The Literate Teacher's Manifesto

I have sadly neglected my blog lately.  With the onset of Christmas festivities, school-ending necessities, and other such shenanigans, I simply haven't been in the best of mindsets to write about education.  I hope this posting finds everyone well and happy at the ending of the Christmas season, but I have to be honest, I'm still  NOT back on school focus just yet. I had an exceedingly difficult time finding my Christmas spirit this year.  I don't really know why.  It should have been easy to come by, as my husband and I split time between his family and mine every other year, and this was our year to stay here in NC (where we live), have Christmas with my family, and be in our own house for the holidays.  Sadly, it was less than a week before Christmas and my holiday cheer was still MIA, so I went on a quest to find it.  My first idea was to search for the holiday spirit through the magic of holiday movies, and lo and behold, I found it! I realiz...

One of my heroes/ role models in education and curriculum writing is Michael Clay Thompson (as if anyone who knows me is unaware of that fact).  I first heard him speak four (?) years ago at the NC Association for the Gifted and Talented Conference.  It was a game-changer for me.  I immediately began reading every piece of his curriculum and writing that I could get my hands on.  See, for a long time I had felt that there was something missing from my instruction.  My kids seemed to enjoy my class, I had generally good results, my test scores were good enough to keep me under the radar, but something was missing.  I didn't really feel as though I was making any sort of difference, long-term, in the lives of the students I taught. One particular piece of information that has stuck with me since discovering this curriculum, however, is not something that I was teaching to the kids.  This valuable little tidbit was tucked away amidst a paragraph written...

I am so over series novels. I blame JK Rowling for this phenomenon. It used to be possible to go to the library, pick up a novel, read it, get to the end, and be done. Now, it feels like every time I pick up a new book, it's making a lifetime commitment!  Booksellers: Do you promise to love, cherish, and buy every book in the series as long as you and the author both shall live?  Me: Ermmm, maybe? I'm not about contract reading. So a few years ago, I decided I was NOT committing to any other series novels. If it had a sequel, I was not buying. Then they got tricksy (OOoohhh, tricksy authorses!) The first one to fool me was Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Which was followed a year or so later by Dawn of the Dreadfuls .  A sequel?  To Pride and Prejudice ?  Are you kidding me?  This was shortly followed by Neal Shusterman.  His novel Unwind  is absolutely phenomenal.  I loved the ending.  No further closure necessary, Mr. Shu...

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Some books are guilty pleasures; the kind you don't want anyone else to see you reading.  Now, I'd probably never take any of these out in public (unless they were on my Kindle), but I've read them all several times. The North and South  series by John Jakes.  I read these after I watched the awesome miniseries from the 80s featuring Patrick Swayze and Leslie-Anne Down, and out of this list these are probably the least guilty of the guilty pleasures. I learned a lot about history and the Civil War from reading these books, but some parts of them are just.... well, trashy. The Harry Potter series, which I always come back to when I need entertaining reading that I don't have to focus on so much.  I reread HP after I finished Les Miserables , after reading The Greatest Show on Earth , etc.  And they are great books.  But I can't help but feel that maybe I'm too old to be rereading them again (for the 16th time--not an exaggeration). The Tithe  serie...

Today has been a frustrating day.  (Sorry, I realize this post is not strictly literature related, but it does apply.)   Yesterday my Social Studies classes began a close reading of the Declaration of Independence.  Just the first paragraph.  Really, just the most famous sentence in the first paragraph.  ("We hold these truths to be self-evident...") My intro to this has always been pretty effective, you know, that this is possibly the most important sentence in American history... that this sentence sums up the foundations of our government... that the idea that all people owned these rights was truly revolutionary , and in many ways still is! *insert crickets chirping here* Me:  Well, okay.  Let's look at the text here.  What rights did the authors believe all people have? *chirp chirp* Me:  Look at the text!  What rights are all people given by God? Random student: Uhhhhhh, the right to separate from the British? Me:  No! ...

If you were hosting a party and you could invite any 5 literary characters, who would you invite? I would invite Atticus Finch, from To Kill a Mockingbird , because I would love to hear his opinion of the travesty that has become our political and justice system, and maybe some thoughts on  how to fix it.  I would have Gregor Samsa, from Kafka's Metamorphosis , because I have always been fascinated by his somewhat lackadaisical, unperturbed reaction to his startling change into an insect.  I would invite Jo March, from Little Women , because I love female characters who are strong, smart, and capable of conversing about books (can she bring the Professor with her, but only count as one guest?)  I have to choose Albus Dumbledore, for his conversational ability and his infinite capacity for putting people at ease.  My final guest would be Death, as he appears in The Book Thief .  My absolute favorite narrator of all time: witty, sarcastic, dry, but with a c...

1. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje 2. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 4. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo 5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 6. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton 7. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll 8. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 9. The Life of Johnson by Boswell 10. The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak What's your top ten list?

Mine is The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje. I have reread this book too many times to count, and every time I am amazed anew at how lush, lyrical, and poetic the language is. The imagery is unforgettable. This book is, to me, diaphanous... it has this diffused quality of light behind every character and scene. Just go read it already! (And then see the movie, which is equally amazing ♥)

A few weeks ago, I started the 30 Day Book Challenge on Facebook.  As I have been writing the posts that go along with this challenge, I was inspired by and interested in the varied nature of people who liked the postings.  Some responded to fiction, some nonfiction, some were my adult friends, many were former students, and it got me thinking that THIS should be the result of education.  Teachers, students, parents, and community members should have literate and varied conversation about books and reading, and they should be encouraged to TALK about reading, just talk, not do an assignment, or read for a purpose, or any of that... simply talking about books that have meant something, that have changed our ideas, that have made a difference!  So the other day a friend of mine (who also happens to be my ex-principal), suggested that I make a blog site for these posts.  That's what this is.  I don't want it to be just mine though.  I want it to belong to...