Visual Thesaurus subscriber Debbie Shults is a veteran Sarasota, Florida, teacher, literacy coach -- and now blogger -- who we recently interviewed about her work defining a "new literacy" at her middle school. She graciously contributed the following article:

Middle school students have gained a great deal of notoriety for being difficult to teach. And while it is true that middle school is the New York City of the teaching profession, ("If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere."), veteran middle school teachers know that middle school kids are exceptional learners.

 Continue reading...

As every high school senior -- and parent of said senior -- knows all too well, now is crunch time for college applications. In her latest column, teacher Shannon Reed wrote an excellent guide to choosing the right college. Now we want to zero in on the big, hairy challenge to getting into that school: The personal essay. What should you write about? What should you not write about? To get the inside scoop, we called Richard Ries, AP English teacher and College Counseling Office essay advisor at Ben Lipson Hillel Community High School in North Miami Beach, FL. Here's our conversation:  Continue reading...

Shannon Reed is an award-winning playwright who teaches high school English to a large pack of bright young women at a private school on the beach in Queens, New York. She graciously contributed this column:

If you're a teacher, you've no doubt already have made the following observation: the two emotions that truly motivate a student are genuine interest... and fear. Many of us no doubt experienced this phenomenon ourselves when we were in school. I remember being motivated to do good work in three classes in high school: English and History, which I genuinely loved, and Earth Science, where the fearsome Mr. Colsun looked ever-ready to explode into a hellish ball of flame that would singe my eyebrows and ruin my complexion if I mislabeled the periodical table one more time. Mr. Colsun, I wish you ill, but to this day, I still know were mercury goes.

 Continue reading...

Shannon Reed is an award-winning playwright who teaches high school English to a large pack of bright young women at a private school on the beach in Queens, New York. She graciously contributed this column:

Last spring, the faculty at the small private school where I teach gathered in the traditional faculty meeting place -- a circa 1960's Home Ec room that probably shudders each time we refer to it as the "Consumer Sciences Department" -- to learn, from an exceedingly cranky member of the New York City Board of Education computers-in-the-classroom team, how to log into a website. As the woman snapped and snarled at everyone, I wondered, disinterestedly, what was her problem? Then I watched the faculty try to complete the simple tasks of accessing the internet and setting up a password and user name at the website. It quickly turned disastrous.

 Continue reading...

The Visual Thesaurus is very pleased to announce that we're now working together with The WordMasters Challenge to help students improve their vocabulary! What's WordMasters? As many of you already know, it's a popular national competition for Language Arts students in grades 3 to 12. Over four thousand school teams from every state participate each year. Students will now be able to study WordMasters lists right here on the Visual Thesaurus, with the first list arriving next month! We spoke to the program's founder, Nancy McGrath, to learn more about the challenge.  Continue reading...

Visual Thesaurus subscriber Debbie Shults is a veteran teacher, literacy coach -- and now, blogger -- who's helping her Sarasota, Florida, middle school define a "new literacy." So what's so new about this new literacy? We spoke to Debbie about innovations in language arts education at her school, where teachers there now make literacy a fundamental part of their class work -- no matter what the subject, from math to gym to shop class (yes, even shop!). How? Read our conversation:  Continue reading...

Ah, summertime. Ah, summer reading time! But what books should your kids bury their noses into this vacation? Enter super librarian Nancy Pearl. A veteran bookophile, commentator on NPR, and the model for a Librarian Action Figure doll (really), Nancy has introduced thousands of kids to great reads. She's the author of the popular Book Lust and Book Crush, which recommends books for elementary to high school students. We talked to Nancy about this summer's reading:  Continue reading...