With the primary season in full swing and still more than eight months away from November… I’m already exhausted. Actually, I’ve been exhausted. Every day feels like a hundred. This post isn’t really about the election, but politics is always personal and local. And so… Read More
Advancing the false idea that teaching through an antiracist lens and developing students’ reading and writing skills are mutually exclusive is a gross misinterpretation of the work I see many teachers do—teachers who engage students in deep learning and support them in developing the skills… Read More
NOTE: This post was originally published and written for Literacy Today, a publication of the International Literacy Association (ILA). Click on the image at the right to download or print a PDF of the original article (and click here browse the entire issue). In May… Read More
“Your racial consciousness determines how you show up.” A few weeks ago, a small group of teachers—all of us teachers of color—gathered for dinner with Tony Hudson, an Equity Transformational Specialist from the Pacific Education Group (PEG). This year, our district partnered with PEG to… Read More
I: Daniel was the son raised in the valley. A bucket for a swimming pool. Air conditioning was hosing down the cement porch, waiting for a breeze. Him and Mom, Granny and Papá Romulo. Then Dad returned from the war. That’s all I know of… Read More
I ended our first full week of school by writing, and reading aloud, a letter to my students. There’s so much more to say, but it’s a start. This weekend, they write back. 🙂 August 31, 2018 Dear 10th graders, One question that I often… Read More
This summer, when writing’s been challenging for me, I’ve started to use Twitter as a place to draft my thoughts in series of Tweets and then revisit later as blog post. There’s something about limiting myself to the small writing of just 280 characters that makes… Read More
What I’m working on this week includes too many things. And whenever I get into “too many things” territory, I’ll follow the advice I always give to students who find themselves similarly overwhelmed: make a list, prioritize, take on one thing at a time.
Reading a few conversations online recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the urgent need for us as teachers to do some hard, internal work of unpacking the identities we bring to the classroom. More and more lately, I’ve seen teachers get defensive in conversations… Read More
One of the wonderful things that the #DisruptTexts chat has brought is opportunities to talk with teachers about what disruption can look like in the English classroom. Yesterday was one of those days as our team was invited to talk with teachers at an NCTE… Read More
