When I graduated from college thirteen years ago, I knew what I was against. I knew that many of the staples of the traditional English class didn’t work. I was much less clear, though, on what I was for. That all changed during the summer after my first year of teaching. On the recommendation of… Read More Introduction to Reading Roundtable Discussions, NerdCampMI 2019
Because of the length of this post, I almost split it into two separate ones, but I ended up putting them both together. For those of you who make it all the way to the end, I’d love to know any ideas you have on either topic. One of the many things I love most… Read More My Two Big Questions for This Summer
One of the things I have wrestled with a lot over the years is the best way to assess writing. I believe the most important thing for writers, beyond finding topics and purposes for their writing that matter to them, is that they invest in the process. I want students to put in the work… Read More Trying to Assess a Writer’s Process
With the school year over, I think it’s so important to take some time to reflect. So this will be the first of several posts designed to help me think back on the year: what I noticed, what I learned, and what I want to think about or change next year. This first post is… Read More Reflections on a Year (Mostly) without Grades
This is a post I started a while back but never finished. I’ve rewritten portions to post it today. One Tuesday afternoon in February, I read Anne Ursu’s post on the Nerdy Book Club blog about her new book, The Lost Girl. There were a lot of interesting ideas in there, but what really… Read More Gender and Book Choice
This week, I’ve been thinking back to previous years when a teacher from a nearby district would complain about how early their grades had to be in at the end of the year. Final grades were due before the year was over, and kids new this. I used to think this would be bad too.… Read More Thoughts on Using Grades to Keep Kids Motivated at the End of the Year
I’ve never been a teacher who started a countdown on his board to the last day of school. Now don’t get me wrong, I love summer. The chance to recharge, reflect, read and plan for the next year, and to spend time with my family without any work that is pressing is something I cherish.… Read More Celebrating May
Earlier this week as I was reshelving books in my classroom library, I found a photo inside one of them. It was a picture of one of my students as a young boy, probably two or three years old, being held by his mom. For some reason, looking at that picture really struck me. This… Read More Working with Students Who Challenge Me
I have not written a blog post in quite a while. Well, actually, I haven’t finished a blog post in a while. The end of basketball season, which finished with a loss in our conference championship game and us narrowly missing out on an NCAA Tournament berth, was quite busy, and once I got out… Read More Summer Reading
Goal-setting has been a part of my class for many years, long before my decision to stop grading individual assignments and begin meeting with students to decide their grades at the end of each quarter. In the past, they were a part of the grade students would receive, but with all the other grades that… Read More Goal Setting in Our Writing-Reading Workshop
