professional resources
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When I requested funding for the NCTE registration fee from my admin team in the early fall, I said I wanted to focus on activism and middle school literacy instruction. Learning more about both as a relatively new sixth grade teacher at a progressive lab school seemed valuable. However, now that I have returned from…
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It’s been a minute (or more than two years) since I posted a collection of literacy links. I’m thrilled to return to this routine. As I revamped this site, I revisited past literacy links and gleaned loads of great back-to-school ideas. Still have over twenty to go, so I’ll keep my pen and notebook handy.…
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I know that Scholastic Book Fairs aren’t equitable and show loads of privilege, but I’m still going to recommend books to my young readers and their families. So I learned how to make Instagram Reels. Whew! I *truly* understood how my grandparents must’ve felt when they learned how to email. It took me DAYS to…
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At the beginning of April, I published the Pot of Gold portfolio of resources (digital one-page, bulletin board, zine, and podcast). The focus this month: POETRY! I’m not exaggerating when I say that poetry saved my sanity during the first year of the Pandemic. Usually a voracious reader, I could NOT read books. I couldn’t…
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February 2, 2022 is the 13th annual World Read Aloud Day! In the Before, my colleague and fellow reading enthusiast planned a day of read aloud activities. This year’s offerings are going to be a lot more passive. Our school is just coming off of a very draining week, and asking teachers to do *another*…
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Passive PD isn’t my fave or at all effective really, but I have really enjoyed curating my Pot of Gold bulletin boards. The latest one is all about vocabulary, and I’ve been collecting ideas for the past several months (Golden nugget tip: Keep a file open as a place to deposit moments of genius when…
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It’s nearly time to return to school here in Massachusetts, so I’ve been busy prepping some PD for the amazing teachers in my building. Some of it is ideas overload, some of it is a review of the basics, and some of it is reflecting on our best practices. Just realized that’s totally my style:…
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This summer, I’m participating in some summer work focused on Cultivating Genius by Dr. Gholdy Muhammad. Our second Zoom discussion is next week, so I’m putting together my thoughts based on the assigned reading. I love this reflection question so much: How does this lesson help students see themselves or others? I used Canva to…
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Reading is a huge part of my life. It’s who I am. My car has a bumper sticker that says “read”, and I have MANY reading-themed graphic tees. So I was devastated when my brain wouldn’t let me read during the pandemic. I would try and then lose track after a few sentences. Eventually, I…
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Someone once doubted my ability to find the joy in teaching, and it was a very painful comment. How could they think that? Was my joy not enough? Or were the things I thought were joyful not obvious to an observer? With my joy-fidence rattled, I decided to infuse as much obviously, outwardly joyfulness into…
A SEA OF TALK 