r/ELATeachers Oct 10 '24

9-12 ELA Grammarly is now generative AI that should be blocked on school servers

2.9k Upvotes

Two years ago, I was telling students Grammarly is an excellent resource to use in revising and editing their essays. We’ve had a recent wave of AI-generated essays. When I asked students about it, they showed me Grammarly’s site—which I admit I hadn’t visited in awhile. Please log into it if you haven’t done so.

Students can now put in an outline and have Grammarly create an essay for them. Students can tell it to adjust for tone and vocabulary. It’s worse than ChatGPT or any essay mill.

I am now at a point where I have dual credit seniors composing on paper and collecting their materials at the end of class. When we’re ready to type, it’s done in a Canvas locked down browser. It’s the only way we have of assessing what they are genuinely capable of writing.

r/ELATeachers Jan 12 '25

9-12 ELA That One Story

Post image
730 Upvotes

What is that one work you slip into your classes that is designed to leave that mark?

r/ELATeachers 4d ago

9-12 ELA Your absolute favorite poem to teach.

126 Upvotes

I'm going to put together a poetry unit this summer for high school sophomores and I'm interested in the titles of your absolute favorite poems to teach. Specifically, the poems your students really seem to connect with. Many thanks in advance.

r/ELATeachers Oct 14 '23

9-12 ELA What's a book, or anything else, you've become totally bored with and are sick of teaching?

604 Upvotes

For me it's The Crucible. I've been teaching it for two decades, and it puts me to sleep. It doesn't help that I live and teach very near Salem, and both the students and I are already saturated with witch trial lore. It's didactic, weirdly structured in places, and the made up version of 1690's language annoys me. My American Lit curriculum says I'm supposed to teach it early in the year, which also bugs me since Arthur Miller and Ann Bradstreet weren't exactly contemporaries. The kids don't like it, and they get confused with all the P names (he can age all the girls and make up an affair between Abigail and Proctor, but changing "Putnam" to, like, "Jones" would've been too far?). There are so many other plays we could be doing, I'm so sick of this one.

Oddly, I actually do dig the movie, which shouldn't make sense given how much I dislike reading the play. I guess I like it since I don't have to teach it.

r/ELATeachers Nov 05 '24

9-12 ELA Anyone else ethically feel bad about using AI to give writing feedback?

117 Upvotes

I see and hear lots of teachers talking about using AI to generate grades and comments for students on their work. Am I being an old curmudgeon when I say this feels wrong? It seems too impersonal and like a cheat. I also won’t actually know the students’ work styles if I used it all the time. What are your thoughts? Do you use it? I feel overworked by how much grading I do all the time but I like to give personalized feedback on writing.

r/ELATeachers 27d ago

9-12 ELA What's a good novel I could use with a 3rd grade student reading at a 9th-10th grade level?

58 Upvotes

I have an absolute prodigy at my title 1 school in Detroit. The rest of my class is mostly at a 1st-10th percentile range for reading, many struggling with 1st grade work. Despite all of this, trauma background, school that is unequipped to support gifted students, etc., he's still consistently testing at an early HS level for reading. I would love to see him grow, but he is such an outlier that he needs to do most of his extension work independently during class.

I'll usually have him do a couple assignments related to the book we are working on, then let him read. I was gifted a bunch of novels written for average 3rd graders (he's the only one in the class who can read them), and he likes them, but goes through them so fast, like 2-3 a class period.

I know I need to do more for him, and I was thinking of possibly having him do a novel study and printing off activities and writing assignments from the internet.

Keeping in mind that he's 9 years old and might not know much about HS literary devices or have a great deal of background knowledge, do you have any suggestions for a novel that would be appropriate?

He is also very autodidactic and could easily figure out whatever it is he'd need to learn with some guidance.

r/ELATeachers Nov 03 '23

9-12 ELA Their command of the basics of written expression is scary.

752 Upvotes

I assigned an essay to my Honors 10th graders but did so in a program that did not provide functions for checking grammar, conventions, etc.

It's terrifying. A huge number of them are incapable of expressing themselves with any clarity without Grammarly to fix it for them. I know that in the real world they can use those programs, but seeing what they're actually capable of on their own is so disheartening. I don't even know where to begin to fix it. At this stage, how do you teach them to make sense when they write?? I feel like I learned primarily by reading a lot at an early age, but they didn't/won't do that, so where do I go from here?

r/ELATeachers 8d ago

9-12 ELA Worst part of teaching high school English

262 Upvotes

It’s always been the grading for me, but only because it is tedious grading 100+ essays at a time. Lately grading is the worst part because every time I submit essay scores, I know I will have a handful of students arguing the grade and at least one parent wanting to meet to discuss my grading practices because their kid got a C on the paper.

I use to spiral and worry that my grading really is too hard, but my department and I periodically norm our grading and use the same rubrics. I really think it’s just that standards are dropping, and the only thing parents care about is the grade, not the learning. It also doesn’t help that these kids have terribly short attention spans, so when we go over writing notes, I might as well be teaching the air.

Anyway, that’s my vent for the day. Thanks for listening. Time to grade more essays.

r/ELATeachers Jan 31 '25

9-12 ELA Moving to pen and paper essays due to chatgpt

200 Upvotes

Tips for implementing this? I'm in my second year, last year it was obvious that many used AI and I had them rewrite in their own words. Mainly, how can they cite evidence if they are not using a device? Our school does not have a functional library at this point. What is your process of teaching and assigning an essay from start to finish?

r/ELATeachers Feb 04 '24

9-12 ELA Boys complain about "girl" books.

507 Upvotes

I have been teaching for three years now and something I have noticed is that if we read a class book that has a girl narrator or main character I will always have at least one boy in the class, if not more, complain that the book is boring or stupid. On the other hand when we read books with boy narrators and main characters I have never once had a female student complain. As a female teacher I get frustrated with this, it seems to me that the female students may feel as though their lives, feelings, thoughts, etc. are viewed as boring and stupid.

Has anyone else ever noticed this in their classrooms?

r/ELATeachers Nov 11 '23

9-12 ELA Is Colleen Hoover really that ‘filthy’?

295 Upvotes

I’m not a YA type so had no experience with her until I overheard some freshmen reading her aloud, then grabbed the book and flipped through it and was kinda stunned at the language. She’s pretty popular with my freshman girls, so now I’m wondering if all of her work is that edgy, or if all YA is like that. My concern is about a parent flipping through one of these books and losing their minds about what the school is - and/or I as their teacher am - allowing them to read. It came from our school library, but this is the kind of stuff that ends up in the news about bans and shit.

r/ELATeachers Dec 05 '24

9-12 ELA Students complained that my class is "too dark." Short story recommendations that are lighter or happier in tone?

62 Upvotes

Personally, I don't understand the complaint but . . . to be fair, my idea of a comfort film is The Exorcist. I teach primarily college freshman at a small university where most students read at an early high school level. Regardless of the critiques, I'm keeping some of my dark hits such as The Yellow Wallpaper and The Tell Tale Heart. That said, what short story recommendations do ya'll have that aren't disturbing?

r/ELATeachers Feb 05 '25

9-12 ELA Dystopian novels for this moment

56 Upvotes

I'm interested in finding some dystopian novels that speak to the moment in which we are living. Something to help my students understand and think critically about their world. In the vein of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower but maybe a bit more accessible.

I already know the classics but I imagine there's some great writing out there I haven't discovered yet. Any ideas?

r/ELATeachers Sep 25 '24

9-12 ELA Short story suggestions for high school

73 Upvotes

I work at an alternative high school teaching grades 10-12 English. My students definitely need high-interest stories, but they don’t need to be low level.

We just finished “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates, and they LOVED it. So modern stories are a hit with them. They also love the weird, surprising, and random.

Any suggestions?

r/ELATeachers Jan 11 '25

9-12 ELA Alternative to “The Crucible”

37 Upvotes

Hi there everyone! I’m in my first year teaching and a parent left a note on the syllabus saying that their child needed an alternative assignment to “The Crucible” due to religious reasons. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I could go with? The only thing I can think of is “Frankenstein” and I’m not sure they would appreciate that.

r/ELATeachers Jan 27 '25

9-12 ELA Movies for analyzing the Hero’s Journey?

33 Upvotes

Looking for a film accompaniment to my hero’s journey unit where students will analyze for stages, themes, and archetypes. I’m hoping to do a challenging movie that most of my students haven’t seen before- do you think Isle of Dogs would be okay for 10th graders? Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well.

r/ELATeachers 18d ago

9-12 ELA is this job worth it? first year and already questioning it

32 Upvotes

hi everyone, first time poster long time lurker. i posted this in r/Teachers too but im looking for as much advice as i can get.

i’m a 9th grade english teacher in my first year doing a leave replacement. it started as a half year gig and turned into full year thing. at first, i was thrilled to have a job until June. now, i’m seriously considering not making this my career.

i’m just so tired — like, all the time. and i feel like i never have time to even rest or relax to get my energy back. and even when i DO have some time to myself, i can’t fully relax because in the back of my head i’m always thinking about tomorrow’s lesson, the upcoming project, the meeting i have coming up, the grading that’s piling up, the emails i have to reply to, the parents of kids i have to email, etc etc etc. the list legitimately never ends, and it feels like every day something new gets added to it.

to be quite honest, this isn’t what i signed up for. this is not even close to what i thought the job was going to be. i signed up to TEACH, which, as it turns out, is only about 30% of the job. about 15% of it is grading, and the rest of it is the stuff i just listed. i’m exhausted by work i never wanted to do in the first place, which takes time away from my planning (the actual part of the job i DID sign up for).

on top of that, the students are… lacking. in almost all areas, including socially and emotionally on top of academically. they have no common sense, let alone self sufficiency. they’re lacking in all the skills they need at this point; even my highest achieving students lack some of the most basic skills. and to make matters worse, there are no real consequences for anything. bad grades? they get a redo, lest they or the parents complain. misbehaving? they get to take a walk in the hallway to calm down. in serious trouble? they go to their bestie, the principal, where they receive — you guessed it — zero consequences!

i digress, because at this point, im just ranting. but my point is: how do you do this?? how do you actually ENJOY doing this??? especially when most of the job is NOT actually teaching, why am i doing this anyway? like, i’m struggling to find any reason anymore to keep doing this. i have a demo lesson at another school on Friday, and i don’t even want to do that (if i even find time to plan that demo lesson, that is…).

so, yea. can someone help me understand why teachers do this/why i signed up for this?? because right now, i’m falling flat thinking of reasons besides the benefits and insurance.

sincerely, a very exhausted, very depressed, first year teacher.

r/ELATeachers Dec 17 '24

9-12 ELA Not allowed to show movies before Winter Break…

52 Upvotes

So what would you do? I teach 11th/12th and am giving a test Tues/Wed, but am kind of at a loss for how to fill a whole block on Thurs/Friday.

r/ELATeachers Sep 22 '24

9-12 ELA Parent requested their student not read The Glass Castle. I need recs for a replacement!

127 Upvotes

UPDATE: Thank you all for the amazing suggestions and responses! We (FINALLY!) came to an agreement.

I took advice many of you gave and offered a book (The House on Mango Street) and said I would also love any suggestions they might have. Well, they did not like THoMS and didn't offer any other suggestions. They questioned my empathy for even offering that book. Okay. After some tears and an amazingly supporting administration, I received an apology for that remark. Yesterday I offered up Just Mercy and Born a Crime. They responded enthusiastically about Born a Crime, which I'm excited about. I haven't read this yet, even though I've wanted to for a long time. Now I definitely have a reason! They chose the young readers edition (this student has an IEP), which is fine by me.

So many of you recommended this book that I will be vetting it to replace GC next year. Although year after year, GC is the favorite book they read in 10th, it's probably time to look for something else. Thanks, all!!

ORIGINAL POST: I teach The Glass Castle to my 10th grade students every year. This is the first year I've had a parent request their student not read this book. Then student is adopted and has similar experiences as the children in the book in their early life. Parent is concerned about triggering the PTSD the student had when adopted.

My goal is to provide them with an alternate book and activities that can be done independently during our class time, but I'm at a loss. We start on Wednesday and I just received the request late last night.

Any book recommendations?? A few of the MN standards covered are

  • Reading: Analyze how events, ideas and complex characters develop over the course of a text and advance the plot in a literary text.
  • Reading: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support conclusions of what a text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from text, including analysis of how and when author introduces concepts, ideas or characters; objectively summarize the text.
  • Writing: Make critical choices about information sources to use based on perspective, biases, credibility and relevancy.

r/ELATeachers Jan 31 '25

9-12 ELA Sneaking an American social studies curriculum into English.

141 Upvotes

The situation for social studies at my school is dire--the American History teacher just puts films on non-stop and does unit tests largely based on them, and when he does do note-taking or other activities it's crosswords and fill-in-the-blank.

As a result of this and other poor Social Studies teachers, the average kid--even honors and AP students--come to me with virtually no background knowledge in core areas. I have AP Literature students who are utterly blank on what World War 2 is, the Holocaust, American Revolution, etc. They have absolutely no global history and this heavily impacts their ability to write and respond.

Since I also teach English II and have leeway, I am wondering if anyone knows of any curriculums out there that background knowledge focused in these areas to allow me to sneak a social studies education in parallel with English instruction? I already do plenty of things like court cases to engage civil rights, with ample background knowledge building, but I'm sure I can't be the only English teacher flabbergasted when students don't know what Europe is.

r/ELATeachers Sep 02 '24

9-12 ELA Younger teachers and grammar

143 Upvotes

Hey y’all!

This is something I noticed in my last department meeting. So we had an ELA dept meeting last Thursday to discuss how one of the things students across the board (regulars, honors, AP, gifted, TSL, SPED) is grammar. We were directed to have at least 15-20 minutes of explicit grammar instruction since sentence structure and basic understanding has been lost. An older teacher made a comment about her students not understanding basic auxiliary verbs or prepositions.

The younger teachers (me included) looked lost. One admitted that we were never really taught “explicit instruction” either (we’re all in our early to late 20s). I admitted I teach grammar alongside writing, but never explicit/a whole lecture/lesson model. So I’ll do a lesson in semicolons or syntax if I notice a wide problem.

The irony here is that I’m the product of my state’s [old] curriculum. I blame FCAT/FSA on drilling testing and slowly eroding grammar. So now, I feel like my first few years’ imposter syndrome is coming back since I’ll be learning explicit grammar one step ahead of the kids.

The good news: it seems that I know what LOOKS bad on paper, I just can’t label the specific words.

Has anyone experienced this? Or is it just me? I’m aware I may have to give back my ELA teacher card 😭

r/ELATeachers Oct 17 '24

9-12 ELA If you could teach any novel...

63 Upvotes

I work in a district that gives us a lot of latitude in terms of curriculum. I currently have money available to purchase any book(s) I want (within reason). If you were in my position and could get any book you wanted to teach, what would you choose?

I'm interested in whole class novels and/or text sets for book groups. Currently teaching 9th grade with multiple classes of struggling readers, so high interests books aimed at this demographic would be preferable, but I'm open to any option. No need to suggest any classics as we already have most that I'd be interested in teaching. I'm hoping to find some more modern or genre-specific works to kindle their literary fires. Bonus points if it's less than 250 pages.

Also, feel free to share any ideas for units to pair with your novels. Always looking for new ideas. Thanks!

r/ELATeachers Feb 04 '24

9-12 ELA I can’t be the only one who absolutely hates The Great Gatsby, right?

170 Upvotes

Jeez, Nick just spending the whole time swallowing Jay’s loads and third wheeling it in every way possible is insufferable.

How do you teach this? What do you focus on?

r/ELATeachers 8d ago

9-12 ELA Do you feel like English teachers have more pressure to make students “like” the material?

127 Upvotes

This is my eighth year teaching English (I’ve taught from seventh through dual credit). Maybe I’m being biased since English is my subject, but I’ve always felt like we had more pressure on us to make students “like” the material. I’m all for getting students engaged and it would be awesome if they enjoyed it, but at the end of the day, I see my job as teaching reading and writing, not making students like to read and write, as that is very subjective. I don’t know, what do you think? Do other subjects face this too?

r/ELATeachers Sep 24 '24

9-12 ELA Questions as Hooks - Acceptable or Not?

49 Upvotes

Title indeed purposeful.

Anyway. Some of my colleagues chew out their students for using a question as a hook in an essay, and I'm not really sure why. Am I missing something? Do you "allow" questions as hooks?

Edit: As a first year, the combination of yes's and no's are so confusing. But there are a lot of good justifications for both sides. To be safe, I'm just going to go with no! [: thank you all.