Welcome to day one! Today’s inspiration: What is the best part of you? Write a descriptive poem about your favorite part of you. Here are a few bullet points to get you started. describe what your best part looks like — size, color, shape, texture …
30 Poems: A Celebration of Poetry Begins April 1st
The 30 Poems Celebration begins April 1st! Let’s celebrate together all that poetry does for our hearts, minds, and humanity. This month-long celebration is all about helping people write poems in a supportive, virtual space. Anyone can participate — life-long poets, new-to-the-craft poets, rhymers, free-versers, musings-writers. …
Four Hallway Haiku
I could feel the fever spiking. And my blood was simmering. It was the week before spring break, and the symptoms of cabin fever among the students were spreading. They’d submitted their final portfolios –letters to parents with hyperlinks to all their learning for the past …
A Teacher’s Needs: Time for a Self-Assessment
About two months ago, I began the new year with my junior high English students in not setting resolutions — those never seem to work well — but by choosing one word to help us change, improve, and be, well, better in the new year– all …
The Pleasure of Difficulty by Peter Anderson
I have three English teacher confessions. First, I don’t like Shakespeare. I’ve never taught any of the bard’s works and I’d rather keep it that way. Next, I don’t enjoy poetry. I’m more of a maximalist, so the art of compression has never tugged at …
Reading and Teaching 1984: What if Some of Them Don’t “Get It”? by David Schaafsma
Recently I reread 1984 by George Orwell, which I had read the first time in high school in the sixties, have taught many times, and had not reread for decades. I saw that the book was perhaps the best selling book of 2017, which I …
Introducing My Debut YA Novel, Alone Together
Today is Friday, which means Story Time in my junior high writing classes; students share their writing in an open-mic forum with student-hosts facilitating the stories and celebrations. Today, I stepped up to the mic in front of my biggest and most beloved critics: my …
Please, apologize to me.
Originally published a year ago, this story from my classroom has been on my mind of late. It still resonates because I, as an English teacher, will always represent for students Reading–its joys but also its traumas. And there are times that I forget and …
Ten Books Loved by 7th Graders (List 4)
This is the fourth and final list of “Ten Books Loved by 7th Grade Readers.” I asked 7th-grade readers to tell me about a book they read this school year that they “loved” and was worthy of recommending to other teen readers. They obliged, writing …
Ten Books Loved by 7th Grade Readers (List 3)
This is the third of four book lists: “Ten Books Loved by 7th Grade Readers.” I asked my 7th-grade readers to tell me about a book they read this school year — a book they “loved” and worthy of recommending to other teen readers. The …