Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
Once again it's been a few weeks since I've posted a "Links Worth Talking About." Moving into a new house and the swiftness at which the end of the school year seems to be approaching has left me feeling a little overwhelmed at the idea of writing and organizing blog posts. But I am procrastinating right now so what better time to actually sit down and write a blog post, right? :)
And continuing in the political discourse theme, this poem by Jason Reynolds packs quite the punch and says more in fewer words than any op-ed or news article ever could
I have recently been getting into podcasts (which is really cutting down on my audiobook listening time!) so I found this NYT article fascinating.
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
It's been a while since I've posted to this blog. I thought finishing my master's degree would give me more time to write... but then I bought a new house and unpacking and home improvement projects have taken up a great deal of my time lately. So these links are some of my favorites from the past few weeks.
In March, NCTE hosted a Twitter chat about Everyday Advocacy which revolved around the idea of how we can advocate for our students and profession in small ways everyday. If you missed the chat, here is the Storify Archive.
Josh Funk is a generous, wonderful author. In this Nerdy Book Club post, he gives teachers his utmost love and praise.
When people hear that I teach middle school, most of the time their reaction is that of horror. I wouldn't want to teach any other age than teens. Why? Because my days are never boring.
My husband and I lived in Germany for a few years and despite the fact that German will never be granted the World's Most Beautiful Language Award, we love the language just the same. I mean how can you not with words like these?
This week a fake New York Times article circulated saying that Senator Elizabeth Warren endorsed Bernie Sanders. Many people fell for it. So this was a really great opportunity to talk with my students about things like background information, context, (why does it matter that
Elizabeth Warren apparently endorsed Sanders?), motivations (why would
someone want to make a fake NYT article about Warren in the first
place?) and why it's important to know your sources.
Are you coming to #nErDcampMI in July? This year they're putting out a call for day 1 proposals.
The articles against homework continue to pile up. Here's the most recent one. I particularly found this quote provocative:
Homework does have an impact on young students, but it’s not a
good one. A child just beginning school deserves the chance to develop a
love of learning. Instead, homework at a young age causes many kids to
turn against school, future homework and academic learning.
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
Speaking of apropos of nothing, yesterday I celebrated getting stuck in the snow since the first memory in our new house was getting stuck while trying to pull in the driveway for the first time.
"The reason this question bothers me isn’t because I don’t love and
appreciate librarians (schools need librarians), but because it’s asked
under the pretense that teachers, English teachers in particular,
shouldn’t be so excited about reading and shouldn’t be reading so much.
Maybe I’m wrong in that assumption, but the tone when the question is
asked, especially at school, leaves me feeling like they think my
passion for reading is misplaced. That it’s better suited for a library
than in my classroom. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t
the people asking that question wonder to themselves why they aren’t as
excited about reading?"
Pernille Ripp started a fabulous hashtag this week: #1s1w, which stands for 1 School, 1 World. It is a way for students and teachers to see how schools around the world are alike and different.
I loved this Atlantic article about the wrong way to teach grammar. I was criticized by colleagues when I first began teaching because I was told my method of teaching was "new fangled" and that it was just a trend that would pass. Except for the fact that there's decades of research that proves traditional grammar instruction is detrimental to student success in writing. So whenever I come across articles like this I always add another mental tally mark for proving my former colleagues wrong.
Given who is currently leading in the presidential race and the media's misplaced fascination with this person, we need to talk about why decency has suddenly fallen out of favor. Max Lucado is making the case for decency for president.
"We take note of the person who pays their debts. We appreciate the
physician who takes time to listen. When the husband honors his wedding
vows, when the teacher makes time for the struggling student, when the
employee refuses to gossip about her co-worker, when the losing team
congratulates the winning team, we can characterize their behavior with
the word decent.
We appreciate decency. We applaud decency. We teach decency. We seek to develop decency. Decency matters, right?
Then why isn’t decency doing better in the presidential race?"
As the research points to the importance of having school libraries with certified librarians, an advocacy group in Harlem is demanding school librarians. Yes!
I love the message of this commercial of Be together. Not the same. A message our elected officials certainly can't seem to get right these days.
As the circus that has become the 2016 presidential race sends me into fits of despair, one hashtag has helped to cheer me up this weekend: #obamaandkids. I really am going to miss him as our president. Whether you agree with his politics or not, you can't deny that he has led our country with respect, kindness, and dignity. He embodies what public service should be and what it so often is not.
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
If you've been following the drama with the book A Birthday Cake for George Washington, then you know the plot thickened this week when the author spoke out in a rather contentious article on Huffington Post.
Pernille Ripp wrote an important post this week about when we harm rather than help students when it comes to reading interventions.
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
So this has been an interesting week in the world of Children's literature. Scholastic did something unprecedented. After only being in bookstores for a matter of days, they pulled the book A Birthday Cake for George Washington after furor of its overt racism.Lots of people seem to be weighing in on the topic without having actually read the book so rather than give my opinion, I just shared a link of someone who is more informed than I am.
Despite the unfortunate situation with a book being pulled from publication, this has been a rather prolific couple weeks in announcing children's
literature book awards. In addition to the ALA Youth Media Awards, we
also just learned the winners of: Charlotte Zolotow (award for best picture book text) Amelia Bloomer (award for feminist literature from birth to age 18)
The inaugural Walter Award that was created by We Need Diverse Books
This week I wrote a post about how a story in Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic inspired my class to create a new mantra: Be the lobster.
My friend Gary Anderson wrote this wonderful post about his top ten favorite interview questions for hiring English teachers. This post is so on point that the next time I have a job interview, I will ask these questions to myself and then answer them for the interviewers if they don't. :)
For those of my teacher friends who give their students choice and agency in their reading lives, you should be applauded. But Erica Beaton wonders what happens when we don't ask our students to push themselves and read hard things they wouldn't choose on their own.
I need to put these words somewhere prominent as something to say the next time I have an anxiety attack.
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
I hope you'll join us tonight at 8 PM ET on Twitter for the first #nctechat of 2016, hosted by members of the brand new NCTE Assembly on the Studies of Literacies and Multimedia (SLAM)
I'm still so happy and thrilled about the news from earlier this week that Matt's book Last Stop on Market Streetwon the Newbery medal. After I heard the news, I read it to my students the next day without the pictures and asked them to write about what they thought made it distinguished. Many of them had trouble articulating just what made it distinguished, but even those who seemed a little dubious of this choice still could tell that there is something special about this book.
I found this Washington Post article fascinating: The totes amazesh way millennials are changing the English language
I have a confesh: I am totes guilty of totesing. I approach language like a linguist, not a grammarian. I love studying (and participating in!) the ways in which culture causes language to evolve.
And speaking of millennials, John Green has some words for the adults in the room: Stop patronizing young people and start listening
I've been saying this for a long time. You can either yell from your porch to "get off my lawn" or you can bother to listen to young people and seek to understand what they have going for them. If you hadn't noticed, all adolescents are self-absorbed. It's called being an adolescent. You were no different.
The book Quiet by Susan Cain changed my life. It made me realize that not only am I an introvert,This article really resonated with me because, yes, as an introvert, I abhor small talk. but that in a culture that only seems to embrace extroversion, it's time to find ways to value and nurture the introverts of the world.
Are you submitting a proposal for NCTE 2016 in Atlanta? Don't forget proposals are due this Wednesday. In this video Susan Houser and Jason Griffith give some proposal writing tips.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If you live in Michigan, I encourage you to sign this petition urging Governor Snyder to veto SB 571, which if it becomes law, "librarians would be sent to jail for sharing factual information about elections with their communities."
Kelly Gallagher tweeted the link to this article from 2011 and it just reinforces in my mind the need for mentors as we learn to write, whether those mentors are other writers, entire texts, or as simple as sentences on a page. I'm thinking I might make this an article of the week for my 8th graders. Think You Know "How to Write a Sentence?"
Marquin Parks is a friend of mine from Michigan and fellow Writing Project teacher consultant who did an Ignite session at NCTE last month. I just discovered someone recorded it. It was by far my favorite Ignite session of the entire group.
Speaking of NCTE, who is submitting an NCTE proposal for 2016? The due date is January 13th.
And finally, I grew up in Dearborn. My mother still lives there. The city has the largest percentage of Arab Americans in the country. I have never felt unsafe there despite the rhetoric that is perpetuated by politicians and the media these days. It's a place I am proud to have called home. Dearborn, MI: Where the Muslims Are... Americans
Links Worth Talking About is a weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing. This weekly list of links was inspired by my friend and blogger Elisabeth Ellington. I started to join her every Sunday on this endeavor but I took a short hiatus due to how frazzled I have been finishing up my last semester of grad school. I am here to announce that I am done and have earned my master's degree in English Studies from Eastern Michigan University. Huzzah!
The following links are ones that I have been talking about for the past few weeks:
I am so grateful to friends and colleagues who help me examine my own privilege. This blog post from Chris Lehman after NCTE was one of those examination of conscience moments for me.
I am convinced as the world is becoming more and more hateful that we need to teach empathy in schools and exercise it like a muscle. Six Ways to Flex Your Empathy Muscle
If you weren't in attendance to hear Laurie Halse Anderson give her acceptance speech at NCTE for the Intellectual freedom award, you can read the text on the NCTE blog.
"Those of us who create for young readers know that our freedoms to
think, speak, and write cannot bear fruit unless America respects the
intellectual freedom of educators as well." - Laurie Halse Anderson
Links Worth Talking About is my weekly post of curated links about education, books, and apropos of nothing.
Don't forget: if you live in or near southeastern Michigan, you should totally come to EdCamp EMWP at Eastern Michigan University on October 24th.
In this NCTE Google Hangout on Air, Kim Parker talks about the importance of teacher research and why you should apply for an NCTE teacher research grant.
And, of course, apropos of nothing:
My husband and I have two pugs. If we ever get another pug, we shall name him Biggie Smalls, the Notorious P.U.G.
Not only do I love that Jim Harbaugh returned to college football to coach Michigan because he seems to have turned the program around, but the dude is crazy entertaining to watch.
Inspired by Elisabeth Ellington's weekly Links I Loved Last Week
posts, I've decided to curate my own set of notable links from the past
week.
If you live in or near southeastern Michigan, you need to come to #EdCampEMWP on Saturday October 24th. It's going to be a fantastic day of learning, plus there's going to be giveaways and SWAG. Speaking of which, this is what greeted me on my front porch when I came home from work on Friday:
A delivery of TWELVE boxes of ARCs and SWAG from Scholastic! We also have SWAG and giveaways from Candlewick Press, Simon & Schuster, and a few professional texts from NCTE.
I love this Washington Post article about private schools allowing staff to bring dogs into the classroom. It reminded me of an interview I did a while ago with my friend Danielle Kulawiak who brings her dog Tonka, a certified therapy dog, to her high school classroom.
This week hasn't only been full of good news and warm and fuzzy stories. We also had tragedy. Tragedy that I believe could be prevented. I'm tired of hearing these stories of mass shootings at schools. It's time to start doing something about it. The first thing I'm going to do is start better educating myself about the topic of gun safety and gun control, starting with the Brady Campaign, which was brought to my attention when someone shared it on Facebook this week when a friend asked for reliable sources about the topic of gun control. And this opinion piece from the Sydney Morning Herald eloquently explains why Australia is not like the U.S. to counter what President Obama said in his press conference this week. And while we're on this topic, here are a few more articles to read: Mental Illness is the Wrong Scapegoat after Mass Shootings Rehearsing for death: a pre-K teacher on the trouble with lockdown drills
Inspired by Elisabeth Ellington's weekly Links I Loved Last Week
posts, I've decided to curate my own set of notable links from the past
week.
If you missed last weekend's #nctechat on censorship and young adult literature, you can read the Storify archive. I also curated my own set of Tweets for the chat that I found the most valuable.
Brian Wyzlic shared the letter he sends home to parents about his classroom library and why he won't censor books. This letter is especially poignant because, like me, he works at a Catholic school.
"If the rules of your classroom were the rules of the world, would you want to live there? "
The longlists for the National Book Award came out this week and the list for Young People's Literature is fabulous. I'm rooting for X: A Novel because we need more diverse books like that in our canon of young people's literature. Even though it's historical fiction, it is still so very rooted in our present.
Speaking of NCTE, If you're a teacher who has always wanted to attend the their Annual Convention but knew you'd never be able to get funding, this year NCTE is helping you make a case to your administrator as to why you should be able to go.
Continuing with more awesome NCTE info, they have a pretty epic #nctechat scheduled for next Sunday in honor of the upcoming Banned Books Week, which revolves around YA Lit this year.
YA author Jason Reynolds gave this amazing virtual keynote for School Library Journal where he said that the reason he writes books is "to acknowledge the lives of those who seem to have been unacknowledged.”
After watching this video, I DEFINITELY want to read A Fine Dessert and make blackberry fool with my students.
Michigan principal Ben Gilpin shared some amazing classroom cribs in his own building. Leaders like Ben Gilpin and Sue Haney are certainly making a name for themselves and showing that the small town of Parma, Michigan is an enviable place to work.
And speaking of Kevin English, he shared this video on Twitter last week with a great suggestion to pair it with the book What Do You Do with an Idea? by Kobi Yamada, illustrated by Mae Besom
This Washington Post article about the right and wrong way to get kids to sit still in class is everything. Bottom line: kids need time to play, not just sit on bouncy balls.
Inspired by Elisabeth Ellington's weekly Links I Loved Last Week
posts, I've decided to curate my own set of notable links from the past
week. Last week was my inaugural post so I'm hoping, like Elisabeth, to make this a weekly event.
Another weekly event I participate in is Ruth Ayres' Celebration Saturday. Yesterday I celebrated the music of my heart -- and even got brave and sang for my blog post.
On my other blog, I reviewed three books:
A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen
This is finally the Berlin Wall novel I've been waiting for since I first visited the city back in 2004 and fell in love with its vibrant, youthful energy.
Remember, stakeholders are just another group of students, and there’s no better
way to engage students than by getting them to actively participate.
Linda Darling-Hammond, the renowned professor at Stanford who in my opinion should have been our Secretary of Education these past 7+ years, is launching an education think tank "aimed at shaping education policies nationwide." I'm excited to see where this leads.
This Chronicle Books blog post talks about the many benefits of coloring. Given my recent realization that I am struggling with anxiety, I think it's time to start pulling out the crayons and colored pencils again like I loved to do when I was a child.
Sarah Larson writes a New Yorker piece about Why You Hate Google's New Logo. Not only do I agree with her, but I also think the writing is stellar and worth sharing with students.
Thanks to Colby Sharp and Travis Jonker's new kid lit podcast The Yarn, I have begun to explore other podcasts, because sometimes I just don't feel like committing to an entire audiobook, but I can handle a 15-20 minute podcast episode. A couple of my favorites right now: Stories from the Teaching Life with Penny Kittle and Magic Lessons with Elizabeth Gilbert. What are some of your favorite podcasts?
Speaking of Travis Jonker, how can you not want to watch an Ignite Talk he gave at the 2015 Michigan Reading Association conference entitled "Be the Flava Flav of Books"? Though I was really hoping he'd wear sunglasses and a clock necklace when he gave his talk.
My friend Sarah Andersen wrote about helping high school teachers in her district and neighboring districts spread book love in their schools and classrooms.
And congratulations to my friend Kevin English who made the International Literacy Association's 30 Under 30 List. So well-deserved!
I love Pernille Ripp's and Kristi Mraz's reasons for discouraging teachers the use of public behavior charts in their classrooms -- and also Kimberly Moran's empowering way she took the behavior chart that she was required to use and turned it over to her students.
Two Vlogbrothers videos I loved this week: John Green talks about how everyone's been misinterpreting the famous Robert Frost poem "The Road Not Taken" all these years and Hank Green talks about society's unproductive addiction to outrage.
Also apropos of nothing other than my husband and I are big Michigan football fans and have season tickets for the first time this year (and I love Charles Woodson):
