Photo by Jakob on Unsplash Image by Lorenzo Cafaro from Pixabay “Are you grading for spelling on this?” a middle-school-aged student asked about his essay. Of course I was grading for spelling—on this essay and on other...

Photo by Jakob on Unsplash “Are you grading for spelling on this?” a middle-school-aged student asked about his essay. Of course I was grading for spelling—on this essay and on other assignments. But for some older students,...

Does Johnny deserve an A? Did Susie answer enough questions correctly? Can Janie read the proper amount of words from this list? Sometimes assessment is easy, if there is a definite right/wrong answer or if the answer key...

Photo credit: Winona History Center In the early 1900s, the town of Winona Lake, Indiana, was a summertime destination for many Christians. Cultural Chautauqua speakers and events mixed with a three-week Bible conference in a...

Chris has difficulty forming letters with his pencil; his arm twists around in a circle, and he pushes his pencil through the paper. Anne jumps up from her desk every few minutes and is constantly turned around backward in her...

“I read it, but I don’t remember any of it!” the student exclaimed. And I understood. Although I am an avid reader, how many times have I found my eyes skimming over the page while my mind is elsewhere? For pleasure reading, this...

Many of us remember those days in the learning-to-read process when we read aloud haltingly, sounding the words out and maybe guessing what the words were from the first letter. In a classroom setting, we counted the students...

It happens all too often. People ask me what I do, and I say, “I’m a high school and college English teacher!” I’m usually met with the same response: eye-rolls and comments about how “I hated writing when I was in school” or “I...

Everyone learns, all the time. Some of the learning is controlled; other learning simply happens. For the teacher, a periodical consideration of philosophical aspects of this teaching/learning process is beneficial. Who do I...