Links Worth Talking About 1-31-16

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

This week I reviewed Tom Romano's latest book Write What Matters: For Yourself, For Others. 

Ricki Ginsberg makes a compelling case for why teachers and librarians need to lay off the lexiles.

I love Jenni Holm's Nerdy Book Club post this week: Back to (Board Book) Basics. 

Hank Green concurs with his brother John and discusses why the term millennial makes him cringe.

Danielle Davis shared a great post on All the Wonders: 12 Delightful Picture Books with Diverse Characters

Sometimes educational communities on Twitter are criticized for living inside their own little worlds and not responding to issues and problems as they are unfolding. They conduct their regularly scheduled chats with little to no recognition of the problems occurring in real time, causing them to appear somewhat tone deaf. This week, the #MichEd community focused their chat on the crises we are dealing with in Flint and Detroit. I was happy to see this educational community on Twitter rally in support and pose questions to try to move beyond simple Twitter activism.

Shannon Houghton shared this link with me this week and highlighted the Ignite session by Saraswati Noel about social justice in math class.  


Pernille Ripp shares how to make grades about students again.

The Michigan Daily, the University of Michigan's student newspaper, wrote this wonderful article about my favorite bookstore, Literati.

More discussion this week about A Birthday Cake for George Washington after furor of its overt racism caused Scholastic to pull the book from publication.


This week I found out that one of my favorite books of all time, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe is getting a sequel!

And apropos of nothing...

Three people shared this link with me on Facebook this week. Because my friends on Facebook know that I am obsessed with sloths: Police Officers Rescue Sloth Trapped on Roadway

I am a huge figure skating fan. I have been ever since I was 14 years old and the whole Nancy/Tonya showdown of the 1994 Olympics. I finally got around to watching the U.S. National Championships on my DVR this week and I was completely spellbound by ice dancers Maia and Alex Shibutani. "Fix You" by Coldplay is my favorite song. So when I heard the first notes of the song, I worried that they wouldn't do it justice. Oh boy was I wrong. Not only did they interpret the music perfectly, but they created a moment and will now always be remembered for this performance.