Simply Novel Blog - Teaching Tips and Ideas for Teachers

I read this article in The Atlantic recently that discussed a new finding that handwritten notes are more effective in student learning than are ty...

No matter which standards you are currently in alignment with, argument writing is an incredibly important mainstay of English curricula. Arguments...

March is one of my favorite months (mainly because it seems to fly by after the never-ending shortest month — February). There are so many things t...

“Pick your battles.” “You’ve got to let it go.” I’m going to guess that as a teacher, you’ve either heard or said at least one of these phrases bef...

According to the Common Core Standards for English Language Arts, irony is a literary device that should be taught in both 8th and 11th grades. To ...

One of the most difficult literary devices to recognize as well as convey is tone. Helping students identify tone in literature can be daunting, an...

I may be solo on this, but I love teaching on Valentine’s Day! I can’t quite pinpoint why! I think it’s because I love all the different projects I...

By the third quarter, the pencils are wearing down, the pens are running out of ink, the students are getting antsy for spring break, and the teach...

We all need a giggle every once in a while. (What’s even better is the English teacher nerd in me with the hearty guffaw!) Enter the church lady wi...

My school is in an accreditation year. So we have been preparing in many ways for formal observations. (I’m on the west coast, so we are governed b...

Several years ago, I read an interesting article from the New York Times about helping boys to become “readers” (Boys and Reading: Is there any Hop...

Study hall, Homeroom, WIN time, or some cutesy name related to your mascot (i.e., PAW Power time, Knight Time, you get the point). The part of the...