Recently spent 2 weeks in the US, teaching Frankenstories writing classes at 6 schools across 3 states. Feeling super buoyant; the students and teachers were so enthusiastic, and we learned a lot from each other. Here’s a video that captures a small slice of the classroom energy.

I should really search for Frankenstories mentions more often otherwise I miss posts like this. 🧡

A fab tool that we loved trying today. The kids engagement with this was through the roof and they used a success criteria which we made together to select the best answer! Interactive, meaningful, educational and engaging. We will be using “Frankenstories” again! ✨

HOW TO ESTABLISH A DENTAL FLOSSING ROUTINE THAT WILL MAKE YOUR DENTIST WEEP FOR JOY For everyone who voted for our SXSW EDU workshop on improv ideas for whole-class writing, here is the killer flossing advice I promised.

SXSW EDU Update: Our "Improv ideas to transform class writing" workshop was accepted, so @biblioracle.bsky.social , Danielle Witten, and I will be in Austin on Mar 11 delivering something fun. (I hope.) Thanks to everyone who voted for us! 🎭 🎉 And...

@thevogelman.bsky.social fyi I was spruiking Poetry Pauses at an Australian English teachers workshop last week. I recommended four books but said of “all of them, stop what you’re doing and buy Poetry Pauses, it’s excellent and will make you think about poetry in a cross-genre way”

Nov 13 I'm running a session on the foundational importance of narrative writing as part of the Seven Steps to Writing Success literacy masterclass series. The whole series looks good, so check it out if you're interested in writing and assessment. bit.ly/48emWW9

This is why I think school science classes should put much greater emphasis on *appreciation*. Few students will grow up to use info or skills from science class, but they will all have the opportunity to vote for a pro or anti science society.

No what should be illegal is Google inventing the format and then not supporting it in Slides

Maybe because Mississippi had Democratic governors during this period and ICE are recruiting Black officers.

Hey, if anyone wants to do me a favour, can you pop over to the SXSW EDU Panelpicker and drop a vote for a workshop proposal I'm doing with @biblioracle.bsky.social and Danielle Witten? Just click this link, create an account, and slam that heart button: participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...

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Testing new random text & image prompt pairings in Frankenstories and coughed up an almond on this one

This op-ed is freaking beautiful and everyone should read it www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-...

Last week, I had a lot of fun presenting "Bot or Not?: The tell-tale signs of AI writing" at the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English Middle Years Conference. In the workshop, we tried to determine whether short pieces of text, in a variety of genres, were written by a human or an LLM.

My boys are in their 20s now and some of my most cherished memories are the times we spent lying in bed reading Usagi Yojimbo.

🙏 This was just one of those cases of everyone having the same core values.

As Brisbane-Home-of-Bluey gets hit with its first cyclone in 50 years, I think about how 20 years ago I worked for IAG, where CEO Mike Hawker tried to push the AUS gov on climate change policy, saying global warming will drive cyclones south and the nation is not prepared for a Brisbane wipeout.

A while back, I had to work on a project in violence prevention and one of the most interesting pieces of research I read was from an anthropologist who had studied norms around parents beating their children in a particular community. When she asked parents if they thought they should beat their

Michael Lewis wrote a book called The Fifth Risk and if there was one takeaway, it was that the NOAA is an astounding feat of public infrastructure and should be protected at all costs.

This is a great episode and gets to the heart of the real problem with AI in education, which is that for decades we’ve been teaching students to write like machines in order to meet the requirements of testing regimes.

after living here for four years I can say that canadians are absolutely nice, but they aren't weak. it's just the american conception of strength is so tied to outrageous cruelty it's hard to imagine people can be both strong and kind

Devastating for scientists and their research, and everyone who benefits from that research. I’m not sure if everyone outside academia is aware that a delay or “pause” in grant funding often means the researchers themselves are lost from the field, along with their expertise.

Feels like one of the most important things we can do right now. There’s no utopia, but we can make it easier to leave dystopias. Or at least try.

One of the things I did not expect is constantly crying over all the generous things people are doing for those displaced. My friends’ six year olds are at this camp in Santa Barbara for evacuated children. Art, music, sports, play, and trauma counselors—all free: www.independent.com/2025/01/10/s...

I’m realizing most people are decent and social media has ripped society apart. LA is pulling together with love and ACTION while idiots on Twitter and Threads blame DEI, democrats, and aren’t doing shit to help. Meanwhile this is the reality on the ground. Volunteer teachers helping displaced kids.

The irony of “Truth Social” is that truth *is* actually social. It needs to be built and maintained.

It’s not even rich elites; I think the root cause of why we can’t have nice things in public education is bog-standard middle-class parental anxiety. The cycle works like this:

Wild that I just started a middle-school writing prompt with “You are a local journalist” and had to stop and think, *will they even know what that is?*

John’s new book is not only about AI and writing, but about the urgent need to stop making students write like machines in the first place

A fan in the wild! 🙌

What the heck, here's the full-self promotion. If want a quick, fun writing experience that any student grade school and up can do, pretty much instantly, check out Frankenstories a writing game. frankenstories.writelike.org