How It Began It was awkward at first: we knew that parents-to-be could read to their unborn child throughout pregnancy, but it felt strange for 30-somethings to be reading Dr. Seuss on the couch at night. Even the dogs looked at us funny. And when …
I Read for Me, I Read for My Students by Travis Crowder
In my office rest several boxes, filled with remnants of my childhood–books from my earliest reading days and pages of hand-written stories, ones held together by frayed and faded blue thread. Every so often, I dig through these boxes. Even now, as I glance at …
#WHATSTHETEACHERREADING by Maria Losee
It was a beautiful and rare, sunny afternoon in Seattle, Washington. I was walking down a hallway with Jane Addams Middle School principal, Paula Montgomery, when she stopped suddenly and stepped into a classroom. We had been chatting about that afternoon’s professional development that I’d …
You Can’t Drive 65: An English Teacher Reading in (Late) Middle Age
This month on Ethical ELA I am featuring the reading lives of my teacher-friends to inspire us to read more in 2018 (and for some great book recommendations). Last week, we heard from Brian Kissel, and this week we welcome my dear friend, professor, and …
A Dad Reads 52 Books a Year
Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to a new year with Ethical ELA. As I mentioned in an August post, I took on a new teaching schedule this year: four classes in junior high and two classes at DePaul University. I thought, within these two part-time …
The role of liaison in a student teaching cohort by Aric Foster
Aric Foster is our guest blogger this week. He is offering another perspective on the student teaching experience–the university-cohort liaison. Never satisfied with his own teaching and ardently passionate about student learning, Aric has been teaching English 11 and AP Literature for 16 years in a …
Teachers as Writers: Becoming Part of Your Classroom Writing Community
At Ethical ELA, we believe in the power of writing to inform and transform. We write to write; to reflect on our teaching; to recognize that for change to happen, we have to act deliberately; to challenge the status quo; to celebrate the “good” in …
Becoming Part of the Reading Community
by Lesley Roessing I considered myself to be a very involved middle-level ELA reading teacher. I loved to read, and I loved to share books with my students. I book-talked books that I read and thought some of my readers would enjoy reading. I continually …
Anthologies: Limitations in Higher Education
by Elaine Magin Ethical ELA resonates with my own experiences as a teacher who often feels limited by what I’m able to teach in the classroom. Even though this blog is not focused on teaching English language arts in higher education, I am overwhelmed by …
Listening to Students
“Listening means creating an audience for children. And one of the best ways to pull children forward into literacy is to become an active, interested audience in their reading lives” (59, No More Reading for Junk).