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Mud & Ink Teaching

Adventurous Teaching Starts Here

Hi!  My name is Amanda Cardenas and I am the CEO and founder of Mud and Ink Teaching.   I believe that teachers deserve teacher-led PD, classroom tested and best-practice aligned resources, and curiosity-building ways to engage their readers and writers.

I hope you find what you need here in the shop and stop back frequently for more updates, bundles and more!

START YOUR EQ JOURNEY

Ready to start teaching your ELA units centered on a juicy Essential Question?

Essential Question Adventure Packs are inquiry-driven units pre-built for teachers and do all of the heavy lifting for you.

Simply choose your question, pair it with a lit circle list of texts or a whole class novel, and you're set to go.

There are TWELVE PACKS to choose from right now!

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: What happens to a society that stops asking questions?

Designed for middle and high school ELA classrooms, this unit delves into the profound implications of a society that ceases to question its leaders and each other. Through a blend of literature, historical exploration, and critical analysis, students will grapple with the role of inquiry in shaping the human experience. This adaptable unit empowers educators to foster curiosity within their classrooms.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: How does history get buried, and why should it be uncovered?

Tailored for high school English teachers and their students, this dynamic unit intertwines literature, historical analysis, and critical thinking to explore the layers of narratives concealed beneath the surface of conventional history. We will look at podcasts, historical reenactment, nonfiction articles, and more. This EQ pairs well with historical fiction books or a research unit.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: How does sharing my story help me understand my true voice?

Lean into the opportunity to share the genre of memoir and other personal writing with your students. Using this EQ, students can focus on composing their own writing, study the techniques and style of other writers, and even dive into the genre of memoir. Use this unit on its own with a writing component or layer it on top of a whole class novel study. This is your opportunity to honor authentic voice in ELA!

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: How do I find my voice in a global conversation?

Throughout this unit, we will explore various techniques for capturing and expressing narratives with a distinct and genuine voice with a global focus. We will witness how personal experiences breathe life into words on the page, enabling writers to forge connections with readers through the power of authentic storytelling.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: Is the American Dream more likely to inspire or destroy?

EQ Adventure Packs provide everything a teacher needs to connect the dots in an inquiry driven unit. The teacher supplies the whole class novel or lit circle texts, and the EQ Pack takes care of the rest. Each resource in this pack is specifically designed to propel inquiry and critical thinking from the opening lesson to the summative assessment.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: To what extent does the media impact my sense of self?

The power of the media to influence perception is undeniable. But when we approach students with this idea, the question is not IF it is impacting us, but how much? This unit will challenge students to examine their own media consumption and offer a jumping off point for rhetorical analysis and connections to dystopian units. Use this unit as a stand-alone or with a great novel or documentary.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: To what extent do trauma, tragedy, and adversity build resilience?

Trauma, tragedy and adversity: students, adults, and real people and fictional characters alike experience each of these types of life events. Using this EQ, students will be able to distinguish the differences between each and examine the not so simple way s that resilience functions on the back end of these events. This EQ broadly includes many opportunities for titles, making it perfect for choice novel units.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: To what extent is my identity formed by my biology or my environment?

Discover the intriguing interplay of biology & environment on identity with your students as the explore identity. Uncover how nature & nurture shape us through supplemental texts and pair with memoirs, fiction, book clubs, and even graphic novels. Elevate your ELA teaching with this transformative unit!

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: To what extent is rebellion a requirement for society to progress?

When systems are failing and justice is not being served, rebels of all kinds come to the rescue in both literature and the real world. These rebellions, though, come with a cost. In this unit, take students through a novel or list of novels of your choice featuring a powerful, rebellious protagonist and explore the ways in which these rebels shape the world around them.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: What does it take to be a great leader?

Leadership can take on many forms, and in both literature and history, examining leadership traits can help us uncover major themes and patterns to help us think critically about texts. In this EQ pack, we will explore the wide range of traits that powerful leaders have exhibited and analyze what's needed for truly great leadership to emerge.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: When injustice occurs, is empathy enough?

We see to be surrounded by injustice, but everywhere we look, there's confusing and mixed signals from adults directing young people on their next steps. This question gets at the heart of what different layers of action, support, and awareness are needed in a variety of injust circumstances for both the characters of fiction and the real people in our everyday lives.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: Which is more powerful: fear or hope?

Fear and Hope: two powerful motivators in the human experience. So much of the literature that we study centers the triumph of humanity in the worst circumstances, but how do we engage students in these dark, difficult stories? By using the Essential Question: Which is more powerful: fear or hope? Give students the tools to explore the psychology, history, and personal side of this question and engage in the unit.

  • $19

The Essential Question Adventure Pack: Why do Relationships Matter?

EQ Adventure Packs provide everything a teacher needs to connect the dots in an inquiry driven unit. The teacher supplies the whole class novel or lit circle texts, and the EQ Pack takes care of the rest. Each resource in this pack is specifically designed to propel inquiry and critical thinking from the opening lesson to the summative assessment.

PREFER TO PURCHASE IN BUNDLES?

There are a variety of ways to purchase multiple packs for individual teachers or for Department Chairs to purchase for grade-level teams or whole departments. You can always contact help.mudandinkteaching@gmail.com for large group rates, but here are a few readily available options:

  • $285 or 4 monthly payments of $71.25

Essential Question Adventure Pack: Complete Bundle

This is the complete bundle of all available Essential Question Adventure Packs. These units are practical AND creative, giving you the flexibility to embed critical, inquiry-driven learning with any whole-class novel or literature circle unit on your calendar!

  • $149

EQ Adventure Packs: Department Wide License

Want to use your EQ Adventure Pack with your entire department? Simply purchase the Department-wide License, complete the Google form, and I will register your entire department (for up to 12 teachers -- a $79 discount!) for the EQ Pack of your choice. For departments of 12+ please email me directly for large group pricing at mudandinktpt@gmail.com.

  • $79

EQ Adventure Packs: Grade-Level Team License

Want to use your EQ Adventure Pack with your entire grade-level team? Simply purchase the Grade-Level Team License, complete the Google form, and I will register your entire team (up to 5 teachers) for the EQ Pack of your choice. Licenses are not transferrable.

  • $99

EQ 6 Pack: Custom Bundle

This listing will allow you to customize a bundle of EQ Adventure Packs at a discounted rate. Once you purchase this license, you'll be prompted to select any SIX EQ Adventure Packs of your choosing.

  • $49

EQ 3 Pack: Custom Bundle

This listing will allow you to customize a bundle of EQ Adventure Packs at a discounted rate. Once you purchase this license, you'll be prompted to select any THREE EQ Adventure Packs of your choosing.

SHARPEN YOUR CRAFT WITH SOME PERSONAL PD

These virtual professional development courses are created for teachers that are looking to deepen their pedagogical practice and need to do things on their own time. Start and stop these courses when it works for you and when you finish, I'll send over a certificate of completion!

  • $69

Essential Question Expert: Designing EQs that Engage and Inspire

This course is designed for the secondary English Language Arts teacher transitioning to an Essential Question based method of delivering instruction. Learn expert tips and get all of the tools needed to write EQs for every unit of the school year!

  • $97 or 2 monthly payments of $50

The First 10 Days: The Complete Back to School Toolkit

I'm here to help you lesson plan for the first ten days of school with the intention of practicing routines, setting expectations for rigor, and building relationships.

  • Free

Summer Reading Rescue: Let's Revive Your Program Together!

We know what the research shows: students of all ages are hit by the "summer slide" every year, but especially students in communities with more working parents and fewer access points to everyday literacy activities. Let's revive the summer reading program at your school and create a new vision for what's possible in 2024. Join me for ideas, resources, and the tools needed to get started right away.

CRITICAL THINKING IN ELA

Let's get our hands dirty and make a little mess while reading, writing, and critically thinking!

  • $119

Shakespeare Mega Bundle: 3 Plays

List Price: $170.00 // You Save: $51.00 If you're teaching multiple Shakespeare plays this year, this bundle is for you! This bundle includes ALL of the plays in my store at one HUGELY discounted price: Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and (soon) Othello. Each unit is set up under an inquiry-driving Essential Question and focuses deeply on close reading and studying the film.

  • $4

ELA Makerspace: Northern Lights, Poetry, and Argumentative Research Project

The Northern Lights are an incredible phenomenon of the natural world. As ELA teachers, we can sometimes get stuck in the day-to-day of reading books and teaching writing, but this makerspace project taps into the overlapping beauty between science, creative writing, and human nature.

  • $27

Poetry Analysis with The Big Six: How to Teach Beyond a Worksheet

Take charge of your poetry instruction by using The Big Six to invite students into an non-threatening, curiosity-driven conversation. The Big Six is a tool designed to help students engage with all kinds of poems, analyze, and make connections. Each minilesson defines the elements of the Big Six, provides a checklist for examining that element, and also provides sample poems to use for analysis.