Choice in the ELA Classroom: Justifying Choice #yasummit2018

This is where I will share information from today’s session at the #yasummit2018. I will add more information after the session as I hope we will develop some resources together. Survey Justifying individual choices in reading:  Penny Kittle’s for high school and Pernille Ripp’s middle school …

Junior High Students Offer Insight on Verse Novels: 50 books and Comparison Essays

Kwame Alexander’s The Crossover and Booked have been popular in my junior high classroom the past couple of years, which got me reading more verse novels and searching for others to recommended to students. This school year, I decided we would uncover just what is …

Time: Part, Full, Priceless, Costly

Around year ten in teaching, I decided to take my first early morning run of the summer on the last day of teaching. I am not sure why — maybe I did it unintentionally the first time and craved it subsequent years for its physical …

Digital Portfolios: “Hello, Future Teacher! Allow me to introduce myself.”

Our students walked through the door of our classroom 174 days this year. The door has never been propped open. That would be against fire code. The door is always locked to make lockdown and fire drills more efficient. The magnetic strip in the door …

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I am not a Reader.

“We have just ten minutes before the music assembly, so we can get started on our final portfolio. In the past, the audience for these portfolios has been your parents, but this time it is…” I say waiting for some sign of life. “You?” one …

Introducing the Best Co-Teachers Around

“So the speaker is saying that she wishes her mother would have left her courage behind instead of her brooch. Can you relate this poem to another poem or story?” says Jonathan. “Yes, Andy*?” “This reminds me of a movie, Guardians of the Galaxy.” “What …

10 Books That Made Me a Teacher and Why I Am Re-Reading Them

Monday night I am going to the retirement dinner of the woman who was my student teaching field instructor: Kate Manski. She was the first person to bear witness to my practice as a teacher in 2003. A couple years ago, she sat in my …

Please, stop with the countdowns.

I am a resistor of the “countdown,” as in counting down the days until the end of school. I am anxious as nearly 600 other educators to dive into Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher’s  180 Days and get the story for my next novel that is …

30, April 30th, Lines and Verses Borrowed

  Congratulations! Inspiration: We have shared this virtual space for 30 days — 30 days of words, phrases, images, and lines borrowed from lives lived and imagined. Today, we’d like to encourage you to select a day from our 30 days on ethicalela.com and reread …

29, April 29th, Remembered

Inspiration: What is your ultimate goal in your life? Geesh, this is a big, deep question to which you may not be ready to respond, but imagine for a minute or two what you would like people to say about you years from now. How …