Yesterday, I got a text from one of my pre-service teachers who will be attending NCTE with me next week: “How in the world are we supposed to pick sessions?! I’m currently signed up to attend 26 sessions from 9:30-12:15 on Friday according to my app. Whoops!” I think all of us who have been…
If I could change just one thing about the elementary education and secondary English education majors I teach, it would be this: they would all love to read and write. I believe a love of reading and writing is a prerequisite to creating a classroom where children and teenagers become avid, engaged readers and writers.…
The title of this post is one of my all-time favorite teaching quotes from Randy Bomer’s Time for Meaning: Crafting Literate Lives in Middle and High School, one of my all-time favorite books about teaching English Language Arts. I still remember feeling struck dumb when I first read this line. Wait a second. Not having…
1. Why School?: How Education Must Change When Learning and Information Are Everywhere by Will Richardson. This Kindle Single explores what’s wrong with the way schools currently work and argues that we have to change. Richardson’s message is ultimately a hopeful one–and he provides practical guidelines that every teacher can follow for transforming his or…
I didn’t intend for Gretchen Rubin to become the patron saint of my Methods course for Secondary English Ed majors, but the first of her twelve commandments, Be Gretchen, has become something of a mantra for us. Being Gretchen means knowing and accepting your likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and making decisions accordingly. It means figuring…
If you ever want to get a conversation going in a Methods class for pre-service teachers, ask about their teaching fears. And before you know it, you’ll have a white board covered with fears ranging from school shootings to bathroom breaks, from wardrobe malfunctions to meeting standards, from grading papers to getting yelled at by…
When I first started teaching the English Language Arts Methods course, I prepared in the way that I usually prepare to develop new courses: I examined as many online syllabi as I could find. No matter how each instructor conceptualized the course (and it’s a lot trickier to figure out how to conceive this course…
