High school students aren’t necessarily to blame when they write “agonizingly boring” essays—sometimes that’s the “predictable result” of an unengaging assignment, English teacher Jori Krulder came to realize. ⁣ ⁣ After reading one such stack of cookie-cutter essays, Krulder decided it was time for a change. It took time and experimentation, but here’s how she now gets her students “engaged and creating writing that is a joy to read,” she writes. ⁣ ⁣ • Connect Work to Students’ Lives: “After 25 years of teaching, I’m still having epiphanies about how to engage students. One such realization is that if I want students to dig into anything I’m teaching in my classroom, I must find a way to help them connect it to something else they already know or care about,” Krulder notes. ⁣ ⁣ • Provide Real-Life Models and Choices: Krulder uses mentor texts to help students break down the structures and techniques used by professional writers in different kinds of published works so they can pick a f...