English Teacher Fun Box
A carefully curated collection of resources that promise to surprise, delight, and engage.
What’s In This Month’s English Teacher Fun Box?
English Teacher Fun Box is a carefully curated collection of timely lessons and resources, designed to engage your students based on what's relevant and trending during any given month. You’ll have everything you need to make teaching exciting, impactful, and deeply connected to the world your students live in.
- Teach Argument on April Fool's With Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" -- This is the FIRST lesson bundle that's included in the April English Teacher Fun Box, but we just dropped it into the March Fun Box so you can get your hands on it in time for April 1st. (What better way to celebrate April Fool's than with Swift's satirical infamous satirical essay? And maybe with a touch of modern satire from The Onion brought into the mix?)
- Teach Argument With The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock for National Poetry Month -- That's right! April is National Poetry Month, and what an absolute joy it is to teach incredible works of poetry through the lens of argument and rhetorical analysis. This particular lesson bundle asks students to closely read, unpack, and rhetorically analyze T.S. Eliot's famous poem, "The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock." This extensive guided analysis culminates with a synthesis task that asks students to place Prufrock into conversation with Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" -- an awesome combination.
- Teach Argument With Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero" -- Complement your deep dive into "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" with a close reading and rhetorical analysis of Taylor Swift's "Anti-Hero." The Prufrock bundle culminates with a synthesis task that connects the poem to Taylor Swift's hit song, but the full "Anti-Hero" bundle ensures you can take the lesson even further.
- Teach Argument With Langston Hughes and Amanda Gorman for National Poetry Month -- Dig into even more wonderful poetry this National Poetry Month with Langston Hughes' "Let America Be America Again" and Amanda Gorman's "The Hill We Climb." This lesson bundle offers a comprehensive guided rhetorical analysis of both texts, along with opportunities to compare, contrast, and synthesize these remarkable works. The culminating exercise asks students to weave a third argument into the mix: Childish Gambino's "This Is America." Wow!
- Teach Argument With Childish Gambino's "This Is America" -- Complement your students' analysis of "Let America Be America Again" and "The Hill We Climb" with this wildly popular lesson that centers around Childish Gambino's hit song, "This Is America." This offers a wonderful opportunity to extend the work of your students' poetry analyses in a compelling, engaging, and relevant way!
- Teach Argument With Earth Day Speeches -- Earth Day falls on April 22nd this year, and what better way to celebrate than with a close reading and rhetorical analysis of Gaylord Nelson's first ever Earth Day address? This lesson offers a comprehensive guided analysis of Nelson's 1970 speech, as well as Greta Thunberg's 2019 address to the U.N. These are very powerful (and very different) arguments that center on the stuff of Earth Day!
What Was In Last Month’s English Teacher Fun Box?
English Teacher Fun Box is a carefully curated collection of timely lessons and resources, designed to engage your students based on what's relevant and trending during any given month. You’ll have everything you need to make teaching exciting, impactful, and deeply connected to the world your students live in.
- Teach Complex Concepts (Like Thesis Statements) With March Madness — There’s a BETTER way to use tournament-style brackets to teach complex concepts and to achieve deeper learning. Try this once, and you'll be using it all year.
- Teach Argument With St. Patrick’s Day — This is a fun one! Students will receive a rainbow passport that corresponds to six different color-coded stations throughout the room, each one somehow connected to St. Patrick’s Day and Irish heritage. The surprise at the end of the rainbow? You guessed it. An awesome synthesis essay!
- Teach Argument With Post Malone’s “I Had Some Help” — Post Malone’s hit song, “I Had Some Help,” has been at the top of the charts for months. This bundle includes a guided close reading and opportunities for synthesis with similar arguments (e.g. “Before He Cheats”).
- Teach Argument With Bruno Mars & Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile” — This month, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga’s “Die With a Smile” seems to be playing on every station, all of the time. Throughout the song, Bruno Mars and Lady Gaga pay homage to the famous duets of the 1970s, but with a modern twist. This bundle asks students to unpack the language in this popular text, and to synthesize it with comparable popular arguments that inspired its development.
- Teach Argument and Rhetorical Prowess With Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" -- This is the FIRST lesson bundle that's included in the April English Teacher Fun Box, but we just dropped it into the March Fun Box so you can get your hands on it in time for April 1st. (What better way to celebrate April Fool's than with Swift's satirical infamous satirical essay? And maybe with a touch of modern satire from The Onion brought into the mix?)
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