Have you signed up for The Educator’s Room Daily Newsletter? Click here and support independent journalism! By Julie Letofsky A Tennessee school board bans Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust because of two curses and “its depiction of violence and suicide.” A Texas woman wants to ban a Michelle Obama biography from school […]
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.
“This Book Saves Lives!” Why You Should Teach The Stars Beneath Our Feet.
In my eighth-grade English Language Arts classroom, reading was an experience. It was an opportunity to connect, express, discuss, motivate, and debate. No book demonstrated this more than The Stars Beneath Our Feet by David Barclay Moore. There will be NO spoilers in this piece (well nothing that you can’t find out by reading the […]
Assigning a Research Paper? Think About Rigor, Responsibility, and Relevance in English/Language Arts
As English language arts teachers, we need to teach the language of doing business along with the literary arts. Thesis We teach literary research and other standard ELA concepts because students will be able to transfer the skills. Simply put, if students can research the imagery of Emily Dickinson’s poems, they can, likewise, research blood-alcohol […]
Paving the Way: Teacher Modeling to Improve Student Writing
by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar, Ed.D. Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar is an associate English professor at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania teaching first-year writing and secondary education English classes. She previously worked for fifteen years as an English teacher in Delaware public schools. She received her Doctorate of Education in Educational Leadership with a Literacy Specialization from the […]
A Millennial Librarian Wants to Change How We View the Library
Jessica Fitzpatrick is a high school librarian in Houston and is in her eighth year of education. She holds a Bachelor of Science in elementary education from the University of Houston and a Master of Library and Information Science from the University of North Texas. She is the 2020 TLA Branding Award Winner for Community […]
English in America: Is English Really our “Official” Language in Schools?
English, the “Official” American Language Although the United States does not have an official language, everyone knows that English is the language of the land. Despite our history of multilingual immigrants who later became Americans, English has always been the “American language.” Our school system has reinforced this idea and has caused many challenges for […]
The Purpose of the Passage in Teaching Writing
Alison Levine teaches Creative Writing at a public elementary school in Coconut Creek, Florida. She has been a gifted resource teacher, an elementary school classroom teacher and a middle school language arts teacher. She is passionate about reading current research on education and implementing new strategies in her classroom. Alison loves taking long walks and […]
Writing Across the Content Areas: Family Message Journals
Christian Dria grew up in Minnesota and knew in the 1st grade that she wanted to be a teacher. She earned her degree at the University of Wisconsin and has been a primary teacher for 28 years. She lives in Central Minnesota with her husband and daughter. I chuckled after asking, “What did you […]