An Appositively Wonderful Grammar Lesson!

Teaching grammar can be quite a challenge when you are trying to incorporate it within a literature unit. Because most literature textbooks simply stick to teaching figurative language and comprehension tools, grammar gets left on an island all alone. While in graduate school, I took a methods course that taught me how to take most grammar lessons and apply it to the literature that I teach each year (thanks, Dr. Barkley!). One of my favorite grammar activities to include in my literature units is teaching appositive phrases. 

What is an appositive phrase? 

An appositive is a noun or noun phrase placed next to another noun and accentuates that noun by providing more information. 

How do I teach it within my literature units? 

Because my students are reading Fahrenheit 451, I used this lesson just the other day as a mini-refresher session. 

I start off by giving my students 2 questions that they have to answer using complete sentences. 

1. Who is Guy Montag? 

2. Who is Guy's wife? 

1. Guy Montag is a fireman. 

2. Guy is married to Mildred. 

What is next? 

The students use the answer to those questions to create an appositive phrase. They combine their answers to make one complete sentence. 

Guy Montag, a fireman, is married to Mildred. 

The students now have a sentence that includes an appositive phrase. It is important to explain that an appositive phrase must exist within a complete sentence. Have the students check their work by removing the appositive phrase and make sure that the sentence is complete without the appositive phrase. 

Slop, Slop, Sloppy Joe!

Every once in a while, I want to recreate one of my favorite dishes from my childhood: the sloppy joe! My mom used the ancient recipe of the "manwhich" meal and I loved every bite! When I got older, I decided I needed to bring back this modern delacacy! While I love a quick and easy meal, I don't like using a lot of processed foods such as Hamburger Helper or Manwhich, so I began my search for a homemade sloppy joe recipe. My search ended when I discovered The Pioneer Woman! I love, love, love her blog, her recipes, her ideas! Her recipes are so very brilliant, yet accessible to the inexperienced chef. I haven't made these in a while, but I am definitely putting this on my menu for next week. Happy cooking! 

Ingredients: 

2 Tbsp of butter

2 1/2 lb of ground beef

1/2 large whole onion diced

1 large green bell pepper, diced

5 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 cup ketchup

1 cup of water

2 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Worcestershire sauce (to taste)

2 tbsp tomato paste (optional)

Salt to taste

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Buns

Butter

Directions: 

Add butter to a large skillet or dutch oven over medium high heat. Add ground beef and cook until brown. Drain most of the fat and discard. 

Add onions, green pepper, and garlic. Cook for a few minutes or until the vegetables begin to get soft. 

Add ketchup, brown sugar, chili pepper, and water. Stir to combine and let simmer for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste, along with the tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce and tabasco if desired. Taste and add seasonings as needed. 

Spread buns withe butter on a griddle or skillet. You can also toast them! Spoon meat mixture onto the buns and top with cheese if you like! 

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/04/sloppy-joes/ 

Pinata-palooza!

I taught Spanish and English for the first 6 years of my teaching career. I loved everything about teaching Spanish, but especially the culture projects that I would assign for each unit. While I never perfected the art of the pinata, I did love painting my ceiling tiles to look like the flags of Spanish speaking countries. 

At Sardis High School, we have a great Spanish teacher, Ashley Lee. She is full of energy and great ideas! One of the biggest projects in her classroom each fall is the pinata project. Two weeks before Homecoming week, she explains to the students the rules and rubrics for the pinata. The students are to create the "shell" for the pinata at home. The week of Homecoming (because it is sooo chaotic), she sets up tables in her classroom for the modge-podge application part of the pinata process. Her students bring their pinatas to school and work on them in class for the entire week. The modge-podge makes a little bit of a mess, but the kids have a great time! After the modge-podge dries, the students take their pinata home for the final preparations. The students are given one week to cover it in paper/glitter/paint. They bring it back to school and it hangs in Mrs. Lee's room proudly! Mrs. Lee uses a rubric to score the pinatas (it is a 200 point project). The pinatas hang proudly in her room for the entire year. At the end of the year, the students decide if they want to smash their pinatas during a Spanish-themed party. They are such beautiful creations-too pretty to break! Here are some of my favorites: 

Back to Blogging!

The past couple of weeks have been quite chaotic and full of grading paper after paper for my AP Language classes. In addition to my teaching gig at Sardis, I also teach for Jacksonville State University. I have taught a number of classes for the Department of Education and Professional Studies, but this semester I am teaching a hybrid class called Introduction to Education. This course is required for all Education majors at JSU. It is a really fun class that meets only four times a semester, because the coursework is mostly done online. Last week, I met with my students at midterm so that I could evaluate their progress. As a result of these after-school-meetings, I got way behind on blogging. Hopefully, I can stay caught up with fun classroom ideas and recipes!

I am so thankful that I married a man that knows his way around the kitchen. Any time I need help cooking, I can always ask Justin to step in and assist me with whatever I am making. This past weekend my family hosted a birthday/retirement party for a family friend, Miss Ivy Mordecai. After working as a librarian for over 30 years, she decided to retire. My sister, Holli, and I are usually the party-planners for any family event, so we decided to usher in fall by having a soup and sandwich themed menu. We served 3 different types of soup along with cornbread muffins made by may Aunt Rob (she is also an amazing cook!), cheese dip, ham and cheese sliders, and some of Holli's amazing desserts. I was in charge of making baked potato soup and ham and cheese sliders. My baked potato soup recipe was a little more involved than just one of my easy crock pot recipes, so I had to call on Justin to make the ham and cheese sliders. He did a great job! Here are the recipes for the baked potato soup and ham and cheese sliders: 

Baked Potato Soup

6 large baked potatoes, peeled and diced (I cooked mine for 3 hours on high in my crock pot. Make sure you wrap them in aluminum foil.)

1 stick of butter

1 onion chopped

1/2 cup plain flour (you made need a little more than this along the way)

3 (14.5 oz) cans of chicken broth

1 t dried parsley flakes

2 cups of Half and Half (can be fat free and it won't change the taste)

1 cup sour cream

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese

Bacon bits

Salt and pepper

Melt butter, add onions and cook until tender. Stir in flour and cook for 1 minute stirring constantly. Gradually add chicken broth and continue stirring until thick and bubbly. (You might have to add a little more flour so that the mixture thickens) Put in diced potatos, parsley, and half and half. Cook for 10 minutes. Add cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits before serving. 

Ham and Cheese Sliders

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb of deli ham, thinly sliced

1/2 lb of baby Swiss cheese

24 Hawaiin King rolls

1/2 cup of butter

2 tbsp of mustard

1 tbsp worcetershire sauce

2 tbsp of poppy seeds

2 tbsp of chopped onion (I used a half package of dried onion soup mix)

Set oven to 375. Melt butter and add poppyseed, onion, and worcetershire sauce. Without separating the rools, slice them horizontally. Spread both sides evenly with butter mixture. Fill evenly with ham and cheese. Let them sit for 10 minutes before baking. Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is melted. 

These are soooo good! 

Quick and Easy Beef Tips

As the semester progresses, I find myself spending less time in the kitchen and more time grading essays and studying rhetorical devices. I knew that AP Language was going to be a tough class to teach, but I didn't know that it would feel like my first year of teaching all over again. I have almost used up all of my freezer meals that I created at the beginning of the year, so I am always looking for something easy to throw into my crock pot until I have a free Saturday to make more freezer-ready meals (I am planning to make new recipes this Saturday!). I decided to start our Monday off with one of our favorite meals: beef tips and rice. While my sister always says that beef tips look like dogfood, they sure don't taste like dogfood (I am assuming!). Here is my quick and easy recipe: 

Ingredients: 

2 lbs of beef tips

1 can French onion soup

1 can golden mushroom soup

1 package of dry onion mix

2 tablespoons of flour

Directions: 

Place the beef tips in the crock pot. Pour flour all over the beef to create a light coating. Pour remaining ingredients over the beef tips and cook on low for 4-6 hours. (I usually cook mine for 5 hours.)

Chicken Burrito Bowls

I love cooking Mexican food, because it is generally very easy to make a yummy dish. I also love Mexican food, because it involves cheese. The recipe that I am sharing today is my interpretation of Moe's burrito bowls. There is not a Moe's in Gadsden, so I like to invent recipes that taste similar to their dishes. Sometimes I fail, but I think this recipe turned out quite delicious. Enjoy!

Ingredients: 

2 cups of corn (frozen or canned)

1 can of black beans rinsed and drained

1 cup of chunky salsa divided (my favorite salsa is On the Border) 

1 clove of garlic (or garlic powder works just as well)

1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin

4 boneless skinless chicken breast 

1 package (8 oz) of cream cheese, cubed

Hot cooked rice

Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions: 

Combine corn, beans, 1/2 cup salsa, garlic and cumin in the crock pot. Arrange the chicken breasts on top and pour the remaining salsa over the chicken. Cook on high for 2 to 3 hours or on low for for 4 to 6 hours. Make sure that the chicken is cooked and tender. Remove chicken and shread/cube. Return the chicken to the crock pot along with the cubed cream cheese. Cook on high until the cream cheese is melted. Spoon the chicken and mixture over rice and top of cheese! 

You're a Poet and Didn't Know It

Writing poetry is one of the hardest concepts to teach in the high school classroom. Many of my students are intimidated by the idea of creating a poem that has meaning and doesn't involve "roses are red, violets are blue." A few years ago, I stumbled across the classic "I Am" poetry template that can be easily adapted for any secondary grade. I began using this template at the beginning of the school year by having my students write the poem about themselves. I would then keep the poem until the end of the year and return it to them so that they can see how much they grow in character and maturity over the course of the school year. 

After using this poem for a simple creative writing idea, I decided to take it one step further and use it as a form of character analysis. I have my students select one character from the novel/short story that we are reading. They use the "I Am" template to create a poem from the perspective of the character of their choice. The students usually blow me away with this activity, because they begin synthesizing character actions and development. I really enjoy using this project when teaching To Kill a Mockingbird because the students get to see Scout, Jem and Dill grow up throughout the book. I have included some of my student samples below along with the "I Am" template. Happy writing!