A few evenings ago, I posted the following message on my Facebook page: Educators: Stop filling “gifted” students’ heads with biases against “regular” students. The problem is yours, and you’re infecting children with it. Comments immediately popped up. One woman wrote that this had happened …
School started on Wednesday. We started our time together talking about the differences and similarities between “liking” and “appreciating” books. We did not take notes on this discussion, but the more we talked about the denotation and connotation, the more we came to understand the …
For the past few years, choice reading has been the foundation of my reading pedagogy because choice values students as human beings with a range of interests, experiences, and tastes and because choice shares the responsibility of teaching with all the readers and books in …
It was a lovely afternoon in Parma, Michigan. Clear skies guided our walk from Western High School’s gym where we’d just listened to Meg Medina, Pernille Ripp, Chad Everett, Sara Ahmed, and Donalyn Miller give their seven-minute Nerd Talks, each a call-to-action. We carried their …
I have just returned from the first Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult literature at UNLV (#yasummit2018, Steve Bickmore). In this unique professional development experience, authors, researchers, teachers, librarians, and school administrators came together for three days to discuss how we can make …
This is where I will share information from today’s session at the #yasummit2018. I will add more information after the session as I hope we will develop some resources together. Survey Justifying individual choices in reading: Penny Kittle’s for high school and Pernille Ripp’s middle school …
Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover and Booked have been popular in my junior high classroom the past couple of years, which got me reading more verse novels and searching for others to recommended to students. This school year, I decided we would uncover just what is …
Around year ten in teaching, I decided to take my first early morning run of the summer on the last day of teaching. I am not sure why — maybe I did it unintentionally the first time and craved it subsequent years for its physical …
Our students walked through the door of our classroom 174 days this year. The door has never been propped open. That would be against fire code. The door is always locked to make lockdown and fire drills more efficient. The magnetic strip in the door …
“We have just ten minutes before the music assembly, so we can get started on our final portfolio. In the past, the audience for these portfolios has been your parents, but this time it is…” I say waiting for some sign of life. “You?” one …