A laptop held in the crook of an arm that used to carry a plan book. An empty stainless steel canister in hand, curled close to the chest. The free hand now pulls out an empty chair at a table where several teachers offer a …
Illinois Reading Council: Inclusive Literature Reading Workshop
Below are links to assignments I created for the inclusive literature workshop to promote conversation about and across books for reading conferences, book groups, blogs, movies, and speeches. In every case, I tried to use these assignments as ways of entering or continuing a conversation …
Speaking Your Students’ Love Languages
Katrina is reading on her belly, sprawled out on the classroom floor, red hoodie tied around her waist, Jacqueline Woodson’s Feathers in one hand and a pencil in the other. A pad of sticky notes is off to the side with the words “Jesus Boy” written …
How are you growing as a reader?
We are four weeks into the school year. Our reading classes are focusing on a few specific standards. The first one is learning language in context; the second is reading a variety of text; the third is reading closely; and the last couple are speaking …
Look into My Eyes: 3 Lessons from Week 1 of 1:1 Chromebooks
At the end of the 2015-16 school year, I wrote a proposal to be considered for a Chromebook pilot in our junior high. In 2017-18, our school district would be a 1:1 school, but this school year (2016-17), the district was looking for teachers who …
Text Me What You’re Reading This Weekend
How are you encouraging students and their families to make time for weekend reading? Now that we are back to school, my #bookaday is not getting much action. With more to do, I have to be more deliberate about making time to read, and I …
#bookaday: My Summer’s Top 20 (Plus 100 More)
From living in a 1930s Kentucky mining town in Empty Spaces to being the last man on earth in Y:The Last Man, from being an orphan on the streets in Charles Dickens and the Street Children of London to being an orphan in a haunted house in The Night Gardener, from being the outcast robot among forest creatures in The Wild Robot to being the outsider on a roller derby team in Roller Girl, from the escapades of a trio of teen boys in Ms. Bixby’s Last Day to a trio of teen girls in Raymie Nightingale — only with books could I have spent time with such an interesting group of people (#bookaday).
Listening to Students
“Listening means creating an audience for children. And one of the best ways to pull children forward into literacy is to become an active, interested audience in their reading lives” (59, No More Reading for Junk).
10 Steps to a Short But Meaningful Welcome Letter
When it comes to composing the welcome back letter to parents and students, we also have to think about how we can blend the practical and ethical. Communication is so important when it comes to nurturing a community that values learning in and beyond the classroom, and with technology, there are a lot of ways to do that, which can be overwhelming, become time consuming, and ultimately distract readers from the important ideas you want to emphasize.
A Little Reading & Writing, and A Lot of Building Community
I have found that before people can accept and value diversity in others, they need to first see similarities. Teachers and students need to learn more than each others’ names; it vital that they learn about each other, who they are. It is important that teachers help students to forge new friendships, for each class to form an “Us,” rather than and “Us” and “Them.”