A Take On Speaking and Listening
ELA teachers sometimes gloss over the CCSS’s Speaking and Listening standards. Based on conversations with friends who employ 18-25 year-olds, this is evident in some graduates’ job performance. Our task […]
Student Empowerment: Goal Setting and Grit in the Classroom
Mind toolsТ describes the acronym SMART goals in the following way: “SТ – Specific (or Significant),Т MТ – Measurable (or Meaningful),Т AТ – Attainable (or Action-Oriented),Т RТ – Relevant (or Rewarding), andТ TТ – Time-bound (or Trackable)” I like that […]
Write Something (Outside)
Outside: The classroom The box The same ‘ol, same ‘ol The norm Write something (outside), in the grass, under the wide open sky, in the fresh air, with a calm […]
Learning Space: Think, Believe, Share
Students are beginning to work on This I Believe essays. In this image, students have paired up with a partner from across the room to discuss the strengths/writing strategies of […]
Learning Space: A Season of Firsts
At 6:05pm, my classroom is all set up and ready for students to show up for their first day of school tomorrow. I’ve used Brandi’s Types of Thinking as a […]
Learning Space: We Looked, Then Looked Some More
Students explored this chilly morning, finding an object that appealed to them, looking at it for an extended period, and using words and pictures to describe their objects. Practicing focused […]
Learning Space: Room 13
Back to School at ACPA: http://artcollegeprep.org. (Might there be a more boring way to announce the reinvigoration of our learning space in Room 13? Probably. And yet the phrase leaves […]
Girlhood Cont.
There’s never enough time, and who knows that better than educators. So in an effort to offer up a few larger themes to think about and potential pathways, here is […]
Day One Download: What We’re Reading
These titles, with great depth and range, are some of the works we’re reading, thinking about, sharing. The Teenage Brain – Frances Jensen http://www.npr.org/books/titles/381619784/the-teenage-brain-a-neuroscientists-survival-guide-to-raising-adolescents-and-yo Material World – Peter Menzel http://www.menzelphoto.com/books/mw.php […]
How Do I Know I’m Beautiful?
“How Do I Know I’m Beautiful? Unless someone tells me…” Т A student asked this question in class last week while discussing identity and perception. Т The question moved me. Т I wrote […]
Risk Taking
After we viewed the documentary,Т Forbidden Voices: How to Start a Revolution with a Laptop.Т The film featured three women bloggers Т in Cuba, China and Iran who write about social injustice in […]
A Musing on the Museum
This, from Neil Postman’s The End of Education, might make for an interesting discussion, activity, or research assignment. (Postman’s language is quoted; mine is italicized.) “I recommend a subject that, […]
On Risk-Taking
Т Т Т Educators who take risks in their classrooms stand a better chance of engaging students than those who stick to the textbook or a pre-packed curriculum. Educator risk taking […]
Is Offense the New Threat to Free Speech?
The article “No Offense: The New Threats to Free Speech” isТ from John O’Sullivan at The Wall Street Journal. See:Т http://m.wsj.com/articles/no-offense-the-new-threats-to-free-speech-1414783663?mobile=yТ O’Sullivan writes the following curious points in quotation marks. I occasionally […]
The Pages Program (Wexner Center for the Arts) 