Candace Boerema using Twitter to teach English classes

Candace Boerema tweets lesson plans and writing prompts.

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The ten-year veteran teacher at Litchfield High School started using Twitter to extend her lessons this September. Boerema uses her account, @MrsB_N103, to remind students of homework assignments before class and post prompts that will keep their minds sharp after.

"Who are you in Elizabethan England? Do you know Shakespeare?" reads one tweet. "Too much talkie talkie today, I think. More of that tomorrow and your preface may stink?" reads another.

Boerema notes that the students aren't required to use Twitter, and she doesn't follow any of her students back. Official school policy discourages teachers from responding to tweets.

But Litchfield students are enjoying the new forum for extended discussions amongst themselves and many of them are taking advantage of her tweets.

"A lot of them are very excited about it," she says.

Litchfield's a rural high school with about 500 students in a town of almost 7,000 people. Boerema teaches sophomores, juniors, and seniors, and addresses her tweets to individual classes like "University Writing" and "English 10."

Many of Boerema's tweets relate due dates and ask thought-provoking questions, like "Is chivalry dead?" But a lot of her tweets are simply meant to inspire her students.

"We had this great discussion in class about symbolism in literature. That assignment's going to continue tomorrow, in a paper," Boerema explains. "So I tweeted to keep on thinking about that."