Author Archives: englishparsons

About englishparsons

A happy English teacher with massive potential for growth. Trying to share the best I have to offer with the teaching world.

Mr. P’s Senior Speech 2018

Dear Seniors, Welcome to your last high school class.  Ever. Welcome to a new kind of school life, where you will have much more choice about where to go and what to do. In minutes, your classes will all be … Continue reading

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Getting to Students interest with Playlists

This year I picked up a new elective course called “Personal Branding.” Modeled off the ideas of my good friend Jason Shaffer, the course is designed to help students get their own ideas out into the digital world — and … Continue reading

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Parsons’ Senior Speech

Dear Seniors, Welcome to your last high school English class.  Ever. What’s coming up s a period of exams, studying at home, and saying goodbye to the people and spaces that have been an enormous part of your life.  I’ll … Continue reading

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Blogs of the Week — From the Seniors

The Seniors produced some truly interesting and creative work this trimester.  There have been wonderful examples of original thought connecting the four works we have studied this year:  Death of a Salesman, The Importance of Being Earnest, Waiting For Godot, and … Continue reading

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Highlights from the Seniors’ Blogs

Here are some exemplary blogs from Trimester 1 of the IB Higher Level year two class.  Happy reading! Jordynn Lurie created a truly wonderful music video that combined many of the contradictions and equivocations that the witches use Macbeth. It’s … Continue reading

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Thanks for the Memories, Mr. Bajger!

“Bajger is retiring.” Cue a chorus of high school girl awwwwww noises.  That’s what I got every time I mentioned John’s imminent close to this chapter of his biography.  Since we’ve worked together for quite a while, I thought it appropriate … Continue reading

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My Senior Speech

Welcome, Seniors, to your last English lecture, which will be the first in a long series of lasts. Welcome to exam limbo, a three week purgatorial drift. You will drift into school for exams, drift out for lunch. You’ll study … Continue reading

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Walls as Learning Space

Another unit, another wall. This wall was assembled by 12th grade students to capture characters, symbols, and mock-artifacts related to Toni Morrison’s A Mercy.  The more I use this approach, the more value I see in it.  Students put their … Continue reading

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Three Weeks in English Teacher Heaven — Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

What happens when you bring together 25 passionate, talented, and eager teachers of English and Drama?  What happens when that diverse group of people works nonstop in and around The Globe Theatre — one of the most significant performance spaces … Continue reading

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Publicly Centered at the Student

We can talk about having a “student-centered” classrooms all day, but how do we prove it to our students? Over the past five years or so I’ve been looking for ways to make my classroom show that it’s a room … Continue reading

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