On 10/04/09, lmey wrote:
> Hello--I am new to teaching HS English and I need some ideas
> to spice it up and get students' attention especially at the
> beginning of the period. Any ideas?

A lot of that can lie in your manner and presentation - when
you go to a show, does the performer ask you for your
thoughts and ideas or do they plunge in and hold your
attention? I always suggests teachers take an acting class
and I'm not kidding - a bit of the diva can't hurt when it
comes to working the crowd that is a classroom.

How does the rest of the period go? Fairly smooth?

If so, there is the concept of 'wake up type activities'
though you have to keep changing it up to have it keep
working to wake them up.

try this - "Paul, give me a word. Susan, another. Tom
another - what do we have? Three words? Is it a sentence? No?
Why not? What's missing?

John, give me a noun. Theresa a verb - an appropriate verb
please (wicked smile) Now do we have a sentence? We do but
does it make sense? Clock cry.

No but it does sound like poetry. Everybody write a word on a
piece of small scrap paper and my challenge to myself is - to
use them all in a single sentence. By tomorrow - it's the
William Faulkner Memorial Challenge to English Teachers
Challenge - who was Faulkner??

Funny that you ask - today we're reading....

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