RFK Jr: Kids with autism will never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date.

Poem sent around at work for Poetry Wednesday (a tradition of the English dept). I thought people here would appreciate.

The point of having students do peer review is not to fix the essay, it’s to give the students a concrete experience of delivering their ideas to an audience and being in community caring about their compositional choices.

I have loved the challenge of exploring #assessment practices/philosophy over the years, and I’ve fluctuated quite a bit. Reflections like the one from @teacher2teacher.bsky.social @edutopia.org are helpful in furthering conversations and prompting thought. www.edutopia.org/teacher2teac...

It's a devastating symbol of the continued assault on disabled people in the U.S. that a eugenicist is now in charge of disability education. So much progress is being lost and it makes me furious.

“Moving [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] oversight into HHS pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life.” - Robyn Linscott

In bad news, with disability education oversight being moved to the Department of Health and Human Services from the Department of Education, that means Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will have power over disability policy positions. New from me at @motherjones.com www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

WE DID IT! The Handbook of Research on Diversity in Children's and Young Adult Literature is officially at the publisher! Here's a look at the numbers... (1/2) #AcademicSky #literacies #kidlit #MGlit #YAlit

📝 Self-assessment is key to self-efficacy. When students track their own progress, they become drivers of their learning journey. #LeadInclusion #UDL #InclusiveEd #EdLeaders #EduSky

If a curriculum is to be purposeful and meaningful, it needs to be particular. Locally determined, departmentally determined, teacher determined, ideally with input from students.

I think we often have the wrong idea around expertise in education. Expertise is not just “I know this really well so you should listen to me.” It also is, more importantly, “I know this very well so I’m better at listening to you.”

Until someone has introduced you to the concept of cooperative games, and described or shown you examples, you may not have realized that games needn't be about trying to defeat other players. That's our subject on the new episode of Kohn's Zone: "Fun Without Winning or Losing": is.gd/JiaK2w

Grant alert! Accepted #NCTE26 presenters who are presenting at an NCTE Annual Convention for the first time and are NCTE members from a historically underrepresented group could receive $500 from English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE)! Apply: https://bit.ly/4enOV7e #CulturalDiversity

And that's a wrap on Year 14! Once again, writing down one good thing each day with students for the entire school year. (Very cool to share this with @edutopia.org's School of Practice podcast recently, too! 🙏)

Year 19 of teaching is in the books!

AI-assisted text is deadly for academic journal editors and reviewers. I'm detecting a lot more of it recently as an editor. It's still there in the "Frankencitations" and those little linguistic "tells" like "AI is not the cause. It's the symptom of an underlying reality." But it's more, too. 1/

To whoever needs to hear this: the number of points attributed to an #assessment does not determine its rigor or effectiveness.

Systems should work for the people, not people working for the system. So if your school systems aren’t working for your staff, for your students—are they even working at all? #edusky #sblchat

I am impressed and humbled by the final reflections my students are writing to end the year. Many items are pieces I know, but I’ve also gleaned some behind-the-scenes reading habits, writing growth, or in-class friendships. I didn’t feel like a strong teacher this year, but students still learned!

Looking for activities that build students’ research skills? @mrsdollahsaid17.bsky.social has you covered! ⬇️ #EduSky #MediaLiteracy

My most introspective, empathetic, curious, and knowledgeable students are readers. Parents, please read WITH your children this summer. Please model reading for your children. We are in this together.

Our final writing assignment in ELA 10 is to do some #fanfiction / remixing: Students select 2 characters from different stories that we or they have read this semester and write a narrative or script. These two characters can be placed anywhere, work together, oppose each other: whatever works!

I always thought that two independent clauses connected by a semicolon were just two independent clauses connected by a semicolon. I now know that they are actually considered a compound sentence. 🤯 I’m intrigued that I’ve managed to remain oblivious to this fact for so long.

The question is not "How can AI improve teaching and learning?" The question is "How can teaching and learning be improved?" Redirect those asking the first one, which is the question asked by a car salesman, "How can this car improve your life?"

Students loved our lesson in stage combat. We learned basic sword movements, a punch, and hair pulls. It was an adventurous lesson after we finished reading SHE KILLS MONSTERS.

I think about this poem all the time

I’m finally getting to hand-writing thank you cards to the four focal students from the case study strand of my dissertation. The cards will contain a simple language summary of my three key findings and a brief personal reflection on their contributions to my understandings. #PhDLife

I think I’m going to incorporate gamification again a bit next year in my ELA9 class as a way to note independent reading and vocab practice—each week will have an option to level up based on progress. We’ll go back to creating cards that Ss can track in binder card sleeves.

Announcing the Joyful Multimodal Composition Series! Dive into Joyful Literacies in Secondary English Language Arts, published by NCTE in 2025, as you learn about, brainstorm, co-create, and develop multimodal, digital, and joyful classroom activities or projects. Register: https://bit.ly/4vhcllk

A focus on skills in ELA is helpful to provide transferability, but the skill, curriculum, and assessments can’t remove the joy. I need more literary joy next year back in my classroom.

My god, Octavia Butler, just miss ONCE

Leadership is hard. I’m a department chair and not an admin, so I often have to play intermediary roles to those in positions who make final decisions. Finding the balance and letting go of false pretenses of the range of my influence is a challenge for me. #leadELA

Most #grading problems in #PhysicalEducation don't start w the grade. They start w the gradebook. When it's organized around what students do vs learning the evidence is off. It's an evidence problem not a grading problem. Article 2 of 4-part series on grading in #PE: tinyurl.com/6vujfa3a

I don’t love IXL, but I ran an ANOVA to compare the means of high school students’ IXL reading benchmark scores to their state end-of-year exam in ELA, and I found statistically significant differences in the groups, suggesting some correlation on these measures. #statistics #leadELA

I just registered for the High School English Teacher Summit from July 9-10. A variety of sessions, including one from Penny Kittle and another from Matthew Johnson (who I’ve had the pleasure of working with before). Looking forward to some summer learning! www.englishteachervault.com

What I appreciate about UDL is that it anticipates common access points to learning and plans for them. From there, we can provide just-in-time (as opposed to just-in-case) supports or accommodations (Dixon, 2024). But it’s always a learning process for the teacher.

Want to get kids to focus on the learning and not just checking a box to get the work done? - Make sure your language matches. Try “What did you learn today?” instead of “Are you finished with your work?” - Minimize or stop grading formative work. Emphasize that it is practice.

One of the joys of being an English teacher: a former student reached out & asked that I look over a wedding speech. It’s for the wedding of his best friend—the 2 friends met in our ninth grade ELA class! This is not a guy who, as a student, wanted any writing feedback (or, honestly, instruction).

Try the Graze & Tag strategy: 1. Both teachers observe for 10 min ("grazing") 2. One tags in mid-lesson to address what they noticed 3. The other adjusts in real-time Co-teaching thrives when both partners are willing to be beginners. → coteachingevolved.com #CoTeaching

In this Q&A with Learning Forward, Zaretta Hammond discusses how understanding the brain and cognition can help educators ensure access to rigorous instruction for all learners. https://learningforward.org/journal/applying-the-science-of-learning/putting-neuroscience-to-work-for-all-students/

ELA teacher-leader discussions of the day: differentiating tone from voice, and weighing the role of tone in fiction v. nonfiction. #leadELA

Spent the bulk of the day conferencing with kids about grades. This group of sixth grade scientists is awesome, but this last set of standards really threw them for a loop. We needed some extra time, and at the end of the year, that’s really rough.

I am a huge fan of the way Juli Dixon describes just-in-time scaffolding vs just-in-case scaffolding. It helped me realize why I made the wrong choices early in my career and gave me a way to describe what we should be doing instead. robertkaplinsky.com/just-in...

I know it’s nothing extreme, but it’s so fun to have kids get up and read scenes aloud! Today, my ninth graders finished Romeo & Juliet, and my tenth graders are in the midst of She Kills Monsters. We’re not quite acting and I’m not quite directing, but we’re hearing & seeing some things play out!

College educators are invited to submit a proposal for an exciting new experience at #NCTE26: https://bit.ly/4tWPaM9 This is an opportunity to be in community and share pedagogical insights and responsive teaching practices on a broad variety of ideas that guide postsecondary teaching and learning.

I’ve fluctuated on my assessment practices over the years. While some things worked and others haven’t, I have kept refining my assessment philosophy.

#ProudTeacherMoment: A 2018 high school graduate told me today that she became an English teacher because of me. She loved when I used to gamify and remembered how we’d “rank up” each week! The practice was too time-intensive & I no longer do it, but it has me thinking…

What’s your take on eliminating zeros from the grade book? In this episode of School of Practice, @mrrablin.bsky.social explores the tradeoffs of a no-zeros grading policy—and shares strategies for building motivation and accountability! Listen on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/4uwrBe6