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 (Katie) watched Dazed and Confused, the 1993 cult classic directed by Richard Linklater, for the first time. I know, I know, I can practically hear you screaming at me from across the ether, “How are you just now watching this movie?!”, to which I’d reply, as I do when my friends ask me... 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 →
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 →
We are so joyful that we get to share our book, Joyful Literacies in Secondary English Language Arts, with others in the English teaching world on January 21, 2025! The title's a mouthful, so we've shortened it to Joyful Literacies for our accompanying blog. With all that is going on in education--the constant changes, the starts... Continue Reading →