On a recommendation from two people I admire in teaching, I picked up Suleika Jaouad’s book The Book of Alchemy. I just started it, but I can already feel its effects: I want to create and journal and draw and read. I love books that inspire me either to create or to think deeply. This... Continue Reading →
I recently read Ian McEwan's What We Can Know. I marked a passage about memory. I am fascinated by memory right now, especially since attention and memory are so important in learning. I recently read an article that discussed how our attention spans are adversely affected by our social media lives, specifically short-form video. These... Continue Reading →
We’ve been snowed in for DAYS now, and as such, it was a great time to check off some of my yearly reading list. I (Holly) made a list of physical books that I own that I MUST READ before I buy any new books. (Does anyone else have this overconsumption problem with books like... Continue Reading →
Sometimes a passage or a line—whether it’s from a book, an article, a song, a reel, an image, or just an idea spoken to life—inspires my creativity, makes me want to write…something. I don’t always know what that something is until I start composing. But sometimes I know exactly what I want to write about.... Continue Reading →
Sometimes it’s easy to forget the joy of teaching amongst the constant grind. When I forget, it’s because of one main thing—I’m doing more “administrative” tasks than I usually do. At the end of the semester, the administrative tasks seem to pile on and steal, frankly, some of my joy. But I still feel the... Continue Reading →
My students walked into class one day this week talking about their 2025 Spotify wraps. I had never heard of this, probably because I don’t have Spotify. Once the students, in complete disbelief, explained to me what a Spotify wrap was, I couldn’t help but think I needed an NCTE 2025 “wrap” of what I... Continue Reading →
by Holly Sheppard Riesco My dear teachers, I have a confession: sometimes, sometimes, I find my own class boring. Gasp! I know! Terrible to admit, but it’s true. My students and I are grinding away at understanding how to develop commentary and how to synthesize different perspectives into our thinking and writing, and while I... Continue Reading →
by Holly Sheppard Riesco I recently received a note from a student that he wanted to thank me for how intentional I had been in my teaching since he realized how it helped build him and other students toward the next English credit course. What a note to receive! (Even if I knew that the... Continue Reading →
Recently, I spoke with a former colleague not just about teaching but also about hiring. She said this: "It is hard to find real WRITING teachers anymore." The conversation stayed with me for a while, obviously. In recent research I did with preservice teachers, I noticed a pattern within their comments: They loved reading. This... Continue Reading →
Katie and I recently had the pleasure of presenting with the rest of our joyful team at NCTE 2024's Heart, Hope, and Humanity Convention. Our presentation focused on one particular chapter of Joyful Literacies--"Moving Pretty Fast: Literacies as Pop Culture." We believe wholeheartedly in joyful literacies pedagogy, meaning that we must build our daily plans... Continue Reading →