In the last week, I’ve had texts, emails, and social media posts asking for book recommendations. My sister was looking for book ideas for a teen girl in a family she’s sponsoring for Christmas. A colleague was looking for ideas for her junior high daughter’s …
“I would like to compliment Johnny on an unexpected phrase that was, actually, kind of dark. When your narrator said, ‘I had this desire to kill,’ I was like disturbed but intrigued,” said Paul. “Yeah, I know. Dark. I like exploring the dark side in …
It’s 5:35 on Tuesday night. I am in a room of pre-service English teachers — some a semester from student teaching, some two. The class is the teaching of English: methods. I start class with a mid-term Google survey. I ask students to take a …
On September 30th, Kylene Beers posted a memo to teachers on Facebook with advice on how we can talk to administrators about the value of independent reading programs. She includes three research articles that teachers could share with principals. Then, she goes on to say …
Silence. Seven seventh grade readers are sitting together at the center of the classroom revisiting the scene in The Outsiders where the greasers are getting ready for the rumble. It’s their first fishbowl, and they are the fishes. As the fishes reread and formulate their responses, twenty-two …
“Hi, how are you?” I ask as a student takes a seat beside me. “Fine. You?” he says averting my eyes and looking at his biography narrative lit brightly on my computer screen. We’re sitting in a dark corner of the classroom to discuss the …
“Why are the socs so mean to the greasers?” one student asks. We just finished chapter two of The Outsiders. This is the required whole-class text for seventh grade at our school. We listened to chapter one together to hear the southern voice of Ponyboy, to listen …
I try to keep Fridays a low-tech, relaxed, community day in our class. In reading, that means time to get into groups to discuss books. It’s our third week together, and I want to know how students think, talk, and behave in small groups. I …
Why do I read a book a day? I didn’t become a teacher because I played school as a kid though there were enough kids in our home growing up to do so (eleven of us). I didn’t want to be in charge of anything, …
“And that’s our ‘Read for 15.’ Find a good place to stop and mark your page with a sticky. Make any notes you need to help you pick it up at home,” I say in a low voice, hesitating to interrupt their reading because it’s …