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Feb 9

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Serve Your Enthusiasm

By Bob Zakrzewski

            Often this time of year when winter overstays its welcome, I find solace in the sun stretching each day longer, melting January and February’s icy blues and chapped pinks into March greens.  And as a high school English teacher on a block schedule, facing mid-winter accompanies meeting new students, reminding me of James Baldwin’s apt observation: “Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men.”

            Enthusiasm fuels my teaching.  Years spent honing the art of organizing lessons and developing an understanding of writing, although well-spent, could not sustain me.  Walking into class with a well-prepared plan and confident knowledge of the day’s literature felt great, yet, lacking enthusiasm, the lessons fell flat. Read more

Feb 2

Learning – The Key to Positive Energy

by Rose Cappelli

       In his book, The Energy to Teach, Donald Graves says, “We can never underestimate the energy contained in learning” (79). Since I consider myself a life-long learner, I think it is learning that is at the heart of what keeps me motivated and helps me to sustain positive energy.

       In 1997 I attended my first Keystone State Reading Association Conference. I was there for only one day, but I remember trying to get to as many sessions as possible. I recall scribbling notes as fast as I could in my notebook, writing my own thoughts in the margins as to how I might apply this new learning. Sometimes it was a question, sometimes a child’s name, sometimes a star or an exclamation mark – something to show the learning I wanted to return to and apply. That first conference experience opened up a whole new world of professional development for me. Read more

Jan 26

Try Express-Lane Editing… It Works!

By Lynne R. Dorfman

We can’t just hunt for errors; we need to celebrate what we are doing right.

– Jeff Anderson 

     After reading both of Jeff Anderson’s books, Everyday Editing and Mechanically Inclined, I started to think deeply about the concept of showing students what is right instead of asking them to correct what is wrong. Jeff focuses on correctness, asking students to look at mentor sentences and passages in the books they are reading including textbooks and independent reads. His “Express-Lane” editing system is inviting for students and provides a meaning-based process to help students proofread their writing and shape their own writing.  As Jeff cautions us, checklists aren’t always meaningful – students simply check off the items on the list.

     So how do you get students to engage in editing to reinforce the habit of becoming the first and last editor of their own work in order to communicate clearly and effectively? Read more

Jan 20

Moving Grad Students Forward as Readers, Writers, and Thinkers: A Top Ten List

By Janice Ewing

My career path has led from secondary English teacher to elementary school reading specialist and literacy coach to my current position as a graduate-level instructor for teachers in a reading specialist certification program. Over the past few years, I’ve become increasingly interested in the needs of adult learners. Here is my top ten list of necessary elements that need to be in place for grad students to move forward. Top ten lists tend to be presented in reverse order, but I decided to start with my number one priority and go from there. Read more

Jan 12

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Free Students from the Chains of the Bookroom

By Rich Mitchell

      I have a theory about novels. As a high school teacher, I assume that the dim, damp, locked bookroom across the hall from my classroom is similar to many if not most high school bookrooms around the country. Copies of To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, and Heart of Darkness, line the shelves, some tattered, some new; some Everbound, some paperback. My theory is this: We teach books like To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, Huckleberry Finn, and Heart of Darkness because our schools own them. They’re great books, don’t get me wrong, but aren’t the true reasons we use them financial and practical? Do we not order ten new copies of The Great Gatsby annually because we already own so many other serviceable copies? Can we deny that we work with To Kill a Mockingbird because it’s easier and cheaper than finding a new book, written by a living author, with similar, yet more current themes, and no SparkNotes?  Read more

Jan 6

Writers’ Notebooks and Quizzes: Can They Coexist? Should They?

By Dr. Mary Buckelew

     The colleague who observed my Writing Research 200 course this past spring was “shocked” that students arrived early and were animatedly discussing the class texts and their own writing even before class started. She observed, “students seemed genuinely interested in each other’s perspectives on the assigned chapter from A Whole New Mind, and they were also sharing grammar tips with each other.”

     Before teaching this particular introductory college writing research course, I polled several colleagues regarding methods for encouraging reading and discussion. I was surprised when they told me they gave multiple choice and short answer quizzes in their writing classes.  Their rationale, if they didn’t quiz — students wouldn’t read the materials, and thus miss out on important information. Read more

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