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 →
Recently, I read Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson. This book is wonderfully thoughtful, focusing on the trial of Kabuo Miyamoto for the murder of Carl Heine in 1954. Guterson centers racism, injustice, and social inequity in the small fishing village of San Piedro, an island in Puget Sound. As I read the early... Continue Reading →
#NCTE25! What an event. We—myself (Holly) and Chris—had our session on our book, Joyful Literacies in Secondary English Language Arts,on Friday at 3:30, and I was predictably nervous about how it would go. As I talked more and more, I felt the nerves wear off, and the realization that I was around wonderfully engaged and... Continue Reading →
As an English teacher, I always have the best intentions when it comes to reading over summer break, but I rarely get through the entirety of the list. But this summer is different, I swear! 😂 I have separate lists for what I want to read for my classroom library, for my teaching, for myself—I... Continue Reading →
Summer’s here, and I’m busy thinking and reading and writing my way through my backlog of ideas for school. Recently, another educator told me about a sidewalk chalk poetry assignment she observed students doing at a high school in Texas—specifically, she talked about the joy and authentic literacy of the assignment. I couldn’t help but... Continue Reading →