Today’s drop of brilliance comes from Jess, a fellow bookworm and middle school English teacher. With her permission, I’m sharing a tangible and beautiful way to motivate your kids to keep reading their SSR books. Continue reading
I need your help with a judgment call. This month, one of my favorite podcasts, Criminal, detailed the compelling case of a real estate agent whose life was nearly destroyed by false online rumors. This episode and the issues it raises would make an excellent supplement to our American Literature students’ study of The Crucible, but I’m hesitant to build those materials because…well…this topic is just so…unsettling. Continue reading
Want to amuse and motivate your kids? Let’s build a Famous Failures bulletin board! Continue reading
Confession time: I’m Facebook dumb. I’ve never really understood social media. All that liking and tagging and following leaves me as confused as my grandpa at Starbucks.
All I want is a black cup of coffee. I mean, all I want is share cool ideas and resources with my English teacher friends. Continue reading
Last week, Stanford researchers released a “bleak” report showing that more than 80 percent of students can’t determine the difference between real and fake news. (Alas, it seems this is something adults struggle with, as well.)
The severity of students’ lack of media literacy was shocking to the study’s authors who were “taken aback by students’ lack of preparation…Many assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally savvy about what they find there. Our work shows the opposite.”
What to do about this? I’m going to start by Continue reading
Two nice surprises arrived this week, once again validating the impact 20Time can have on our students. First, one of my freshmen let me know that the website she built this spring as part of her 20Time project helped her win a summer internship with our city’s Department of Community Development. How cool is that? […]
“Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789 It’s Tax Day in the U.S. and Benjamin Franklin, founding father and original hipster, is on my mind. If he was alive today, you just know that Franklin would be the Boss of the […]
Laura Randazzo – Solutions for the Secondary Classroom 