Literature Education Articles for Teachers

With the holidays upon us, schedules seem to get disrupted frequently to make time for special events and programs. Don’t let down time go to waste. Use any of these picture books to expand curriculum minutes as well as to delight listeners. The Blessing Cup by Patricia Polacco Grade Level: 3-8 G...

Unless you are a strong reader, school gets harder and harder every year. Often, this leads to students slipping behind, becoming frustrated and disillusioned before they even hit puberty. Book clubs can be a great tool to target different groups of kids, from the above-grade-level reader who nee...

June 12th marks the birthday of Anne Frank and the day that she was given a present that would shape generations of readers — a blank journal. Since its first edition in 1947, The Diary of Anne Frank has provided a personal insight into the true struggle of a young girl w...

As welcome as spring is, it never fails to throw me off my routines. One habit I have gotten away from lately, is finding time for a read aloud. To reenergize my zeal for sharing new books with my students, I browsed the shelves of my local bookstore and found several titles worthy of making...

Starting with the classic Dick and Jane primer, kids are introduced to families in most every book they read. Whether your pupils are only children, or part of a big family, they can use what they know about family to connect with all sorts of literature. Siblings in Literature, from Younger to O...

There are those of us who get a thrill from going to the local library. The idea of having access to rows and rows of books; all of them free, is too good to be true. Not everyone, however, taps into this community pleasure. As part of National Library Week, April 14th-20th, teachers can help the...

When my daughter was in first grade, her teacher rallied the entire teaching team to put on a play for the kids. They dressed up and performed Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat; it was brilliant! On Dr. Seuss’s birthday, the whole student body got to watch their favorite teachers bring an all-time f...

As a high school teacher, my freshmen barely remember the events of September 11th, 2001. It's important in all content areas to make sure that our students understand how that tragedy shaped our nation's foreign policy. In a similar way, we should never forget the influence of the Challenge...

How would you celebrate Edgar Allen Poe's birthday? A tuberculosis-themed party? Entertaining stories about people being buried alive? Recurring themes of guilt and insanity? Poe is undoubtedly a master of the short story, and he plumbs the disturbing depths of the human psyche like few othe...

Rubrics make life easier. They take most of the subjectivity out of grading, and they give more feedback than just a number or check mark could. Unfortunately, not all rubrics are created equal. Rubrics are a communication tool between teachers and learners, which means they need to be writt...

Even at a young age, I was admittedly a nerd. My idea of a good time at the age of eight was cross-referencing the characters in Greek myths in an old set of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. I was always a little surprised when people didn't enjoy mythology the way I did.  However, the tables h...

  Friday, December 14th, marks the premiere of the first part of an adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic, The Hobbit. The Hobbit trilogy (being released one year apart over three years) is being adapted by the same team that worked on the Lord of the Rings adaptations. Use...

A frustrating factor in English education is not that our students are unfamiliar with persuasion, or lack persuasive skills themselves; it is that they are not able to identify reasonable persuasion from propaganda. Young children can average 28-32 hours a week in front of the TV, which means th...

A new read-aloud during the holiday season is like a cup of hot cocoa. It gets me in the mood for snowflakes doused in glitter and milk carton gingerbread houses. Which of the following titles will become a new favorite for your class? Home for Christmas by Jan Brett Grades: Pre K - Third  R...

Telling, reading, and hearing stories is such an important way to pass cultural ideals from one generation to the next. For instance, the story of Paul Bunyan provides mountains of cultural detail from our nation's past. You can use this story to introduce an oral tradition unit, folk tales, or t...