It is incredibly humbling to look, really look at oneself from the angles other show you, but I see it as protection from shattering, from falling apart. When I am willing to look carefully at all the angles, I can make adjustments to heal, to improve, and to make a change if needed.
A seventh grade boy came up to me during reading class the other day, stepping away from his browsing on Goodreads for his next book. He said after reading a review about one book, “This one reviewer said he fell into a deep depression after …
“Good morning, Jennifer.” “Good morning, Dr. Donovan,” Jennifer replies as she walks on by to her first period class. “Good morning, Pedro.” “Good morning, Dr. Donovan,” Pedro replies as he walks into our classroom. “Is Jennifer our student? I don’t remember her. Gosh, I don’t …
Grades are letters that conflate the learning from the entire semester or quarter. I have to assign a grade for my seventh and eighth grade readers at the end of every quarter, and I struggle with this every time because their learning defies such neat, …
Students are sometimes afraid to attempt assignments or feel that a grade is not worth the effort. Some have even said, “I don’t need the grade. I already have an A or a B”; “I don’t care about grades”; or “I just want to pass.” But I think that the success of this contest was due to the sense of community and the excitement of competition.
Happy Holidays! Thank you for being a part of Ethical ELA this year. At Ethical ELA we consider the practical alongside the ethical – always asking what is good and right for the human beings with whom we are entrusted (and for us). I began …
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 …
Reading is personal. What we like, when we feel like it, how we like it — or don’t. Sometimes I read slowly and carefully, pausing to let an idea sink in or to get a tissue or to text a friend who’s read the same …
There is no neat way of capturing the beautiful messiness and grappling that happens when we offer our students choice.
How can literature advocate for society? How do teachers make space in the classroom to read for discovery, problem solving, identity forming, and healing as students make sense of their worlds – our world? Books transmit values. They explore our common humanity…They [young people who …