Susan Spangler

Susan Spangler taught secondary English throughout Illinois for sixteen years before completing her Ph.D. in English Studies at Illinois State University in 2006. Susan’s teaching focus is in English Education, and as a teacher educator her mission is to engage her preservice and student teachers in activities that help them understand best practice in teaching English/Language Arts. Her research interests include regression under stress in student teachers, technology and literacy, and the impact of Millenials in English classrooms. In addition to writing lesson plans for ReadWriteThink, Susan has contributed material to the Summer Activities section of the site.

Susan is a member of NCTE and the New York State Council of English. She has also served as the Technology Liaison for the Illinois State Writing Project, an affiliate of the National Writing Project.

Lessons on ReadWriteThink

Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads (9-12)
Invite students to explore the genre of ballads by reading medieval ballads to deduce their characteristics, acting out the ballads, comparing the medieval and modern ballads using Venn diagrams, and ultimately composing their own ballads.

Analyzing Grammar Pet Peeves (9-12)
This lesson uses a Dear Abby column to help students analyze a “grammar rant.” Through their analysis of Dear Abby’s grammar pet peeves, students become aware of the ranter’s language biases and gain an understanding of how race, class, and audience’s expectations help determine what is considered acceptable language use.

Bio-graph: Graphing Life Events (9-12)
This writing activity integrates mathematical graphing with writing and can be used to generate a number of different kinds of writing activities, but lends itself well to biographical and narrative writing. Students interview other students, choose significant life events, rate them, graph them, and write about one or more.

Finding Common Ground: Using Logical, Audience-Specific Arguments (9-12)
Using a hypothetical situation, students generate arguments from opposing points of view, discover areas of commonality through the use of Venn diagrams, and construct logical, audience-specific arguments in order to persuade their opponents. Students also have an opportunity to role-play with classmates in order to refine their arguments.

Gaining Background for the Graphic Novel Persepolis: A WebQuest on Iran (9-12)
To prepare students for reading the graphic novel Persepolis, this lesson uses a WebQuest to focus students’ research efforts on finding reliable information about Iran before and during the Islamic Revolution. In groups, students research and then present information on aspects of Iran such as politics, religion, and culture.

You’re the Top! Pop Culture Then and Now (9-12)
This lesson uses Cole Porter’s "You're the Top!" to explore pop culture of the past and present and to practice the stylistic writing technique of cataloguing. If desired, students have the opportunity to extend the lesson into a research project.