Renowned author and educator William A. Ward once wrote, "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." Dedicated teachers invest a great deal of time and energy into planning lessons that inspire their students. Still, even the most experienced and effective teachers can grow and improve. Because of pressure from standardized testing, many English teachers in particular are looking for new and exciting ways to improve their lesson plans and engage their students.

Reflect upon your current lesson plans. Analyze what has worked spectacularly well, what has been okay and what has failed. Reflect upon the types of lessons that seemed to engage your students the most, and which ones in particular could be improved. Ask yourself whether your students have gained any new knowledge based on your current plans, whether your current plans incorporate your students' individual needs and whether they relate to any other parts of your curriculum.

Solicit feedback from your students. Ask your students what they like or don't like about your class, which lessons appealed to them and what they found boring or uninspiring. You can have them deliver this information verbally, or you can ask them to fill out a form or write you a letter.

Solicit feedback from colleagues. Ask a colleague to visit one or more of your classes and provide you with constructive criticism. Stress to your colleague that you want him to be direct and as honest as possible. You could follow up this informal observation with a separate meeting, or ask him to share his thoughts in an email or written report.

Sit in on a colleague's class. Ask a colleague whose teaching methods you admire if you can sit in on his class. Take notes while he is teaching about what you liked and didn't like. Pay particular attention to the students' reactions. Arrange a time to meet with this colleague to discuss your findings.

Spend time researching your curriculum content. Even if you've been teaching Moby Dick for 15 years, start fresh. Perhaps familiarity with the content is creating staleness in your lesson plans; if so, reorganize your unit from scratch. Plan different assessments, new tests and new activities for the content you're teaching. Try relating the content to your students' interest. If you don't know where to begin, try researching English education websites such as readwritethink, Web English Teacher or the National Council of Teachers of English Lesson Plans.