Unidentified Suburban Object by Mike Jung My rating: 3 of 5 stars So this one is mostly a realistic ya novel of a girl trying to connect with her Korean heritage while her parents resist saying it’s “too hard” or “too painful” to think about …
War Fiction: Writing the stories that haven’t been told
Because most of my 20 published books show war or genocide through the eyes of a young person, some of my author colleagues affectionately call me the Genocide Queen. I didn’t consciously choose to write about genocide, but I have a compulsion to give a voice to people whose stories are not told.
Summer Book Club 2016: Let’s discover books together for the first time
I’ve read over one hundred books in search of that just-right book for each student, but I just cannot keep up with all the recommendations I’ve been getting from We Need Diverse Books, Nerdy Book Club, Goodreads, and Facebook friends. So this summer’s reading list is 25 books that I have NOT read but have been recommended, and I am inviting my junior high readers to vet these books with me.
Review: Apple and Rain
Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan My rating: 4 of 5 stars For middle and upper middle school students without hesitation. This is a story about family, parenting, sisters, friendship, loyalty, and crushes, but it is really a story about understanding the complexities of family. Apple’s …
Coteachers Share Graphic and Verse Novels for 8th Grade Readers
People talk about middle schoolers being reluctant readers, but we do not see that in our students. They gobble up good books. Here are their favorite verse and graphic novels.
Top Ten Books to Start a Classroom Library (Plus Ten More)
As junior high English teachers, we see how the push to standardize curriculum and prepare for tests has us spending more time in meetings and reviewing data than reading the latest young adult novels. We ask students to be “readers,” but are we even keeping up with the latest titles or up-and-coming authors? This school year, we wanted to do something for our students and ourselves to make reading class, well, about the power and joy of reading again. We wanted students to find their way back to books this year. We wanted to find our way back to books this year — to be readers again.
Almost-free writing: topics, form, process, and publication without a teacher
How can we make writing pedagogy more free? How can we make conscious in students their thoughts and desires so that they can create their own writing life?
The Teacher Continuum: From Hermit to RockStar
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?
Hope (and Golf) in the Time of PARCC
In this season of testing, teachers can easily sink into disillusionment with our institution. We may feel that the federal government, state, school, and principals are “doing this to us” or “putting students through this,” see the injustices of many hours of testing and less instruction, and believe we have no recourse. However, we forget that we are part of the institution and can shape its structures. For me, that means taking this opportunity to visit the classrooms of my colleagues, see my students in different settings, and, above all, notice the hope around me.
Standards-Based What?
I’d rather not replace letter scores with number scores in this standards-based grading movement. Students tend to see the 5 (or whatever score is highest) as they did the “A,” and they will until we talk about learning in much more nuanced and complex ways — the ways that defy measurement and conflation of learning into a number or letter.