“The river’s rhythm runs through my veins. Runs through my people’s veins.” My student unmutes herself in our video conference, identifying these two lines as her favorite in Carole Lindstrom’s We Are Water Protectors. The day before, I had read the book aloud to my students, enjoying the novelty of holding the pages close to […]
Category: inquiry
To Teach Writing Sin Miedo: Rethinking how we create fear or courage for our writers
ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How do we provide students with the opportunities and space to write “sin miedo”? ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does it mean to write without fear? Where does fear come from in the context of writing in the classroom? What kinds of classroom traumas create or worsen this fear? How do we help […]
Two Ways to Bring Students’ Voices into the Writing Classroom
“Don’t forget to cast your ballot!” “Vote!” We just passed the most important time of this year: election day. According to the New York Times, this year’s election and candidates led to heavy, and record-breaking, voter turnout, and there were many measures in place to ensure ballots were counted in time. We’ve had crazy high […]
True Crime During Class Time: Engaging Writers Using a Crime Scene
Everyone is obsessed with true crime lately. True crime podcasts, true crime TV shows, true crime movies, true crime documentaries. I feel like every time I turn around, I see another preview for another true crime series on Netflix. And, here’s the thing, I’m totally down for it. My podcasts, my list on Netflix – […]
Making the Magic Visible
It’s been a minute since I last wrote a post. With the ‘before winter break shenanigans’ in full effect the past couple of weeks, I just now feel like I can take a breath…in order to make a never ending list of things to catch up on—HA! Today’s post is about how I am helping […]
Life Happens: A Genius Hour Companion
There’s a John Lennon song that addresses an issue that teachers know all too well: “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making [lesson] plans.” Even the most responsive and differentiated approaches can fall victim to the different kinds of chaos that life throws our way (Technology, I’m talking to you). On top […]
Less is More: Teaching Inquiry before Research
When I began incorporating inquiry into my instruction early in my career, I was excited by the possibilities. It was finally a way for students to personalize learning; I could hand over the role of the question-asker to the students and guide them as they found answers to topics in which they were invested. For […]
