Practice Annotation with "The Story of an Hour"

When starting students off with annotating, they often struggle for what is important enough to write down or how to probe the text for deeper meaning.

An easy text to start with is "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin.  Specifically, use this online text by Anne Woodlief: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/storyofhour.html

Woodlief has gone through and linked certain words and phrases that have more meaning than others.  She doesn't just give the meaning away, she posits a question to the reader to help them focus on why this may be important to the meaning of the story.

How I Use It

I give my students this handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2ZrrKOaCqdicGwzHPOW2GnntlE-t8tOH9iZjMfQqE8/edit

Students should read the story with no clicking of links and just write their first impressions.  Then, they will go back through the story, click each link and write their response on the handout.  There are so many links that I give them up to eight that they can leave blank.  Makes them feel like they are getting away with something.

Why It Works

It is a short text, so students do not get lost in it. By doing this early, students will start to see how little things - words, phrases, placement - all have a greater impact on the analysis of the story.  Often students don't know what is important enough to write about.  This gives them some guidance.

All in all, it takes most of a class period to do.  It is easy set up on my part and serves as a great introduction to literary analysis for AP Lit (though can be done with other classes).  It is the third thing I do to get students ready for AP Lit analysis.  The first is the break down "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" using different literary critical theories, followed by archetype notes (probably the best thing to give students confidence that they can break down a text).  After this activity, we are ready to go full force into the class.

Shameless plug - if you have the time, check out the Extreme English Teacher TPT store

For Honor and Glory!

Something you to think about trying that I stumbled upon that turned out to be a major motivating factor in my class is giving the option to live forever (or at least until I retire) on the Wall of Glory.

The names on the wall go back to 2015, but only because one year the humidity was so high over the summer that the names fell off and the custodian helpfully threw them away.  They have since travelled with me to my current school.  

I originally did it without thinking about long-term effects, but man has it paid off.  When a student wins Survivor (English IV) or the Pinnacle of Perfection (English II and IV) or becomes the Chosen One (Mythology) or is an Absolute Paragon (a 5 on AP Lit), I put their name on the wall for posterity.  These kids love the idea that students in years to come will be able to see their name on the wall.  

When I started doing this, it was for regular-level classes, but when I moved into some honors and AP, the competition for glory and honor exponentially increased.  It's lots of fun and if you have something that you could adapt this too, give it a shot!

By the way, that NASCAR autograph on my back wall was given to me by a student several years ago.  We were reading 1984 and he got the driver, Scotty Riggs, to sign "I love Big Brother!"  :)

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

 I am old enough to remember the excitement of not just the TV on the cart, but the reel projector on the cart day at school.  One of those gems that we watched was the film version of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.  I'm sure you've heard of the story and you may even remember watching that film version in school.  

Now, finding a good copy of this film is a bit harder (or rather, finding a YouTube of it that doesn't get taken down for copyright infringement is a bit harder, to be more accurate).  However, I have the solution for you - Amazon Prime.

The film version we all know and love is a French version made in 1963 that later aired on The Twilight Zone in 1964 with the audio redubbed.  I am not sure if the "I Want to Be a Living Man" song was in the original or made for the Twilight Zone episode.  

Whatever the case, Amazon Prime has The Twilight Zone available for streaming and you will find our story as season 5 episode 23.  There is one small snag - you can't stream it in your classroom.

I know that under the Fair Use Act we can watch any film as long as it is relevant to the content and lesson; however, this only applies to watching it.  If you have an Amazon Prime account, one of the details you agreed to is that you can only stream for personal, non-commercial purposes and while showing it to a bunch of children is certainly non-commercial, it does not qualify as personal.  

But wait!  There is an easy fix.  Since this is on Amazon Prime, you can purchase one episode of a TV series.  You can get a copy of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" for either $1.99 or $2.99 depending on the quality of video you want and then you are not streaming it - you are watching a purchased copy.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and it is hard to find information about a streaming platform that does not talk specifically about streaming, but I do know that under Fair Use Act you can show a movie that you own or rent and I have seen nothing that excludes digital format from that.  All that said, you may wish to discuss this with your school librarian if you are worried about the stickier points.  

Now, if only I can get them to air "The Lottery"...

Learn more at: https://marymount.libguides.com/c.php?g=957363&p=6911055

Simple, but Helpful Tip

 I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!  We'll be back in the swing of things before anyone knows it!

Here's one little handy-dandy tip - when you are signing up for online programs that are not tied into your school's funding (like Kahoot, Common Lit, Socrative, Quizizz, etc.), do not use your school email address.  Why?  Because hopefully you will find your teaching career to be long and fulfilling.  As such, it is likely that you will need to switch schools at sometime in your career from any variety of reasons.  If you have it under your school email address, you lose everything or have to scramble to switch accounts over before you lose email service (they are usually pretty quick to turn that sucker off) and even if you do so, think about how many services you have!  

The Why I Teach File

My school is wrapping up this year, so I want to leave all of you with this annual reminder/advice:

As your year comes to a close, you will be getting a few messages from parents or kids about how you made an impact.  Some years you get more, some years you get less.  You need to get a file folder (or a box or whatever) and label it WHY I TEACH.  Put them in there.

Why?  Well, if you are a new teacher, the first five years are the hardest.  Sometimes you need a reminder.  Later on in your career, you will have moments when you need that reminder.  And then, as you get old (like me) it is nice to go back and look through some of those lost memories.  

Do this now and you will thank me later.  That's a promise.

Have a great summer in whatever you choose to do.  I'll see you in August!

Writing Crime Stories

If you are a creative writing teacher, a teacher who uses creative writing, a teacher who writes fiction, or just a person who loves information about crime, here is the resource for you!

https://www.suecoletta.com/crime-writers-resource/

This site is a link dump that has information on things like:

• FBI's information on serial killers
• How long it takes for bodies to decompose
• Homicide detective checklist
• Glass fracture patterns
• Analyzing ballistics
• Weapons details

And just so, so much more.  Crime doesn't pay, but writing about it might.  If nothing else, some of the information you find here may just inspire you or your students to write the next great crime novel.

What Time Is It? State Test Time!

Do you have a state mandated reading comprehension test for your course?  At this point you have done everything you can do to increase their ability to read, now it is time to supercharge their test taking ability!

There is no charge for this activity, just download it from the Extreme English Teacher Teachers-Pay-Teachers store.  If you like it, I would appreciate a positive review.  Those really do help!

Standardized reading tests have serious problems, if you ask me.  We are requiring students to spend an hour and a half to two hours focusing on boring reading passages. What this activity does well is to give students the ability to focus a little longer to get another passage in before their brain fries from your oh-so-wonderful state test.  The methods in there were honed in my classroom and I consistently had my non-motivated non-readers score higher than expected on the NC English II EOC and the NCFE for English IV (my scores were in the blue repeatedly, if you are a fellow NC teacher and knows what that means).  The method works! 

If you used it, let me know in the comments and again - positive reviews on Teachers-Pay-Teachers are ALWAYS APPRECIATED!