A Teacher's Daze

P icking up where I left off in my last blog, I am excited to share a method I used this past year to help prepare my 6th grade ELA students to write a “timed” essay on our state’s standardized test.   “H.O.T .   T.E.E.  x’s 2” I u sed this method with my students to help them prepare for the TIMED essay portion of the state writing test. I am working on a slide show that will soon be available on TPT.  I will post when it is available.  The slide show gives a basic over-view to help students understand how learning this acronym can save valuable time, as well as increase their test performance.  Which grades benefit from using   “H.O.T .   T.E.E.  x’s 2.” ? Elementary, middle or high school students who are required to write a TIMED essay can use some parts, if not all of this method.  I know this is true because I have taught English from 6th to the 12th grade, for the past 28 years.  20 years of my teaching has been in secondar...

The pic above is my first sketched version to guide students through their first paragraph.  Obviously, this is the H.O.T. part of the acronym. T.E.E. x’s 2 will follow in my next blog, that I will post within the next day or two.  “A cuppa’ tea, please?”  As teachers of English, one of the most difficult standards to teach to any student is how to write a TIMED Essay for a standardized test.  The idea I am about to share made my job teaching timed writing for the state test less of a hassle than any year, in the past!!  With 28 years of teaching behind me, as a secondary teacher, I can say I have been there and done that, and I still do not have a monopoly on the way a teacher should prepare students for writing a a timed essay on the standardized writing test.   One obvious problem is the fact that nothing remains constant in education and the focus for this particular test, often changes when an upgraded model comes along- or in some cases, a totally ...