Our yearbook staff's motto is "Everybody's Story. Everybody's Book." That means everyone! Not just the seniors, the athletes, the staffers and their friends, certain cliques - everybody. Why does that matter? For one, if we are creating a book for people to purchase, they need to be reflected in it; or they won't purchase it. But the bigger, more important reason is simply that we are telling the story of a year, and without every person represented, considered, and included, we haven't done our job: We haven't told the true story of the year … [Read more...]
Benefits of Paired Texts for Teaching Reading
Paired passages or paired texts are texts that are connected in some way. When the Common Core State Standards rolled out years ago, the concept of teaching with paired texts surfaced. At first, English teachers were worried that the demand for more nonfiction and the requirements of CCSS, R.9 would limit the amount of fiction they could teach. Over time, it became evident that pairing texts and teaching students how to “analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the … [Read more...]