For All the Lost Students

Suicide is not a thing I talk about very often. My own experiences with it are unique in the ways everyone's are unique and my experience does not stand in for the experience of everyone else who has ever rubbed shoulders with the monster that is suicide. However, my own experiences have rocked me to...

Pennies for Miles

For the month of February, I wracked up 110 miles. It's beginning to feel like a lot of running, almost too much. In February, I began to face that mid-training slump where you dread the moment you have to lace up your shoes and step out the door. This was probably in part to my...

Cuban Book Crisis

Recently for a genius hour, I discussed communism and the Cuban Missile Crisis with all of my seventh graders. Some of their eyes glazed over, but many of them seemed truly engaged with what I was saying. I did my best to weave the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis into something that would keep...

A Few Remembered Things

Ever since I returned from the CCIRA conference, I have been meaning to blog about lots of different sessions and ideas that I came away with. To give you a very brief overview of the conference, I left feeling rejuvenated in my practice and it also reminded me of some simple truths that I had...

Two Books and a Winner

To begin, I would like to apologize for the brief hiatus. The last couple of weeks were filled with play practice, play performance, and trying to keep up with grading book reports that present a moral dilemma every time I look at them. I have been reading though and I have not forgotten about the...

Conference Time!

Today, I am headed to Denver for the Colorado Council International Reading Association conference. This will be a new conference for me too, though it will be my second conference as a real teacher and my 13th conference since I began my college career. I'm excited to continue to learn more about teaching reading and...

Lost Connection

Connect – to relate to or be in harmony with another person, one’s work, etc. ; to establish communication between; put in communication. Connecting is a huge part of teaching. We are constantly trying to connect to our students, to find parts of our own lives and personalities that click with 72 other lives and...

Feedback Promises

Recently, I have been reading a professional development book over giving effective feedback that my district asked me to read at the beginning of the year. It's not a thrilling read, but it has made me think about how I am interacting with students and how I am responding to their work and their behavior....

Little Victories

My parents once told me that when you turn eighteen you know everything and that every day after that birthday, you realize how little you actually do know. It's like all of that self-confidence and wisdom slowly leaks out of your brain somehow for the rest of your life. I find this to be very,...

It’s Monday and I’m Back

It's Monday evening and I am making good on one of my New Years Resolutions. I promised myself at the end of 2015 that I was going to begin writing again in 2016. I would blog three times a week and try to write 15 minutes a day. Writing 15 minutes a day has not...