Names matter. As one of eleven children, I had to be patient while my father recalled my name to ask for more iced tea: “Cathy, not Chris, Sue, not Tom or Joe, Mary, Julie, Clare —- ” And I’d remind him. “Sarah! Yes, Sarah! More …
Easing into Choice Individual and Book Group Reading: A Progressive Approach
I have just returned from the first Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult literature at UNLV (#yasummit2018, Steve Bickmore). In this unique professional development experience, authors, researchers, teachers, librarians, and school administrators came together for three days to discuss how we can make …
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 …
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 …
In Defense of Civic Engagement in Schools
By Brian Charest, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Redlands, School of Education Last week, we saw firsthand the incredible democratic potential and power of civic engagement. Hundreds of thousands of students across the country, in places like Los Angeles and Chicago, from New York to Parkland, and …
A Teacher’s Needs: Time for a Self-Assessment
About two months ago, I began the new year with my junior high English students in not setting resolutions — those never seem to work well — but by choosing one word to help us change, improve, and be, well, better in the new year– all …
The Pride and Shame of Sharing: Who do I think I am?
There is a big brown envelope in my school mailbox on Tuesday. I order a lot of books from Amazon, but this is not from Amazon; it is from Harvard Press. Inside are two copies of the book Inside Our Schools: Teachers on the Failure …
The role of liaison in a student teaching cohort by Aric Foster
Aric Foster is our guest blogger this week. He is offering another perspective on the student teaching experience–the university-cohort liaison. Never satisfied with his own teaching and ardently passionate about student learning, Aric has been teaching English 11 and AP Literature for 16 years in a …
Sena Kose: In the Middle of Student Teaching (part 6 of 6)
Sena Kose is currently a pre-service teacher from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She began her student teaching experience in January 2017, and plans to graduate with a certificate to teach English in grades 6-12 in May 2017. This is the final post in a …