Skip to main content

Back to Books


About this time last summer, I realized something awful; I had quit reading for pleasure!  I blamed it on not having enough time, but that was a lie.  Instead of reading, I had fallen prey to mindless games on my ipad.  It started off with Angry Birds, Scrabble, and then Candy Crush.   
This past year I made a commitment to myself-to start reading again!  I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.  Although I don't have a great deal of free time, I have found that I can get some reading in at the gym while on the elliptical or the bike.  I prefer reading on my ipad and love that I can highlight sentences to come back to later.  Of course, being able to tap a word and find its definition is also pretty awesome!  Just yesterday I learned how to spell facetious!  Although I knew what the word meant, I didn't know how to spell it.  
I enjoy reading books about education, memoirs, and historical fiction.  I am currently reading In the Best Interest of Students by Kelly Gallagher, and it's been a life changer for me as a teacher! If you'd like to know more about him, click the link-you won't regret it. Kelly Gallagher's website He has inspired me to follow my instincts in regards to teaching and the Common Core.  He has inspired me to give my students more choice in what they write about! He has inspired me to give my students more choice in what they read! He also spends time explaining the pros and cons of the new standards. I read the book once, highlighting important sentences.  Then, I went back a second time and took notes on everything. I can't wait to put what I learned into practice next year. 

In addition to that book, I finished The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah.  It takes place in 1939 in a small village in France and gives a French woman's perspective of the war.  I could NOT put it down.  I have read numerous books about WWII, but this one was unlike any other.   The main character,  a French woman named Vianne, must raise her daughter alone when her husband is called to fight in the war.  Eventually, a Nazi soldier shows up at her door and demands the right to billet in her home!  This book is beautifully written, and   I highly recommend it.
Not only did I miss reading books, I missed talking about books. I missed learning from books.  I missed disappearing in a book.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

TQE: Get students Engaged and Digging Deep

I've mentioned before how Twitter has helped me grow as an educator.  Edutwitter is a valuable resource for book recommendations, new teaching methods, lessons, and articles.  One of my favorite educators to follow is Marissa Thompson, a high school teacher at Carlsbad High. This summer I read about her TQE(thoughts, questions, epiphanies) method for discussing literature.  I'd always longed for having discussions like the ones I had in my college literature courses, but when I try fishbowl or Socratic seminar with my students, the discussions felt forced, flat, and awkward. That changed today when I tried TQE for the first time.  Sharing homework in small groups Students writing their TQEs on the board When I listened to Marissa's podcast on Cult of Pedagogy ( check it out here ), I was intimidated. After all, her students are in high school and have a rock star teacher.  I think I read the transcript twenty times before finally trying it.  Here's h

Writing an Essay...with a Partner

I love technology for collaboration! Teaching writing to middle school students is not easy.  All students come with different skills and knowledge.  With 35 students in a class, it's impossible to sit down one on one and assist students with the writing process.  Teaching students to write a literary analysis is particularly challenging because most seventh-graders have little, to no experience.  Students need to learn to  develop a thesis statement, find evidence from the text to support it, provide the context of the selected quotations , and write insightful commentary on the evidence they selected. Remember, these kiddos are twelve! Graphic organizers are particularly helpful to these young writers. The biggest challenge is providing feedback to students as they are writing, rather than after they turn their work in for a grade.  Students need to be able to use the feedback they receive and see the difference it makes in the final product.  I was adamant that I was not go

The Outsiders

Anyone else remember reading The Outsiders in middle school?  I remember reading it in 7th grade in 1981. Oh how I loved that book!  Then came the movie!  Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Leif Garret, Matt Dillon, and Patrick Swayze were some of the actors in this Francis Ford Coppola film.  I have to admit that it was a little depressing this year when I mentioned that Tom Cruise was in the movie, and only one student said, "I think I have heard of him."   Yet, here it is 2014 and my students are enjoying this book as much as I did.  On the surface the book is about two rival "gangs," the Socs and the Greasers.  However, the book is about so much more.  It is about stereotypes and prejudging people.  It's about true friendship, family, and loyalty.  It's about courage and growing up.  That makes it the perfect book for middle schoolers. I started off the unit with a web quest about the 1960s to get the students acquainted with the setting of the novel.  They