drvan
218 Followers
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
About the store
I have over 20 years teaching experience in high schools, adult ed, university and private tutoring. I have also taught at learning centres for middle school and high school-aged students.
My background is in English Language Arts and Art History, incorporating cultural studies and literary theory. Like many English teachers, I teach short stories, novels, Shakespeare, poetry, grammar, essay writing, media studies, and career preparation and planning.
Read more
Store categories
All resources
Filters
Grade
Subject
Format
Resource type
Audience
Supports
Start of Year: Fun Memory Mnemonics Name Game: Learn Students' Names in One Day
This is an EASY, ENGAGING, and downright FUN activity for students and teachers alike. This activity can be used in the first week of class to quickly and easily learn students’ names, while you also learn a little about the students, too. In turn, students learn a bit about their teacher. It takes, at the very minimum, one full-class, but I always return to it for a day or two afterwards, to reinforce the learning of the study technique of "memory by association" and show students that practic
5th - 12th, Adult Education, Higher Education
For All Subjects
Poetry Jumble Activity: "The Farmer and the Queen" by Shel Silverstein
This is a fun and engaging group (or individual) poetry activity for students to explore and play with how poetry is created. They will work on how sounds go together, how rhymes work, and how rhythm patterns are established. Contained herein are a variety of activities, all based off of Shel Silverstein’s poem, “The Farmer and the Queen” from his classic, Where the Sidewalk Ends. In these activities, students solve either (a) jumbled lines of poetry, or (b) missing words, by analyzing poetic
4th - 9th
Close Reading, English Language Arts, Poetry
Student Inventory Worksheet for Personal Strategies to Deal with Anxiety
Students are presenting more and more with anxiety. They often believe they lack any skills to deal with and manage that anxiety. This worksheet, used over three sessions, allows students to realize that they already have a skill-set that they can employ to manage their anxiety. This worksheet is recommended to be used over three sessions, so that students have repeated exposure and repetition of the strategies they have used in the past, they have used recently, and that they may use in the f
5th - 12th
Health, School Counseling, School Psychology
Meditation Student Self-Reflection Sheet
If you practice any type of meditation with your students, this resource is for you. This is a simple, easy-to-use, one-page worksheet which asks students to pause and reflect up the meditation they just completed. How was it for them in terms of mind, body, and heart. This activity can help make the unconscious conscious and the purposeless more purposeful. Moreover, student collect these worksheets over time, and are able to track how meditation has affected them. I designed this, in parti
4th - 12th
School Counseling, School Psychology
Four Fun Vocabulary Matching Games for the Entire Class
This fun activity can be played multiple times in a class. (Suitable for TTOCs / substitute teachers!) Wonderful for any class to build vocabulary, but in particular any ESL, ELL, or EFL classes, as students quickly learning vocabulary sets. This engaging activity builds active Listening Skills, Speaking Skills, Thinking Speed, and an Understanding of the Relationships Between Words. Included here are four different versions/rounds of the game, one easy, two medium, and one advanced. Each can
5th - 12th
English Language Arts, Vocabulary
Cue Card Creative Writing Activity
This year-long writing activity starts by having students review the parts of speech (namely nous, adjectives, and verbs). Afterwards, the cue cards are wonderful sentence generators that can be used in numerous creative writing activities. From daily ten-minute timed free-writes, to coming up with the first line of a poem, or having students develop their own individual character and then pair off to put those two characters together in a short story. The options are truly endless. Year af
4th - 12th
Creative Writing, English Language Arts, Writing
The Calm Equation: Helping Students Take Control of their Anger & Anxiety
This is something simple, but effective that I have used with high school students from Grades 8 through 12. A clear and easy way to keep calm in stressful situations, whether in anger or in fear. Talking about this three-step strategy and practicing it beforehand, gives students more power and agency over their emotions and responses in stressful situations. Contained herein are both wallet-sized, poster-sized, and an in-between sized (what I call office-sized [used when working with the stud
5th - 12th
For All Subjects, School Counseling, School Psychology
Showing 1-7 of 7 results
About the store
Experience
I have over 20 years teaching experience in high schools, adult ed, university and private tutoring. I have also taught at learning centres for middle school and high school-aged students.
My background is in English Language Arts and Art History, incorporating cultural studies and literary theory. Like many English teachers, I teach short stories, novels, Shakespeare, poetry, grammar, essay writing, media studies, and career preparation and planning.
Teaching style
My philosophy of education centres on interdisciplinary studies and the development of critical reasoning skills. I believe that as modern life becomes increasingly complex and interconnected the need to teach how all subject areas interact is ever more important. As such, I habitually infuse my lessons with visual and popular culture, demonstrating how the material is relevant to students’ lives and thereby making it more accessible. Similarly, I contextualize the source material to its socio-political milieu to facilitate learning while students uncover how a text’s meaning changes over time.
Awards & shining teacher moments
Outstanding Teaching Practicum Award
My own education history
B.Ed., B.A., and M.Ed in School Counselling.
Additional biographical information
I'm a nineteenth-century boy, stuck in a twenty-first-century body.
TPT is the largest marketplace for PreK-12 resources, powered by a community of educators.
IXL family of brands