High School

You're in the middle of the class. The teacher is busy talking & explaining. You look at the clock, expecting that the bell will ring in a few minutes...only to discover it's been only 15...

Many people think that Student Council elections are just popularity contests. In a sense, they almost are. Yet, if it was, how come a "dark horse" candidate can just come out of nowhere...

In polar graphing, the graph grid is circular, like a radarscope. A point on the graph has the coordinates (r, θ), where radius r is the distance from the origin (pole) and θ is the...

We all agree that High School just plain out sucks with all this Drama and who is dating who and who is wearing what. I'm sick of hearing it and it all leads to something bad! I'm sick of all...

The exponent of a number tells you how many times to multiply the number. The rules of exponents follow the logic of how numerical values interact with each other. Some students choose simply to...

Before choosing a topic for your speech, there are several factors you should consider. A good place to start is by determining the audience, purpose and level of formality for your oration. It is...

The easiest way to handle a conflict is to just say NO to the things you are not comfortable with. However, its not really that simple in all cases especially when you are around new people,...

A step by step tutorial on how to write a strong thesis paper. It's okay if you've never written a thesis before. You'll learn it quickly.

Have you ever been stuck on a really long math problem that had to do with a large number being multiplied by 4 and you just don't want to do the whole process? This article will teach you how to...

If you want to speak French, it is very important to learn to pronounce a French U correctly. Even though this sound does not appear in English, the basic movements do. You just have to learn...

When you imagined being a teacher, chances are you were not dreaming of writing anecdotal reports about students' misbehavior in class. You probably imagined yourself leading a riveting discussion...

In 7th grade I had to memorize the US Presidents. This poem is how I did it! Note - additions have been made since I was in 7th grade :) (by Mildred Holman Williams and Joseph Berdosh)

About 10 years ago, each of my classes would start a little chaotically. As I took attendance and tended to other necessary duties, my student would wait. I wasted about 3-4 minutes per day. I...

Academic writing requires a clear thesis statement, which tells your readers exactly where you're going in your paper. With a strong thesis sentence, you'll never get another comment about how...

The tangent is one of the three basic trigonometric functions, the other two being sine and cosine. These functions are essential to the study of triangles and relate the angles of the triangle to...

"Mr. Turtledove," a high school teacher wrote this article. After more than two decades as a teacher, I've noticed a pattern for success. Those students, for the most part, who earn...

There are many ways to find the length of an arc, and the calculation needed depends on what information is given at the start the problem. The radius is usually the defining starting point, but...

Nicolo Machiavelli said that if given a choice, it is safer to be feared than to be loved. Many high school teachers have taken this advice to heart and rule with an iron fist in their classroom....

A haiku poem is a short poetry form that has its roots in Japanese culture. In English, a basic haiku poem is usually three lines long, although it can be written as one line, horizontally across...

Identifying a theme in a piece of literature is no piece of cake for my 9th graders. For them, themes are too abstract and they often miss the ideas of a story. I developed this lesson plan to...

This is part 3 of a 4 part lesson plan about teaching students to read drama effectively. While part 1 dealt with subtext and part 2 dealt with stress, part 3 is all about using pauses for...

This is part 2 in a lesson plan that I have been using to teach my sophomores how to read drama. While part 1 dealt with subtext (see link below if you haven't already read it), this lesson deals...

Teaching similes can be an abstract and sometimes difficult concept for some students, but it can also be incredibly fun and engaging. This is the opening lesson I've used for years with my 9th...

Percentage problems such as "50 is 20% of what number?" and "What percent of 125 is 75?" are often difficult for students. This article explains how to apply a simple...

Using a prose passage containing a setting can be a very effective way to teach the concept of mood and imagery. I've been using the same passage with my freshmen for years and it continues to...

Writing a clearly organized paragraph can be one of the toughest and most important skills that a student can master in the first year of high school. Not only does clear writing help a student be...

Telling students that you will be beginning a poetry unit can sometimes get a teacher nothing but groans. I've used this parlor game called "exquisite corpse" for years with students to...

Alliteration is a simple device to teach, but can be an effective tool to help students understand how mood and tone work in poetry. This is a lesson plan I've used extensively and successfully.

When you learn English, you have to understand that English grammar is not that difficult compared to other languages, but you have to pay attention to the rules and the exceptions to the rules....

Do you need help understanding verbs in your Spanish class? Do you just want to gain a better understanding of how the Spanish language works? Read on, and I will show you how to talk about...

"Veni, Vidi, Vici!" is probably the most famous Latin expression. It has come to represent victory since Caesar himself first boasted with it. What most people don't know is that this...

Factoring is the process of writing a number or algebraic expression as a product of factors. For a monomial (one term) expression, it is relatively easy to find common factors. Take the...

Directions on how to organize your ideas into a perfect high school essay.

In German, the past can be expressed in perfect or imperfect tense. The perfect tense consists of two parts, the auxiliary and the past participle. The imperfect, however, only uses one verb form....

Adding polynomials means working with mathematical expressions that have two or more terms. Each term is made up of a coefficient (a number) and a variable or variables (letters of the alphabet)....

School is just starting and already those dreaded midterms are looming, waiting to bring dread and frustration into the hearts of students everywhere. There's no need to be afraid of that you're...

All of us need heroes, although ideas about just what constitutes a hero can vary widely. When students think through and discuss their thoughts on this subject, it helps them to crystallize their...

Similar to the way they function in English, German adjectives describe nouns. German adjectives have two functions: They can be attributive (taking endings) or predicative (occurring in the...

Are you a student of Spanish who is trying to grasp this "subjunctive" verb form? Is talk of subordinate clauses and conjunctions making your head spin? Well fret no more! This article...

When creating an advertising campaign, writing an opinion paper or undertaking other types of research-based investigations, becoming familiar with public opinion on a subject can be invaluable....

A sense of place and time is essential to good fiction, whether that place is a bookshop in Victorian England or a factory in a Martian colony in the year 2400. The reader becomes immersed in a...

The German language has four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Cases show the function of a noun in a sentence. The nominative is used for the subject and predicate noun. The...

The German language has four cases: nominative (dealing with subjects and predicate nouns), accusative (dealing with direct objects), dative (dealing with indirect objects) and genitive. The...

There are four cases in the German language: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. Most of the time, the cases have specific grammatical functions. However, sometimes the decision of which...

The German language has four cases: nominative, accusative (dealing with direct objects), dative (dealing with indirect objects), and genitive (dealing with possession). Cases demonstrate the...

There are four cases in the German language: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive. The accusative case functions as a direct object of a sentence. The accusative noun is on the receiving...

Solving combined inequalities is just like solving normal inequalities, but with two separate inequalities combined into one. The main concept to know is the difference between the words "AND" and...

If you need to calculate just one percentage, it’s pretty easy to do by hand. But what if you want to calculate many at once? This article will teach you how to quickly and easily...

You open your math book and see this problem: “please graph y > 3x +2.” Your hands start to feel clammy as you realize that the problem contains not one, but two variables. How...

While parents mail party invitations to relatives and shop for graduation gifts, seniors are often battling the stress that inevitably shows up at the end of their high school years. Here are some...