Links Worth Talking About 1-3-16

Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.

Every day since December 26th, the Nerdy Book Club has been announcing winners of their annual Nerdy Awards.Today was the last day of the Nerdy Award announcements and I'm honored to have been part of them. I wrote the review for the YA winner, The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds.

On my book blog, read my top 15 favorite books of 2015.

When I return back to school from Christmas break, I'm going to have my 8th graders write an analysis of their favorite choice to win the Caldecott Award that will be announced on January 11th. I love this post by Jessica Lifshitz about how she did a mock Caldecott unit with her 5th graders. Lots of great ideas to adapt to 8th grade.

Austin Kleon's weekly newsletter is one of the few weekly emails I receive that I actually read faithfully (that and NCTE's Inbox newsletter). I loved his recent post about the benefits of boredom.

As someone who has kept a journal since I was 11-years-old, I don't need convincing about the benefits of keeping a journal. But some of you reading this might, so here's 9 reasons why keeping a journal should be your only resolution this year.

If you're on Twitter and you're not following Shawna Coppola, do something about that right now. I think you'll especially want to after she blows your mind with this blog post: Four Stories That Homework Tells Children About School, Learning, & Life. (Spoiler alert: they're not positive stories).

I love this blog post by David Abrams about the best first lines of 2015. Definitely a mentor text to share with students.

My husband often makes fun of me for calling myself an introvert because whenever I go to conferences and get-togethers where I'm in the presence of my bookish and teacher friends, I'm anything but quiet. Which is why this article resonates with me: 10 signs you're an outgoing introvert. 

And apropos of nothing...

This is a pretty awesome mashup of the top hits of 2015 in 2 minutes.

I have never watched Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, but since he recently interviewed President Obama, I thought I'd give it a gander. It was pretty funny.

As someone who has only seen the original Star Wars movies because of an essay I had to write in college and has no interest in seeing the new Star Wars movie, this made me crack up: Someone who never saw 'Star Wars' hilariously live-tweeted the original trilogy

"Two Words: Space Voldemort"