I Will Screw This Up / YA Reviews
by Dina Strasser · Published 02/19/2020 · Last modified 09/03/2020
Acknowledging that as a white woman of privilege she cannot fully experience the depth of meaning in Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, ELA teacher Dina Strasser shares four takeaways from her limited perspective as an educator and lover of speculative Young Adult fiction.
It's Not Easy Being Tween / Multicultural Learning
by Cheryl Mizerny · Published 02/17/2020 · Last modified 09/18/2023
Racial “microaggressions” do harm to students’ self-image and health, says teacher Cheryl Mizerny, who has spent a decade studying this common teacher behavior and how to avoid it. Learn ways to recognize these often unintentional slights and better support all students.
Retention / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Valentina Gonzalez · Published 02/16/2020 · Last modified 02/29/2020
Talk of grade retention revs up each spring. But it’s seldom a good answer for English learners. EL expert Valentina Gonzalez shares research that debunks the idea that retention helps ELs and suggests ways to boost their academic progress all year long.
As we move into the 2020 presidential election, questioning what we read and hear is paramount. In the fake news era, are students learning how to verify what they consume? Media literacy expert Frank Baker doesn’t think so and says it’s up to educators to teach them.
Future of History / Writing in Social Studies
by Sarah Cooper · Published 02/10/2020 · Last modified 03/23/2020
Writing a letter to a politician is about as “civic” an assignment as we can do within our classroom walls, and it feels so relevant in our polarized political climate. After 3 years of tweaking her project, teacher Sarah Cooper shares tips to boost the response rate.
These 32 formative assessment probes, designed by leading authority Page Keeley, are carefully chosen, researched, worded and explained to give students a strong understanding of key underlying concepts in physical science, writes science educator Dr. Laura Von Staden.
While infographics can be engaging, students may not access the content in a way that leads to deeper understanding. Using NASA images, literacy consultant Sunday Cummins shares four ways to help readers create pathways for sticky learning from this type of resource.
Looking for more ways to have your kids “speak” to real audiences beyond your classroom? NBCT Marilyn Pryle, the 2019-20 Pennsylvania TOY, describes how she added community displays and a Vocaroo/QR code strategy to one of her major ELA projects. Student handout included!
At the heart of Ralph Fletcher’s Focus Lessons, writes Jeny Randall, teachers will find lessons that can help students connect the photographic concepts of tension, point of view, and mood to the craft of writing – so that the idea of sensory details becomes concrete.
The narrow “alphabetic” definition of writing found in many school classrooms actively disengages youth, says literacy author Shawna Coppola. Students simply prefer to compose using forms that incorporate visual, aural, and multimodal texts as a way to make or enhance meaning.
