Hello! I recently accepted a job teaching English for all grades at a high school in South Dakota. I'm very excited for the job but there is one small catch; I went to school for History and had my student teaching experience in a Social Studies classroom. The previous English teacher left on bad terms with the school and so I am unable to ask her for old lesson plans or advice. I would love any help that I could get for lesson plans for the following classes: - American Literature - British Literature - Composition I and II - Creative Writing - Speech Thank you so much in advance, and I look forward to any responses!
I taught British literature for years. What novels will you be teaching? You can start with Beowulf, do the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales and one or two tales, some sonnets, a Shakespeare play (I’m partial to Hamlet,) some Romantic poetry, a 19th century novel (I did Frankenstein,) and 1984. For the last few years I taught, we added The Kite Runner to the 12th grade curriculum, which meant a bit less poetry in order to fit it in. I integrated vocabulary with the current reading, reviewed grammar, and assigned a lot of low-stakes writing. One tip: have students do class work and homework in a composition notebook that you collect periodically and grade for completion, or perhaps only grade portions that you don’t identify ahead of time.
If you're interested, I have curriculum from my division that you can look at for American and British. PM and I'll send you the links. That's a lot for any teacher, but especially for someone with no English background. I would get a hold of the textbooks they have for those subjects and see what has been typical for those classes. I've taught all those except Creative Writing, so feel free to reach out--I can give you some specifics on stories, concepts, if I know specifically what you're teaching.
If it is a public school, you should be able to find state standards on the education department website. Our district also publishes curriculum maps online.
One of the biggest things that I can recommend is teaching the same "type" of lesson to all our your classes (or two of them), but varying the content. On discussion days, all of my classes discuss. When I give a quiz, everyone takes a quiz. I typically will have one group do an essay and one group do a project and switch every other unit because that makes grading easier. When they do projects, they always present them so that I can grade them on the spot. My opener is always grammar or vocabulary (I switch every other week). I also have all of my classes do independent reading on Fridays. They read for 30 minutes and then spend 10 minutes writing a summary and reflection about what they read in a journal. At the end of the semester, this journal is taken for a test grade. I'm now on my fifth year of teaching and have enough materials and experience that the prep isn't so overwhelming, so I'm starting to switch this up. But as a new teacher, I was teaching 4 different classes just like you, and I needed a system to keep things organized.
Hi there. Im in the same situation than Paige B. I've been teaching english for the French ministry of education for the past 10 years and planning to relocate to Spain in a british school. I am not aware of their lesson plans and wonder if british schools usually provide textbooks or just handouts. I'm not sure how to follow the british curriculum correctly and would appreciate some samples about : - American Literature - British Literature - Composition I and II - Creative Writing - Speech In order to compare with my own syllabus. Also it would be greatful if Someone could tell if teachers are allowed to leave the school during their break time. In france, if we have at from 8 to 9am then 11 to 12pm we are allowed to leave the school between 9 to 11. But when I worked in UK it was not possible. Could someone confirm pls. Thanks in advance.
What sort of school is it? There are sites which you can use to create lesson plans. I also recommend trying to find the relevant grade specific common core standards for your state too. You can use them as a aid to help you. How many pupils are there in the class? Research british literature novels. Make a list of discussion questions based on each novel to have the students join in a healthy discussion. Alternatively you could get the class to play literature charades during your classes instead of worksheets. Same applies to American Lit. Off the top of my head I can particularly recommend novels like Little Women. Of Mice and Men is another good one to use. Also I loved reading Treasure Island. My advice is to make a list and take it from there. Other novels include a Inspector Calls and Macbeth. What about Bram Stokes novel Dracula? That is a good one for middle and high school kids.
What about Bram Stokes novel Dracula? That is a good one for middle and high school kids. I might suggest Frankenstein over Dracula. It’s shorter, and students are surprised about the misconceptions they’ve had about the story.
The first thing I would do would be to take a look at the curriculum for those classes and then build lessons and choose materials. You don't want to reinvent the wheel so you should also speak with the department head since he/she might have english department materials ready to use.
