Then they rate which character shows this quality the most.


Activity #4: Wuthering Heights Meme Challenge - This is an alternative reading check and discussion starter assignment.


Activity #5: Quote Portraits - This activity helps with understanding characterization by finding quotes centering around two characters.

If you get it and like it, consider leaving a review.  This goes for all purchases from any seller, not just me.

Mythology Meme Dump Monday

 I have a Google Slides with memes on it relating to what we are reading in class.  It is fun to have it on the screen when students enter the class and by having on Google Slides, I have easy access to it and can repeat it year after year. The majority are memes I found elsewhere and at this point, I don't remember which ones I made, which ones students created, and which ones I found, so let me just say that probably all of these are ones I found. The ones below are from my mythology class.  Here are a few for your reading pleasure!

Happy Monday all!  Hang in there - you got this!

Freebie: A Few Kahoots for High School English (Plus a Kahoot Game Your Kids May Not Know About)

Sometimes we just need a quick review on some material.  Here are a few Kahoots I made that you can use as a refresher or just for fun:

Title Punctuation #2 (using some rather odd titles): https://create.kahoot.it/share/title-punctuation-2/554dde27-7cf8-4477-9d7e-7ac7d980dc71

A Murder of Crows (Collective Nouns): https://create.kahoot.it/share/a-murder-of-crows-collective-nouns/3f6f03bc-d58a-44c3-9521-fc4898cc6036

Allusions: https://create.kahoot.it/share/allusions/c37cb2f1-4336-455f-b292-c60b08da6874

Preposition Recognition: https://create.kahoot.it/share/preposition-recognition/071f92a4-4237-432d-be4c-4f2d0c9bd30a

Graduation (Got seniors?  What do they know about their big day?): https://create.kahoot.it/share/graduation/83247a16-e0d4-40fc-9d9d-a81876c33bda

Also - Students will say they are bored of Kahoot.  What they don't know (and you may not either) is that there is more than one way to play it.  Try Robot Run.

Get it by clicking the option in the OTHER WAYS TO PLAY after you select your Kahoot.  Students work together in this one.  You'll need a large number of questions to play this since there is potential for repeated questions.

Do you have a good one that can be used anywhere?  Share your ink in the comments!

Teaching Poetry - Line Reading with Mary Oliver's "Beside the Waterfall"

I find that poetry can be tricky to teach, for me at least.  Poetry was NOT why I got into teaching English.  Short stories?  Yes.  Novels? Yes.  Grammar and MLA?  Yes and yes.  Poetry is a different story.  

I have spent the last thirty years trying to get better at it (well, maybe not as focus on the task as I should have been for some of the years).  This year I am using Foster's How to Teach Poetry like a Professor to give me a bit more insight on how to teach it to my students.  

You can get it here: https://www.amazon.com/How-Read-Poetry-Like-Professor/dp/006211378X if you are interested.  

One of the first things he mentions is to read the sentences, not the lines.  He posits that "lines are the enemy of meaning."  I think it is a good first step to get students who struggle with poetry to start parsing out understanding.  He uses "I Could Not Stop for Death" by Dickinson as an example, but I think I found a better one to use for teaching this particular concept - Mary Oliver's "Beside the Waterfall".

You can see it better at the Poetry Foundation page: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=162&issue=5&page=6 or feel free to grab it off the Google Doc I have of that same image: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16NB7d6AmDUSAWFU3XvAgdgKc_tX3aQD9o0x5JBnEJB0/edit?tab=t.0

Why I like it?  Dickinson certainly has her place I do love that particular poem of hers (plus she is great for a common meter lesson).  The students, though, at least the ones struggling with finding meaning, are wary about all those dashes.  This poem by Oliver does not have that.  It is also a bit more modern than Dickinson, which can be easier to approach as well.

The lines here are meant to look like waterfalls (I think so anyway), but they are in no way dividing up meaning.  This is a perfect example for students to ignore line and stanza breaks to read the poem.  There is all sorts of perspective to get into the meat of the meaning (probably poor choice of words) - on the one hand, the dog eating the fawn seems disturbing, but we end with it just being a dog doing what dogs do.  The dog has a flower-like face as well.  

I will be using this poem today and I think that it will be a great shoe horn for my students struggling and will give them a little more confidence before we go into the next lesson about sounds of poetry.

If you have other strategies for students who struggle with poetry, shoot me an email or leave a comment!  If you don't, feel free to just swing into the comments to say hi.

If you are looking for more poetry help, nothing has helped my students (of all levels) grasp poetry better than this archetype lesson.