This summer has been used to read and learn and gather as much information as I can from a variety of sources about teaching secondary English. Diving into all of these resources throughout the summer has been highly motivating…I should have read more books, but we’re working on that. I just picked up Laurie Halse Anderson’s Twisted and am loving it as much as Speak, another favorite of mine from SFHS CE9. Regardless, I’m finally read to sit down and start pre-planning for my new job at Clinton.
The first unit for 9th grade is the business letter unit. It shouldn’t take more than a few days, but I’m trying to make it more meaningful. I’m going to suggest that students write to an actual person or organization that they feel they have something to say to. My next thing to do is gather the names and addresses of people and places that might be important to 9th graders. Set up some real-world situations that you would have to write a letter for. We have tons of envelopes, so students would only have to get a stamp if they wanted to actually mail their letter. Maybe we’d get a response even! The other thing I’m thinking about is how outdated a mailed business letter is becoming. Currently, I think we write more emails than anything else, so why not go to the lab and write an “official” email, with proper greeting, formatting, and grammar? Something I’m thinking about. What we teach not only needs to meet the curriculum standards but also be practical. A bit of both of these options should be a better lesson for creating relevancy and connections in my classroom.
