Storytelling as an Educational Art

I believe that our teaching can be enhanced through the power of storytelling.  Check out this link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gregoris-kalai/how-storytelling-can-tran_b_3023048.html

The Four Pillars of Education

Check out this link concerning the United Nations Report on Education:

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/03/the-four-pillars-of-education.html

Great Resources for Educational E-Books

Check out this link for access to e-books:

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/02/the-best-places-to-read-and-download.html

Teaching Kindness First

I love this article on teaching kindness.  The most important lesson we can teach our students is the importance of kindness, tolerance, and empathy.  I tell my students that school is not just about learning the content of their books; rather, it is about developing the content of their character.  More valuable than any lesson I can teach my students about a writer or a book are the lessons I can instill about kindness.

Check out this link:

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-kindness-the-kind-campaign-lisa-dabbs

"Assumptions," A Memoir/Short Story

Assumptions

by James Mulhern

"You are altogether beautiful, my love;
 there is no flaw in you." (Song of Solomon 4:7)

Peggy Fleming, according to my grandfather was the "homeliest damn woman" he'd ever seen.  Her face was swollen and pasty, with broken capillaries that sloped down the sides of her nostrils, flooding the arid plain of her skin, like some dreary river and its tributaries eking over a delta of nasolabial folds to terminate in the red seas of two droopy cheeks.  Spindly, awkward limbs stuck out of a round body, like you might see in a kindergartner's rendering of a person.  She was, unfortunately, toothless, and hairless as well, suffering from a mysterious childhood disease that had left her with chronic alopecia.  Peggy used to tell us kids that she lost all her hair because she refused to eat green beans when she was a child.  I always thought it a cruel irony that she had the same name as the graceful and beautiful skater who had won the Olympic Gold Medal in 1968.

Common Core Exemplar: Analysis of President Obama's Bin Laden Speech (Informational Text/Seminal U.S. Text)

© 2012 James Mulhern

Sample CCSS Reading and Writing Activity—Analysis of Informational/Argumentative Text (Seminal U.S. Text)

Common Core Exemplar: Analysis of Seminal U.S. Text, Thoreau's Walden

© 2013 James Mulhern

Lesson/Unit Plan (Common Core)

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition

Using Models to Improve Essay Writing

I have found that most students do not know where to begin when teachers ask them to write an essay. The techniques of brainstorming, prewriting, graphic organizers, and free writing all help, but most valuable is providing models.

Requests for Rhetorical Analysis of American Literary Text?

I'd like to make this website as helpful as possible for my colleagues. I am willing to write in-depth Rhetorical Analyses of shorter canonical American texts (essays, speeches, poems, short stories).  Please email me your requests.  I will write analyses of the most popular requests.

How to Analyze an Author's Style

On the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Exam, students may be asked to analyze an author's style, or compare and contrast the styles of two passages.  The following handout may be helpful to students.

Factors that Contribute to a Lower Grade on the AP English Language and Composition Argumentative/Persuasive Essay

Factors that Contribute to a Lower Grade on the AP English Language and Composition Argumentative/Persuasive Essay Response

AP Reader for AP English Language and Composition Exam

I have taught AP English Language and Composition for several years and I am also a Reader for the College Board.  In my role as a consultant for the National Math and Science Initiative, I travel to different parts of the country to help prepare students for the AP English Language and Composition Exam. Periodically, I will post handouts that I have created based on my experience in these different roles.  The suggestions in these handouts have been helpful for my students.  I hope they are useful for you and your students as well.

Reaction to New York Times Opinion Piece

Fredrick Harris, in his October 27^th New York Times Opinion piece, “The Price of a Black President,” implies that President Obama has disappointed African Americans.  Mr. Harris’s blame is misplaced.

An Open Letter to Mr. Romney

Dear Mr. Romney:

Your advisors have obviously told you that the best strategy now is to issue a mea culpa, or as my students would say, a “my bad” statement about your 47 percent comment. "Just tell them that you are for 100 percent of Americans now," your handlers have said. 

Some Published Articles

The following links are to some published articles about educational issues:

Need for STEM Education

The idea of integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics into what has been called a "meta-discipline" is an important step in synthesizing disciplines and moving beyond what I call "closed" pedagogies.  We are simply not preparing our students for the new globalized world if we think simplistically or reductively, focussing solely on our own subject areas within our lesson plans.  We must break down barriers among the subjects that we teach to integrate and collaborate.

National Bullying Prevention Month

The issue of bullying is an important matter in schools across the country, especially with the technological revolution and the resultant opportunities for individuals to hurt others through words posted in public forums.

Sample Lesson Facilitating Text-Dependent Responses from Students

The Common Core emphasizes text-dependent responses.  Below is a sample group presentation assignment for students that requires them to use text as support for their arguments.

Learning and the Brain

I love the ideas in the article linked below.  I have found that studying the latest in brain research has helped my teaching.

Great Source for Common Core

What a great source of free lesson plans, many of which relate directly to the Common Core.

Check out the link below:

http://www.oercommons.org/