The First Year English Teacher's Guide to Beartraps

Book excerpt: At some moments, new teachers are exhilarated. At others they wonder darkly how anyone ever convinced them to try the job. Heres help for new English teachers. The book is organized into four, jargon-free sections: A Few Basics, Theory and Practice, School Culture, and Personal Survival. Within each section there are short, focused explanations of how things actually work in high schools, and how to avoid the traps of overcommittment, classroom management, unruly student behavior, and school politics. There is also an appendix of tried and true recipes-- approaches to a variety of teaching challenges.