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. _____________________________________________________________________________ …
An interview about at the ideas that started Ethical ELA.
by Cameron Gale Huck Finn was going the way of Hester Prynne in my American Heritage classroom. Which is to say, he was getting chipped and chopped into smaller and smaller segments that I could spoon-feed to my students. Gone were the first eight, then …
Do you have suggestions for building faculty community? Do you think the social events are important or can community be built one relationship at a time? Do you think school faculty relationships necessarily have to extend beyond the school day?
Beginning The Winston Community Story Project this week with seventh graders. We will be interviewing the people within and beyond our school to bear witness to the stories that make us who we are. Every story, every life matters. Today, I am unpacking and charging …
If you had the attention of a thousand students and two minutes, what short film would you select to show and why? In our writing class, I occasionally use short videos to inspire writing, practice a writing skill, or illustrate a literary concept. For example, …
Setting up a middle school classroom library with the help of Erin Linsenmeyer of the Downers Grove Public Library.
Teaching can feel so lonely at times. Do you have a colleague who is your BFF, who pulls you out from under your desk to make you laugh, who hands you a tissue when you just need to cry, who just inspires you? Diane and Sarah taught together for over a decade, and through a series of email exchanges, they talked about stories, students, and the beauty of teacher-friends.
If you want your students to think like authors, then have them speak to authors by Sarah Dollah-Said Being a literature and writing teacher for middle school students is hard enough when you are competing with Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler (whatever other social media networks …