Over the summer I asked my dear Facebook teacher friends for advice about how best to maintain a classroom library (see part 1 and part 2). I learned a lot from teachers who had developed great systems with minimal loss at the end of school …
Deadlines and “Late” Work: The Potential of the Provisional
“Hey, Isa! Isa!” I call as I ride the wave of students heading to their lockers before school. Finally, she turns and stops at the next break. “Good morning. I missed you yesterday and thought we could work on your speech for today. Maybe you …
True Lies and the Patience to Dialogue Toward Truth
Leo “I can’t stay after school. I gotta pick up my little brother,” Leo says as he comes in at lunch to do a reading assignment. (All names are pseudonyms.) “I understand, but you missed a week of school, and if you can just stay …
“Give me your tired, your poor”: 11 Immigration Books Reviewed by Teens
For this blog, I offer 11 stories of immigration alongside student voices to make visible the sort of thinking teens are doing about immigration and the social forces that impact lives around the globe. How these books imagine America have everything to do with how our students imagine their world — what it is and what it ought to be.
Mirror, Mirror, is it time to move on?
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.
Warning, Triggering, Censoring, Advising: Recommending Books to Teens
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 …
Say My Name (But Not Too Loud)
“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 …
7 Reflections to Quiet the Ghosts of Grading’s Past
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, …
Miles for Motivation
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.
NCLB and Genocide: My First Year as a Teacher
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 …