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
My 7-year-old currently claims that he has a hard time falling asleep. He’s not lying exactly. The other night, I sat next to his bed in the too-small-for-a-grown-up beanbag chair, waiting for him to nod off. He tossed, turned, tossed some more. Finally, I squeezed… Read More
At an ILA panel on Saturday, graphic novelist Gene Yang shared how much superheroes and comics meant to him and for his reading life when he was growing up. The panel, titled “Disrupting a Destructive Cycle,” focused on how we can work to disrupt the… Read More
It was the first day of class, and we talked about embarrassment. Not in the “share your most embarrassing moment” get-to-know/team-building exercise way. One of the most embarrassing moments of my teaching was when I went to school with two different shoes on. And as… Read More
This is my thirtieth consecutive day blogging. I am exhausted. It’s my third year finishing the Slice of Life challenge, but this year feels different. I wonder if it’s because spring break is so much later this year; even without the work (and joy) of daily… Read More
Sometimes the best lesson ideas come to me at the most unexpected times, which is usually when I grab a post-it note to write it down and stick it on my desk, next to my computer, somewhere I’ll find it again. Two “post-it” ideas today:
This morning, one of my students came in to tell me she’d finished reading Angie Thomas’ important and beautiful book, The Hate U Give. When I asked her what she thought, she paused. “I liked it,” she began, and that’s when I thought, Oh, no, there’s a… Read More
If you’re like me, then you know that the internet is both blessing and curse—especially for connected educators. On one hand, there’s so much access to innovative ideas and thought-provoking conversation with fellow educators around the world that it would be hard to justify not being connected,… Read More
We go to the movies a lot as a family. Usually, that means a lot of superhero movies. Captain America, Iron Man, the Avengers, Superman—you name it, we’ve seen them all. As a society, I think we often concern ourselves with the messages that our young… Read More
As we start counting down to the end of this Slice of Life challenge, I’m officially at the point I think many of my fellow slicers are probably at about now—the what do I write about next? moment. But like yesterday, I’ve decided to get some inspiration from Austin Kleon’s The… Read More
