Horror Stories for Halloween (An Edgar Allan Poe Study)

I loved doing this unit with my 8th graders every Halloween season. It's super creepy, full of literary magic, and it's challenging. Believe it or not, this little mini-unit produced many light bulb moments. Many students (notice I did not say all) were surprised how understanding literary devices such as alliteration or allusions helps make a story or poem come alive.

In this study we begin by learning about the author. It's so easy to understand why Poe wrote horror stories when one learns of his life and all his heartbreak. We read The Tell-Tale Heart and end with The Raven. Discussions always take place comparing Lenore to Poe's wife who died of the same disease that took his mother. To me, these little side topics are priceless.

To give you an idea of what the unit contains, check out the first of 19 pages, where you see the standards, objectives, and the lesson design:

Each day revolves around learning literary devices and context clues while reading the work of Edgar Allan Poe. Day 1 is a documentary (the link provided in the unit) of Poe's life and the students are directed to reflect on it in a certain way. Day two begins the process of learning literary devices, starting with foreshadowing and how Poe uses this literary device to tell what's going to happen in The Tell-Tale Heart before he gives the details of his murderous act. After learning the literary devices and who to use context clues, we read the story together and break it apart as we apply this knowledge of literary devices and context clues (a teachers guide is provided). Once the story is read and students complete a task to better understand this particular story, we read The Raven together and they break apart the story using their own guide to each literary device on their own. I've found much success in giving them definitions, showing them how their used, and then letting them break it down on their own.

This 19 page lesson breaks each it all down for you - providing activities and guiding the teacher through it all.

If you're interested in purchasing this 4 day lesson for $8 before Halloween weekend rolls around, check out my TeachersPayTeachers page or TeachersNotebook page.

Visit my TeachersPayTeachers link on October 19 - 21 for a 20% discount!

10 Key's to Classroom Success

These 10 "key's" lead to success in my classroom:

1. High Expectations. Expectations were different for each student, because each student was different, but I expected much. When they knew I knew they could succeed, they'd rise to the occasion. At the beginning of each year we spent a significant amount of time going over the overall expectations of the class. In order to build a classroom community of learners they must be willing to work hard, be kind, work together, and be respectful. I gave examples from short stories, real-life stories, YouTube video's, children's books, music &etc. to motivate them and help them understand that with these expectations they'd get far in life and in the classroom.

2. Bullying Training. The first two weeks of the year were spent learning the effects of bullying on a victim, how to help a victim, how to prevent bullying, and how to recognize the different types. Taking a stand against bullying and being an advocate for the student who is/was a victim was incredibly helpful in building a classroom community of trust, kindness and respect. I encourage you to check out my unit on bullying, which was wildly effective.

3. Think-alouds. I do not care the grade, the class, or the subject think-alouds are vital for classroom success. Students need to see how you think as you read a math problem, history timeline, novel, poem, science text book, &etc. If you have a thought pop up in your brain as you read, stop and tell them about it. When you make connections, visualizations, think through a problematic text, use context clues, use what you already know to help you understand the text, pick out the important details, or process new information students are able to apply that to their own reading of the text. Think-alouds help students monitor their reading and it is proven to give comprehension success. (In my unit on the Elements of Plot, I give a full think-aloud to the short story The Lady or the Tiger? helping students to pick out the important details.)

4. Journaling. Did you know that writing is as helpful to remembrance as reading a text ten times?  Want a student to remember a math equation, a piece of history, facts of science, an important detail of a story? Have them write about it.

5. Make Connections. If students can relate, they are hooked. It's how I start every.single.unit.

6. Manipulatives. Incorporate kinesthetic learning along with visual and audio and you'll have classroom success. In my Elements of Plot unit, for example, I include the pieces of the witches hat, that students must put in order and then pieces of a story to put in the corresponding places. I make graphic organizers a hands-on experience so students are engaged and play with what they see and what I'm telling them.

7. Self-Evaluation. I constantly ask myself, "What worked?" and "What didn't?" I made changes based on the answers to those questions at the end of every day, unit, and school year. I consider myself a life-long learner and if no changes needed to be made or something added/taken away; I felt I no longer cared or I stopped learning. I considered that unacceptable.

8. Be enthusiastic. Even when you don't feel like it. Enthusiasm played a huge roll in the attitude of the classroom. I found it extremely difficult to not let nay-sayers to squash my enthusiasm, but don't let them! The attitude of my classroom was a direct result of mine.

9. Be inspired. Get inspiration from other teachers through conferences, teacher friends who know all to well what you're going through, Pinterest, etc. etc. Ideas are everywhere! Fill your brain with them! Inspiration leads to motivation. An inspired, motivated teacher is drives student success!

10. Be consistent. Do not waver in your expectations, your discipline, or anything else.

I am super interested in hearing about your key's to classroom success! Please share!

Making Inferences

For whatever reason struggling readers have a difficult time using evidence in text and their own background knowledge to make educated guesses and answer the who, what, when, where, why and how questions. This particular worksheet takes less than 30 minutes to complete and is super easy. When I introduced this concept it seemed overwhelming to my struggling readers, until I brought this out, giving them success, which in turn gave them confidence.

We started out doing the first two together, then they did one with a partner, and the last two on their own. By the end, they had it down and were ready to move to more complicated text.

Visit TeachersPayTeachers or TeachersNotebook to purchase this 3 page worksheet (including a mini teacher answer page).

I also love using media, cartoons, and pictures such as these to help students infer. (They spur wonderful discussions!) Here's a few ideas:

I would cover up the ad on the bottom right hand corner.

I wonder what they see...

Hmmm... what were they up to...?

Blot out what John says to Garfield, make them guess!