To Teach Gothic Literature [S1 E28]
HELLO OCTOBER!
While secondary teachers might not always teach seasonal lessons, October is my favorite exception. Gothic literature, spooky stories, and all of the things associated with this particular holiday are wonderfully useful in the secondary ELA classroom. This month, we recruited six phenomenal English teachers to share their favorite ways of taking inspiration from the season to create engaging, challenging, and fun lessons for their students. We hope you are inspired by their ideas and can implement them in your classroom this season (or any time of the year, really!)
Meet Patrick!
PhD Candidate - University of Iowa
English & Media Studies Teacher (former) - Antioch Community High School
Patrick Johnson is a PhD candidate at University of Iowa. Patrick’s work is in Journalistic Reporting and Writing, Media Ethics, Design, Capstone Production courses. At the high school level, Patrick taught the bulk of the school’s media classes, which allowed him to modify curriculum for Halloween. He’s also taught senior-level English classes, one of which emerged from the various gothic traditions in literature--villains in literature.
Meet Vennieta!
8th Grade English
Los Angeles, California
Vennieta is an 8th Grade English in the Los Angels, CA area. This is her 19th year teaching English Language Arts. Her work in the classroom. She has her Master’s degree and also serves as a lead teacher for the Teacher Support Institute (TSI) at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH). Vennieta is a social justice educator dedicated to helping her students wrestle with the injustices of the world.
Vennieta was recently featured on the Secondary English Coffee Shop blog as a guest writer. She shared ideas on using text pairings to create deep connections with complex texts. Read it here!
Meet Brynn!
6th Grade English
Philadelphia, PA
This is Brynn’s third year teaching 6th grade English Language Arts. She has worked for several years as a reading intervention teacher at the middle school level and before that she taught high school, primarily freshman English. Brynn’s work in the English teacher community is vast: her Teachers Pay Teachers store is loaded with brilliant ideas, her website features creative and engaging ideas for students in every area of ELA, and if that’s not impressive enough, she’s the host of both the #2ndaryela Twitter chat and Facebook group. Over 25,000 teachers rely on Brynn for both her resources and this space in social media for teachers to have critical conversations about their craft.
Meet Susan!
Grady High School / AP Literature
Atlanta, GA
Susan is a compassionate, genuine, and leader in the secondary English community. Susan’s specialty is in all things AP Lit. She supports teachers in the AP Literature Facebook group, helps teacher navigate the complicated world of College Board, and has build the website APLITHelp.
Meet Staci!
8th Grade English
Los Angeles, CA
Staci has been teaching for ten years and has taught a range of grades from 5-8. Staci is an active teacher on social media sharing her ideas with teachers through her posts and stories across the world. Staci reminds teachers to breathe and be present. Her website, www.donutlovinteacher.com, offers creative ideas and solutions for secondary ELA teachers. Staci also has a Teachers Pay Teachers store where teachers can find resources ready to go for their classrooms.
Meet Ashley!
Senior English
East Tennessee
Ashley is a high school English teacher, curriculum writer, and dog Mom. Ashley’s work in the classroom finds creative solutions that keep her students highly engaged and remembering that there is still magic in learning (if you don’t believe me, check out her other baby, the Keeping the Wonder Workshop). Ashley is a blogger, Teachers Pay Teachers resource creator, and a pretty amazing interior decorator.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope you’ve made some new teacher friends and gotten some inspiring ideas to take back into your classrooms!