“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” Maya Angelou
What’s your commitment in 2021? Mine is courageous creativity. Here’s why.
Word Choice and Power
Watching the live reporting of the attempted coup on January 6th, 2021, I was thinking about two things: racial inequities in policing, and bias in the word choice used to report collective actions. This blog focuses on word choice, and how we can teach students to listen and read critically for bias.
Reflecting on Connection – My Top 10 Virtual Collaborations in 2020
In this blog post, I invite readers to back up from the K-12 context and reflect on how we connect and collaborate in our own lives. And in a pandemic, how we build connections that matter when we are miles apart and limited to digital tools.
Offline & Unplugged Joy
This weekend something magical happened, I opened a box.
Enjoy a moment of peace and reflection- the moment a keynote speaker and writer unplugged from Pandemic fears, to reconnect with what has always brought her joy.
Observation Begins with Active Engagement
To get good observation data, we have to shift from traditional methods (like lectures and silent testing) to challenging, open-ended, collaborative tasks that actively engage students in processing and applying the new learning. If our learning is sit-and-get, there is nothing to observe but student behaviors of either compliance or disruption.
What’s the Purpose?
Literacy educator discovers her creative writing on a standardized test, and struggles to answer the comprehension questions.
Writing from the Ashes
Evacuated from my home the first morning of the Tubbs Fire, I found a charred page of the bible amidst the fallen ash. Here’s an erasure poem I wrote using that that page to express the devastation and find my way towards resilience. Share these strategies to create and teach erasure poems.
Courageous Learning with Comics
Problem I don’t draw. Seriously, this is what I’ve told myself for most of my life. Yes, this was the humbling realization I had when reading Carol Dweck’s book Mindset years ago, as in other parts of my life I feel like a walking example of someone with a growth mindset. I thrive on challenges, on learning from failure, and all that. I take risks daily to push myself beyond what…
Six Reasons to Recite Poetry
Only two weeks into my poetry recitation challenge in a Title I school, I cannot walk across the playground without a student stopping me to share a poem. “Be forewarned. Reciting poetry is contagious.” In an unscheduled visit to one fifth grade classroom, I arrived to see students out of their seats raising hands to be the first to recite poems. They had begged the teacher to let them take their poems home…
Twelve Days of Social Networking
In the spirit of holiday fun, I’ve rewritten a classic song from the 1700s with a twenty-first century twist. This is dedicated to educators, leaders and innovators engaged in professional learning networks (PLN).
