Leaving and Taking

As part of this morning's improv activity, we were invited to think about what we would take away from the UNCC National Writing Project Summer Institute and what we would leave. I decided to use those categories for my reflection on SI. What I'll Leave The feeling that if I don't do it it won't …

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A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words

I've done less work, or perhaps better to say, different work, this year. Less writing and presenting. More being with friends and sharing meals. (Fast Company suggests that in-person socializing should be a mandatory item on your to-do list.) Less "techy" projects with students, more research alongside them.  More productive messes in the kitchen with …

Reflecting on the Fly

It's been almost a month since I've blogged. One of the frustrations of this year is that I've felt that I've had so little time to reflect. Reflection is one of those activities whose absence one doesn't necessarily feel immediately. It's like sliding by on too little sleep; you can do it for a bit, …

It’s June

As I was scrolling back through blog posts today looking for something to trigger some end of the year reflections, I stumbled upon a post I had forgotten that I'd written. It's a list of three things I had hoped to accomplish by June. I wrote about the new blended learning class I would be …

Student Reflections on Teaching

The student-taught lessons are coming to an end in our US History class. After teaching, I asked students to reflect on the following questions. Below each question I've posted some of the student responses. Did your lesson go according to your plan? If not, how did it vary? Was this a good or bad thing? …

Scaffolding Tech

Earlier today I read Scaffolding Your Lesson Plans on Scott Meech's blog. The following began as a comment in response and turned into a full post... Last year was my first year teaching at a 1:1 laptop school. I embraced the technology with open arms and threw myself (and my students) into it. While there …

The Danger of a Single Story

In World Cultures class, we are grappling with the complicated history of the Middle East. We've been looking at the history from as many lens as possible- creating drawings, spinning analogies, organizing information. Students are thinking hard AND synthesizing difficult information. Occasionally, a student will pop up, "So, it's all about oil, right?" or "The …

Talking Back to the Teacher

Although, I blog primarily about my Language Arts classes, I also teach two sections of 6th grade History (World Cultures). We're studying the Middle East right now and going through some pretty complicated material. Today students were reading a summary of the World War I peace settlement. I'd asked them to highlight the important information in …

RATS in the Classroom

Teaching writing is one of my consistent struggles. Writing instruction in many ways feels like some strange mystical land into which I've not been granted entry.  For a long time, I just whined about it. But since returning from NCTE, I've been reading Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher and Write Beside Them by Penny …