I have found that before people can accept and value diversity in others, they need to first see similarities. Teachers and students need to learn more than each others’ names; it vital that they learn about each other, who they are. It is important that teachers help students to forge new friendships, for each class to form an “Us,” rather than and “Us” and “Them.”
An inclusive curriculum promotes an understanding that within any group – racial, ethnic, religious, class, ability, gender, sexual orientation –there are variations, and that among groups, there are similarities. However, an inclusive curriculum is not just a checklist of texts, films, and articles about difference.
Originally published on January 24, 2016, Ethical ELA is re-posting “Building Community” by Lesley Roessing as a call to all teachers to make building community a priority in the first weeks of your school year and to nurture community every step of the way. _____________________________________________________________________________ …
As a teacher, I found myself stopping and wondering: Do I often only hear babbling where there is, in fact, poetry? How do my assumptions and expectations for student writing and communication block a student’s ability to communicate? Do my expectations work against my intentions?
In Taking Care of Your Classroom Library Books, I shared results from a summer survey of teachers on how they manage their classroom libraries and advice from my local library focusing on book care. In this follow-up post, I will share more results from the …
My classroom library is my curriculum, finally. I inherited hundreds of book from my mentor Diane DuBois, and for a few years I used these books to supplement the curriculum. I’d even hide certain books in boxes until we started a unit on immigration, for …
What would your English teacher have to know about you to find that “just right” book? Lesesne makes explicit the complexity of adolescence and the hard work it takes to match readers and books. There is no short cut to knowing your students as individuals or being well-read so that you can indeed “make the match.” You have to put in the time and effort, but she helps teachers with many book suggestions, lists, strategies, and stories.
I found myself wondering how often I failed to allow the time and space for my students with autism to fully articulate their thoughts. Moreover, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of all inclusion teachers reading this text in replace of the many Professional Development pieces that reinforce the deficit narrative of students with autism.
At the International Literacy Association’s recent conference in Boston, I had the opportunity to talk about genocide novels and how we can support our students in confronting the unimaginable human suffering of genocide but also humanity’s resilience to survive and bravery to tell and read stories about that survival. In this post, I share some book suggestions, an overview of rhetorical reading, and a sample book discussion from my 7th grade ELA class.
It’s one month into summer, and I think I have FOMO, fear of missing out. Yes, I am afraid of missing out on that one young adult novel or that one professional development book that is going to life changing.