Super ELA 
I’ve written in the past about how I’ve used a movie day to not only give myself a break to grade, but also review important concepts with students. With the end of the first quarter and Halloween around the corner, I’ve come up with another assignment that combines the fun of a Tim Burton classic … Read more
Like many ELA teachers, I like to use music as an inroad for teaching figures of speech. It’s not only accessible for struggling readers, but also delightful for me because I get to watch a room of too-cool-for-school teens rock out to my tunes. For today’s post, I’d like to share my favorite lesson plan … Read more
It’s been quiet at Super ELA! for the last few months, but things are about to ramp up big time. I’m excited to announce that my new Parts of Speech Coloring Comic Workbook will be available just in time for the start of the 2022-2023 school year! Students of all ages can give their own … Read more
Toward the beginning of May, I enrolled in the online master’s program for English at Ohio University. Like my classmates, I made the choice to go back to graduate school because I want to increase my depth of knowledge about English literary history and theories of composition. But the first week focused on neither of … Read more
Have you ever had one of those months where it feels like you’re on a hamster wheel, just trying to keep up? That’s what April felt like for me. So much happened, including moving Super ELA! to a new server (not fun) and going to my first comic convention (lots of fun!). All of this … Read more
It’s officially month two of my graphic novel reading challenge! Just like last month, I focused on YA graphic novels. And, just like last month, I got most of the books from my local library. However, this time I wanted to mix it up a little, so I also selected a book from the ComiXology … Read more
Every English teacher’s been there: It’s Friday, you’ve got too much to grade, and you could really use a day of quiet to plow through the papers. You think to yourself, “Wouldn’t it be great if I could just show a movie?” When I was teaching high school English full time, I had many, many … Read more
The joy of being an English teacher AND a speech teacher is that no matter what I’m teaching, I get to talk about rhetoric! I’m not kidding—I love the days when I get to introduce Aristotle’s “means of persuasion.” This is because ethos (ee-thos), pathos (pay-thos), and logos (low-gos) are all around us all the … Read more
Last month I decided to embark on a reading challenge. The goal: read five graphic novels and/or comics per month. The reason I decided to do this was that though I enjoy making comics about grammar and language arts, I don’t make much space in my reading rotation for books in the comic genre. (This … Read more
It was a chilly Thursday morning when I pulled into the wooded parking lot of NewGate School in Lakewood Ranch. I felt like Mary Lennox as I entered the campus, like I was entering a mysterious and secret garden of education. (This is how I’ve always thought about Montessori schools.) My “key” to this garden … Read more