T.G.I.Summer: time to get some work done!
Good thing I have the whole summer off! Continue reading T.G.I.Summer: time to get some work done!
Tag: literature
Read > blog > discuss > repeat
Blogging isn’t new. In fact, blogging came on the scene a full decade before my current students were born. But have our students discovered the power of their own blogging? If your students are writing, I challenge you to move that writing to blogs. And if your students aren’t writing, blogging is one way to change that. When students move their work from paper to blogs, they: publish … Continue reading Read > blog > discuss > repeat
Our best ideas = your best lessons
What’s the #1 complaint from teachers when attending a conference, workshop, training, or professional development session? Besides not enough chocolate, near the top of my pet peeve list is presenters who are not classroom teachers. Even trainers who were once in the classroom lose a bit of their credibility when I find out they’ve been out of the classroom for a few years. Today’s classroom is an ever-changing … Continue reading Our best ideas = your best lessons
Macbeth & Musical Chairs: The Power of Teachers Connecting
I have read some great posts this month about the benefits of being a connected educator: Tom Whitby’s on collaboration, another from Tom featuring six educators’ journeys to connectedness, and Edutopia’s valuable set of resources to help educators become more connected. As I pondered my own journey to being a connected educator, I couldn’t think of much I could add to the discussion. And then I had a day … Continue reading Macbeth & Musical Chairs: The Power of Teachers Connecting
Fighting for the dream, continued
This was my very first blog post, written in 2011, in response to my growing frustrations and fears over NCLB. I had met and spoken with Stephen Krashen, who encouraged me to start blogging, to get my voice of experience out there for others to hear. Although our ongoing battles in education may not compare to the historic (and ongoing) struggles for civil rights, we … Continue reading Fighting for the dream, continued
Oh, the skillz they will learn!
Asking middle school students to write (and share) book recommendations isn’t new. It gives them the opportunity to write about literature they have enjoyed, be inspired to check out books that their peers have loved, and demonstrate their growing reading and writing skills for their teacher. But move those book recommendations to the students’ own blogs, and suddenly they are learning a whole hard drive’s … Continue reading Oh, the skillz they will learn!
A pro-choices classroom
We teachers of young adolescents learn early on to grab our students’ gratitude when we can: their glee over a clever assignment, their pride in a hard-earned grade, their bashful “thanks” as they hand over a holiday gift probably bought and wrapped by a parent. It’s a rare treat indeed when our students communicate their gratitude to us in writing. Even better is when a … Continue reading A pro-choices classroom
Laura Bradley 