Several years ago, a student candidly expressed frustration with how the climate crisis was discussed at our school: “Teachers have us read an article or a poem that kick up all these feelings of despair. And…that’s it. That’s the end. Instead of just making me sad and angry, why don’t they give us tools to […]
Metaphor for the win on this last of our Poetry Pauses for Hope series.
What can a new moon teach us about hope?
Hope can be complicated, and today’s poem explores that.
A recipe poem serves as a mentor text for students to think about what hope requires.
A fresh approach to Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers
What can we say to students when they turn in writing that was clearly manufactured by AI?
March 25, 2025 The college entrance essay: Should we teach it or shouldn’t we? This year, the guidance department of our high school, New Directions Secondary School in the Bronx, NY, asked me if I could teach a unit on the college entrance essay in our Juniors English class. In my career, the college entrance […]
If you’ve paid much attention to BookTok or even the shelves at your local bookstore, you’ve probably realized that romance is having a moment. And that moment extends far beyond the days of grocery store paperbacks with Fabio on the cover. Whether through cozy holiday stories, contemporary meet-cutes, or sweeping romantasy series with swords and […]
Source The end of the school year is here and I could not be more excited. I am not sure how you have been feeling this year, but this has not been my banner year. In fact, Taylor Swift’s Anti-hero – “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”- has definitely felt like the era […]
Kelly E. Tumy is a consultant in Texas, former president of TCTELA, one of five editors of the journal English in Texas. She was a 20-year high school English teacher, 8-year district coordinator, and a 6-year county-wide curriculum director. You can find out more about Kelly here or connect with her on Instagram @kellyreads_tx What draws your attention […]
Source If you teach a tested subject like me, February seems to be the month that everyone starts becoming “invested” in what you are doing in the classroom and how it is preparing our students to pass their TEST. This time of year students are taking “field tests” and “benchmark tests” in addition to […]
Questioning strategies are a passion of mine. I’ve been doing some research into what academics call dialogic talk and what teachers call questioning for the better part of 25 years. Thinking about your classroom, I want you to consider the layered and nuanced dimensions purposeful questioning can take in your classroom. First-Write Them Down Do […]
by Kelly E. Tumy It’s my birthday today, so I thought I’d post one of the most favorite lessons I taught-ever! It really started out not as a lesson, so let me explain. I do love poetry; it took me a while to develop a good way to teach it to any grade level, though. […]
Several years ago, a student candidly expressed frustration with how the climate crisis was discussed at our school: “Teachers have us read an article or a poem that kick up all these feelings of despair. And…that’s it. That’s the end. Instead of just making me sad and angry, why don’t they give us tools to […]
Metaphor for the win on this last of our Poetry Pauses for Hope series.
What can a new moon teach us about hope?
Hope can be complicated, and today’s poem explores that.
A recipe poem serves as a mentor text for students to think about what hope requires.
A fresh approach to Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers
Allison and I started Moving Writers, the blog, nearly 12 years ago on the Monday we returned to school after attending NCTE. We named it as we walked through the courtyard to our classrooms. “It’s not about making better writing,” Allison said. “It’s about growing better writers.” We began with an aggressive posting schedule of […]
I humbly suggest an alternative analogy for generative AI, more fitting for the classroom: the microwave.
And to help me elaborate on this analogy, I want you to meet my mom.
What can we say to students when they turn in writing that was clearly manufactured by AI?
Mentor Text: Rod Serling’s closing narration from the Twilight Zone episode ‘The Monsters are Due on Maple Street’ Techniques: Background – In my Grade 11 course, we focus on a theme of Society: Power and Voice. Within that theme, we do a dystopian literature study. This year, we studied Fahrenheit 451 and Lord of the […]
moving writers 