This morning, I contacted the editor I’ve been working with at The Guardian. I accepted an assignment from her earlier in the week to write a piece about the Common Core. I’m over the moon that she thinks of me when education-related… Read more ›
It was the first day back at school today. Usually, I’m an exhausted mess by the end of the first day back. Getting up at 5:30 after three months of sleeping until whenever I want is difficult to say the… Read more ›
“Oh we’re just happy if they’re reading.” It’s a phrase I hear often as a teacher. We give students books that have interesting covers, aren’t very long, and that grab young readers within the first chapter. If reluctant readers don’t… Read more ›
You guys! I’ve been writing other places and I haven’t even updated you. I’m so sorry – it’ll never happen again! OK, it’ll probably happen again, but I’ll try to remember next time. Earlier this month, I was on The… Read more ›
I think you all probably know by now that I am very conscious about gender in almost every aspect of my life. I mean, I am the type of teacher that prefers to call a group of students “y’all” because… Read more ›
I had a freebie day off today. A freebie day off is when you are pretty much the only person you know who has the day off. Everyone else is at work, so I stayed home, ate copious amounts of… Read more ›
Today, I am responding to the #femfest day two questions at fromtwotoone.com. The questions are as follows: What is at stake in this discussion? Why is feminism important to you? Are you thinking about your children or your sisters or… Read more ›
I have my first ever piece up at The Guardian today! I’m so totally excited!! The piece is published in the Comment is Free section today, and I’m talking about armed guards in schools: On Monday, Congressman Mark Meadows, a… Read more ›
Oh my god, I love Catcher in the Rye. Seriously. Love it. Every time. I tried to explain to my students the other day why I loved it. They haven’t read it, so they were confused. “Is it about baseball?”… Read more ›
I love love LOVE this article about teaching Macbeth to junior high students that appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago: Reading Shakespeare sounds like pandemonium. They take 10 minutes just to give out parts, one boy… Read more ›
Y’all saw that my Fearless Females were featured on the Bitch blog for their awesome list of female role models in pop culture, right? Oh, and you saw it on Jezebel, too? Pretty sweet, right? Well, since it got such… Read more ›
I’m also at the Bitch Magazine blog today talking about pop culture role models for my Fearless Females! I’m a feminist and a high school English teacher in the south suburbs of Chicago. Last year, one of the students in… Read more ›
Today, I’m over at In These Times talking about why having armed guards or police officers in schools is a terrible idea: I have spent most of my life in a school setting: first as a student, then as a… Read more ›
It seems all of my best lessons happen on accident. I believe that the reason for this is twofold. First of all, I am willing to listen to my students and discover what they are interested in discussing. Secondly, I… Read more ›
For the past two years, I have asked my students to go on a quest through literature in my classes. They think of a time in their lives that they felt discriminated against or like an outcast. Then, they explain… Read more ›
When you first start out being a teacher, you are worried about the lessons you are planning, whether your students are paying attention, and what prank they will pull on you next. After a few months, you might even worry… Read more ›
If you’ve followed this blog for any length of time, you know that I started a group for girls called Fearless Females at the school where I work. It has been awesome and transformative for me, and I hope it… Read more ›
It sounds cliché, but I will always remember that, on December 14, 2012, I was sitting in our building’s athletic office preparing for the conference speech tournament when I heard the news that 20 children and 6 adults had been… Read more ›
The Huffington Post ran a piece yesterday about the five books every high school student should read before going to college. It was a pretty good list, and I agree that most of those books are incredibly important for teenagers,… Read more ›
As a teacher who fights every day against gender stereotypes and sexism, it offends me to the core of my being to hear stories like this one about kids who try to subvert gender norms and are punished because of… Read more ›