http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/?utm_source=rss A column about teaching Copyright 2012, Thinkmap Inc. All Rights Reserved. en Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/images/common/logo_on_white.gif http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/?utm_source=rss Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3114?utm_source=rss Before I began teaching, I had assumed that the many stories I had heard about how students don't like poetry were just myths. After all, I liked (some) poetry, so why wouldn't my students like (some) poetry? But unlike nearly every other myth I've dismissed in my time as a teacher, the one about poetry proved to be true: Nothing makes my students whine more than being handed a poem. Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3114 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3105?utm_source=rss What happens when nouns turn into verbs, and how can language arts educators use these "verbings" as teachable moments? Fitch O'Connell, a longtime teacher of English as a foreign language, takes a look at this "trending" topic. Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3105 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3101?utm_source=rss Michelle Dunaway, who teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, writes that interviewing is an integral part of teaching students about public speaking. She encourages English teachers to think of interviewing as "a way for students to start small in building up their public speaking repertoire." Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3101 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3079?utm_source=rss Our words matter. Of course, you know that — you're choosing to read words about words here at the Visual Thesaurus, so the chances are very good that you love words, love learning about them, love using them. You may even love correcting people who've misused words. Wed, 28 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3079 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3077?utm_source=rss In his best-selling grammar book for teachers of English as a foreign language, Basic English Usage (1984), Michael Swan famously used the term "taboo words" to discuss words that we tend to skirt around in the classroom, and this term entered the EFL teachers lexicon from that point on. Mon, 26 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3077 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3069?utm_source=rss When The New York Times was at its former site just off Times Square, and before the days of computers, when reporters clacked away on typewriters in a newsroom the size of an aircraft carrier flight deck, my high school journalism class and I toured the building annually, visiting the layout department, the newsroom and the press room. Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3069 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3060?utm_source=rss Kitty. Tron. Legit. All these words appeared in the 2011 edition of the yearbook I sponsor. Students used these as slang; all three were used to describe something cool. Aside from legit, which seems to have been around for a while, I'm not sure the other two stuck. Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3060 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3037?utm_source=rss Shannon Reed writes: "Texting, Twitter, Facebook statuses, IMing... all of these take up more of teenagers' lives than reading, hand-writing or (I suspect) conversing these days. Thus, I wanted to find a way to incorporate this familiar way of communicating into my curriculum." Tue, 15 Nov 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3037 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3029?utm_source=rss The day after Halloween, my Facebook feed exploded with posts about numbers. "I've written 5,200 words!" one friend exclaimed. Another claimed to have written 2,300. Someone else only had 1,500. And so on. Tue, 08 Nov 2011 05:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3029 Teachers at Work http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3026?utm_source=rss A great number of British people think that the way that the language is spoken on the British Isles is "proper" English and is the source language, the Holy Grail of English. In actual fact that is not true, and the way that the language has evolved in America leaves American English (AE) with correlates to the earlier form of English that existed when the Pilgrims hopped onto the Mayflower, many of which are not heard these days on Albion's crowded shores. Thu, 03 Nov 2011 04:00:00 UTC http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/teachersatwork/3026