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...

 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...