Pop Culture Pedagogy

If you're anything like me, you've read enough paragraphs filled with "According to the text" to drive you crazy! So, do what I did, and teach your students to embed their evidence (with context!) to make more mature, sophisticated, and, well, good writing! Using Taylor Swift lyrics + context, students will practice integrating their context and quotes together, and then they can practice writing authentically in a short writing piece.

This worksheet is perfect to accompany your class reading of The Scholarship Jacket by Martha Salinas. Students can create their own scholarship jacket that they could win for their skill or talent that makes them unique, just like Marta's intelligence. This worksheet also is a great way to introduce symbolism and the emphasis authors put on specific things in texts.

Empower students with this engaging Escape the Room about the Fearless Girl statue in NYC. In our class, we read the article together, learn about the statue and what it means to "be bold," and then it's time for breaking out when the students' team up to try and escape evil protestor Ivan Tamoovit! This download includes teacher directions, student directions, and all of the printable resources needed for both you and your students to be successful.

This interactive activity allows students to become familiar with your classroom (or school!) library during any point of the school year. The different, unique prompts allow students to think about novels beyond the typical "This looks good" or "this looks dumb." Using Google Slides + their Camera app, students can look through the dozens (or hundreds....or thousands!) of books available to them to find that new book they would never have read before. In my classroom, I had at least a dozen

Student choice has never tasted better than with this menu activity. Originally made to compare a fiction excerpt and a short personal narrative, this editable menu puts the students at the head of the table. In the past, this has worked best when using two different texts. Typically, my students will share two or three appetizers as a group, have an entree by themselves, and split a dessert with a partner. I usually finish this activity with my ELA Yelp review as either an in-class writi

What's in a name? If you deep dive into S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders, you'll find exactly what is in the name of the characters she wrote about. This activity briefly teaches what etymology is and then provides a worksheet for students to research 7 different names Hinton uses in her novel. This activity culminates in a writing activity that works perfectly with my Outsiders Characterization activity. Stay gold!

This skill-based lesson will have your kids finding motifs like detectives who are hot on the case! First, this lesson starts with a quick handout explaining what a motif is. It follows up with an abridged except from James Joyce's short story "Araby" where the students look for the recurring motif (darkness) and begin to unpack its meaning. Follow that mini-lesson up with having the students search for examples of four prominent motifs in the early chapters of The Outsiders (there are two c

This easy-to-fill-out worksheet will have your students making strong analyses in moments as they identify five major literary elements, plus the option of including their own (#studentchoice!!)

Great activity that is sure to guarantee your students understand each Greasers' personality in The Outsiders. My students jigsawed this activity after a quick model with one character, kiddos were split into homogenous groups, worked on their assigned character (and kicked butt doing it!). Then, they came back together to heterogenous groups and shared what they learned. My students were engaged the whole time, and it helped them start to put faces to the characters they were beginning to rea

Useful for any and all short stories, this one-page elements of a narrative worksheet allows your students to collect their thoughts in regards to the elements of a short story.