When I talk with teachers, parents, and young writers, I keep returning to the same idea: literacy today is both more fragile and more generative than it was ten years ago. The last decade has been a time of significant shifts – some hopeful, some concerning – and understanding these trends helps us make more […]
English Language Learners
Over 11 percent of students in the United States—more than 4.8 million kids—are English language learners (ELLs), and the number is on the rise. Though these students do not learn differently than their native-English-speaking peers, they do have particular educational needs.
Posted inEnglish Language Learners
Under His Eye: Teaching Under Trump’s Policy
I teach twelfth-grade English at an urban school. The poverty rate here is high. Violent crime is a common occurrence. I’ve devoted my career to serving this population. The work is often difficult, but it’s the most-important work in the world, and I’m all in. When I returned to the classroom in September, to begin […]
Posted inEnglish Language Learners
Can AI Be a Learning Partner? Rethinking the role of generative AI
Imagine that you’ve just assigned your students a reflective essay on something that they’ve read or on a project that they recently completed. Eventually, you begin sifting through the submissions, but you notice some marked differences from previous years. For instance,several essays are polished but kind of generic, with an overly refined tone that doesn’t […]
Posted inEnglish Language Learners
The Transformative Power of Literature Circles
Walk into any given classroom and survey the students about reading. Some students will say that they love it, others may say they read because they have to, and another group would put it last on their list of things they enjoy about school. Perhaps they just haven’t found a book genre they love, or […]
Posted inEnglish Language Learners
Writing in Reverse: A strategy to strengthen student writing
In the high school English classroom, one assessment continues to reign supreme: the essay. Informative, argumentative, and narrative essays have stood the test of time and for good reason. Essays allow students to showcase a multitude of skills across the common core, from research to literary analysis, creative writing to conventions. Not to mention the metacognitive […]
Posted inAsk a Teacher
My relationship with AI…It’s complicated!
It has been over 2 years since ChatGPT launched, arguably bringing artificial intelligence (AI) into the mainstream. AI has rapidly evolved into a large collection of tools that address almost every aspect of teaching and learning. They can grade papers or provide individualized feedback, correct grammar, generate ideas for lessons, write standards-based assessments at every […]
Posted inSocial Justice
Understanding Ramadan: A Classroom Teacher’s Guide
This year at the end of February, approximately 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide will be observing the holy month of Ramadan. Ramadan is the ninth month of the lunar Islamic calendar, which begins the morning after sighting the last sliver of a crescent moon before a new moon and lasts for 30 days. The observance of […]
Posted inBack to School
Using Thrity Umrigar’s novels to tackle summer reading apathy
One way I suggest engaging eleventh and twelfth-grade readers — especially for summer reading assignments — involves assigning modern novels outside of the traditional canon. Two books by Thrity Umrigar, The Space Between Us (2005) and Honor (2022) created a high level of engagement in my AP English Literature students at the onset of the […]