The Teacher's Almanac

In 7th grade, we are working through the book The Lost Tools of Writing. If you haven't heard of this book before I highly recommend it. The book instructs students on how to write a persuasive essay. As the year progresses, they learn new concepts that help with invention, arrangement, and elocution.  Last week, we discussed the idea of agreement . First, the class learned that while it is necessary to state your thesis statement, it is also important to address those who might disagree with what you are claiming; so you need to include a  counter-thesis. Then we addressed the idea of agreement.  Agreement is the process of thinking through something that both groups agree on. What is something that those who agree with your thesis AND those who agree with your counter-thesis would agree on? The book has students work through a brainstorming process so that they can come up with an agreement.  The idea of agreement is something that we should all understand. I wo...

Today in 7th grade we read the poem First They Came by Martin Niemoller. If you've never read this poem before it goes like this:  FIRST THEY CAME  First they came for the Communists  And I did not speak out because I was not a Communist  Then they came for the Socialists  And I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist  Then they came for the trade unionists  And I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist  Then they came for the Jews  And I did not speak out because I was not a Jew  Then they came for me  And there was no one left to speak out for me. The students read an article about Niemoller independently and then we formed a socratic circle and discussed both the author and the poem itself. Niemoller was a German pastor who was initially excited about a strong leader like Hitler rising up and saving the country he loved. After a few years, once the Natzis began controlling the churches and what they could an...

 How often do we hear our students say, "I'll never use this, why are we even learning it!" As teachers, one of our goals should be to help students understand that what they are learning has relevance to their present and to their future. In 7th grade English, we are currently reading The Hiding Place . On Friday, I wanted to honor Martin Luther King Jr. in a way that was relevant to what we are doing in class, but also to what is going on in our country right now. I showed a video of his I have a Dream Speech  and then we spent some time discussing who King was referring to at the beginning of the speech when he mentions "...five score years ago". We discussed how 100 years had passed since Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and yet there Martin Luther King stood . There was still work that needed to be done. We then discussed his famous quote: "..not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." What did that ...

One of our goals this year for our dialectic grades (7th-9th) is to incorporate the "art of argument" into the classroom. While the students take a logic class during this time, we want them to articulate, defend, and persuade outside of that course as well. So what does this look like outside of a formal logic course?   In personal finance this week, the class is learning about interviewing and resume writing. The essential question for the day is: " What is the purpose of an interview?" As I initially thought about how to biblically integrate this lesson, I did a google search of "interviews and the Bible". As you can imagine, I didn't' come up with much. Mostly, there were links to Bible verses that might encourage you before heading into an interview...not exactly what I was going for.   But then I thought about how often God "hired" a particular individual for an important job. What is that, if not an interview? That got me thin...

Like the rest of the world, we have  unexpectedly become a home-school family! John is working from home and is basically on a nine hour conference call every day in his office downstairs which means we need to keep our distance in order to keep the noise down so that he can work. Below is a photo of part of the upstairs of our house before we moved in. Basically the entire upstairs is a room over the garage but there is a bar area in the middle. We weren't really using the bar area for anything specific besides a place to store some of the kid's toys so I thought it would be a good place to create our new school room. I painted the bar area with chalk paint a few months ago and added the bar stools. Since we've been quarantined I've had time to wallpaper the back wall with a kind of ship-lap style wallpaper (it's removable and just peels off so it's not too permanent). I also put the kid's table in there which is where they do their work and order...

I work at a classical Christian school. We tend to stray from a any significant use of technology in the classroom.  Our students are not allowed to have their phones in school.  Last month, our parent teacher association hosted an event for parents to better understand the negative effects of screen time on adolescents.  We're big on discussion, Socratic circles, and relationship building. Today we started teaching online because the governor closed all the schools in Virginia through the end of the school year. We took last week off to prepare and plan. We had 8 days to go from a school that intentionally does not embrace technology to a school that is teaching 100% through distance learning.  What. An. Adjustment.  So how do you maintain a classical model while teaching virtually? Here are some suggestions...but I'd love to do hear your thoughts as this is incredibly new for me.  Diversify the assignments: We know that stud...

Today I tried a new thing in 8th grade English... Annotating With a Purpose . We are currently working through John Steinbeck's The Pearl  and they were tasked with reading one of the chapters as homework last night. Before class I copied a five page section from what they were assigned to read last night. They had already read this material once so it was fresh in their mind. I chose to copy the pages so that they could highlight the actual text, rather than take notes on a separate sheet of paper. Later they mentioned that they really enjoyed that aspect of it. I handed them the copied pages and told them that they were going to focus on three things, which I wrote on the board: When they came across a phrase or idea that caught their eye, either because they thought it was well written, or because it made an excellent point, they were told to highlight the phrase and put a (!) next to it.  When they came across a phrase or idea that brought a question to their min...

We recently began reading The Pearl , by John Steinbeck in 8th grade English. For those who haven't read it (I hadn't before last week), The Pearl is a a short story (novella) that is also a parable. As the gospels are full of parables, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for deeper biblical integration. While biblical integration is something I try to do to some extent in every class, the kind of biblical integration that encompasses an entire class period can only be done ever so often. Today was one of those days. I began by breaking the students into groups of three and then had each group select one of the following three parables from Matthew: Parable of the Sower - Matthew 13:1-9 Parable of the Weeds - Matthew 13: 24-30 Parable of the Talents - Matthew 25: 14-30 Yesterday in class, we discussed the definition of a parable as well as some of the key characteristics that all parables have. Today, with that information fresh in their minds, eac...

I am currently the 8th graders least favorite teacher because this week I introduced them to their new assignment which is a research paper. Most of them have written essays and short papers before, but the concept of citing your sources is completely new to almost all of them, and a bit terrifying. Also, I will be the first to say that citations and MLA format is about the most boring topic to discuss in class. But unfortunately, while boring it is also necessary and they need to know how to do it. I began today's class by writing the following question on the board: "What is citing a resource and why is it important?" We discussed what citing is and then as a class they gave me a few answers as to why it is important. As a group we decided on three reasons why citing our sources is necessary: 1. When thoughts are not our own, we need to cite the source so that we aren't plagiarizing. 2. Citing is helpful so that readers can do further research on a topic ...

Despite what my blog has revealed up to this point, I do teach a few classes besides 8th grade English! One of those classes is rhetoric speech. Last week we were looking at how Cicero had his students organize their speeches. He divided them into six main parts: exordium, narratio, partitio, confirmatio, refutatio and peroratio (these are the original Latin terms). Once we defined each section, I read them the following text from Acts 22. Acts 22   English Standard Version (ESV) 22  “Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you.” 2  And when they heard that he was addressing them in  the Hebrew language, [ a ]  they became even more quiet. And he said: 3  “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated  at the feet of  Gamaliel [ b ]   according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers,  being zealous for God  as all of you are this day.   4  I persec...

In 8th grade this week we are finishing up our second Sherlock Holmes story. A few weeks ago we read The Hound of Baskerville and tomorrow we will finish The Sign of Four. I came across this article from The Gospel Coalition (which if you don't read you should-they are excellent!) and couldn't wait to incorporate it into today's class. 10 Tips on Solving Mysterious Bible Passages from Sherlock Holmes You can find the full article at the link above, but it basically gives the reader ten tips (which include quotes from Holmes) about how to dive into scripture and observe like Sherlock. Below is an example (tip # 2): 2. The kind of looking that solves mysteries. Holmes: “You have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.” Watson: “Hundreds of times.” Holmes: “Then how many are there?” Watson: “How many? I don’t know!” Holmes: “Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that the...

Tuesday was election day! A few months ago I went to our county's website and signed up to help at the polls. All it said was, "fill out this form if you'd like to help with the next election." So I did. A few weeks ago, I received a call asking if I was still interested. I said yes. Turns out, election officers are required to be there the entire time the polls are open. That's thirteen hours. They are also required to arrive an hour before and stay an extra two hours to count the votes and clean up. So in total, I was required to be there for sixteen hours.  Since signing up, I've become a full-time sub for some additional classes that I now needed to get subs for. Also, my husband had a work trip to Ohio Monday and Tuesday which meant I needed to ask my mom to spend the night Monday night and take the kids to school. Also I had a cold. Basically, everything that could go wrong went wrong. When I woke up at 4:15 Tuesday morning, I was seriou...