Top 20 Blog Posts to Read Before 2020: Adventurous Teaching Edition
With a little extra down-time during the holidays, I love curling up with my phone or computer to finally read the articles that I’ve had bookmarked or saved from the past year. With the hectic craziness of teacher-life, I feel like I only half-read articles, even when I’m DYING to read them! If you’re finding yourself with a teeny bit more reading time than usual, you have to check out this list. These are my Top 20 Blog Posts to Read Before 2020 - buckle up and get reading!
This year, I have a mixture of teaching related articles from friends of mine (saving grading time, first chapter Friday, scaffolding strategies), some fascinating photo journalism from The New York Times, a Ta-Neheisi Coates article on reparations from 2015 that I still haven’t fully digested, and more!
You can also browse through these articles on the HIGHLIGHT feature on my Instagram profile.
1. The Teacher’s Guide to Literary Analysis Essays
Okay, this one is mine so I’ve definitely already read it, but I want you to go check it out if you’re still struggling with the paper load. Grading and teaching writing doesn’t have to be so incredibly painful!
2. The Case for Reparations
I’m currently reading Between the World and Me, and I feel like Coates’ work demands an even deeper dive into his other writings. He’s an extraordinary writer who’s actually making REAL change in this world because of his writing. As an English teacher and writer, that’s an incredible thing to witness — it’s even more incredible how he’s speaking to such important issues in our world and not afraid to speak unpopular truth.
3. Creating a Mindful Classroom
Moving into 2020, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to create a more mindful experience for my students. This article is a must read if you’re looking to include mindfulness practices in your classroom in the upcoming year.
4. Joy Harjo: The Poet Laureate of American Memory
I try to make it a point to read up on our poet laureates each year, and this year I’m particularly fascinated with Joy Harjo’s work. Her poetry has been so teachable and loved by my students in my classes, so I found this article to be a delightful read into more of her background.
5. Scaffolding in the Middle and High School Classroom
I remember learning about scaffolding way back in my undergrad days, and to be totally honest, it’s one of the only things that I feel like I’m actually USING on a daily basis. This article from Melissa at Reading and Writing Haven has some critical reminders and strategies to employ in the new year.
6. The Twitter Presidency
Politics aside, the use of Twitter as a means of informing the public on White House issues is completely fascinating idea to me. This article provides a stunning visual of Trump’s presidency through the tweets he’s shared. This article is ripe for discussion and analysis with students, too!
7. First Chapter Friday
Its taken over #teacherinstagram and you need to finally read this article so that you, too, can start implementing First Chapter Friday in your classroom! I’ve been doing a smaller version of this idea in my room that I’m calling First Page Friday, but Lauralee’s original idea is OPTIMAL. Here is where she breaks it down…
8. The World: A Decade in Pictures
Check out this gorgeous photo essay of the most important moments from the last decade. I plan to have my students take a look at this article and analyze it for the tone the NY Times editors have crafted through their selected photos.
9. The 1619 Project
This year, the New York Times took on a massive artistic, journalistic project. This magazine issue traces the origins of slavery and brings to light poetry, stories, and more voices than we’ve ever heard before. This particular project is beautiful for both classroom reading or even practice with synthesis.
10. The Danger of a Single Story
This TED Talk was hands down one of the best I’ve ever taught. I talk about it in my Instagram highlights, and essentially, the talk was a vital piece of setting the tone for our classroom culture - I want our classroom to be a place where students can feel free and safe to be themselves, not just the one sided version that they feel forced into being.
11 & 12. Essay Grading Hacks
I have two stellar articles that fall under this same category: one from Ashley at Building Book Love and the other from Emily at Read It, Write It, Learn It. In this new year, I’m going ton continue to channel my energy for grading in a very focused, purposeful manner, and both of these articles have cornerstone practices to make that happen. Whether you have a family, hobbies, or a serious hardcore Netflix addiction, you shouldn’t have to choose between what you love to do in your free time and grading. Grading has it’s place and if done purposefully, you can keep grading at work and fun and family at home.
13. A Teacher-Mom Must-Read
If you’re not a mom and that life stage is not where you’re at right now, keep scrolling, but if you are, you HAVE to click this link! A mom drew 30 cartoons that perfectly illustrate mom-life and they just cracked me up, made me feel the feels, and also inspired me to do some visual literacy practice in my classroom.
14. The Truck Stop Killer
This is just riveting journalism. That’s it. No connection to school, no literary reason to read it…it’s just SO GOOD.
15. Top Books of 2019
Wondering what the Washington Post thinks were the top books in 2019? Well here ya go!
16. The Radial Vision of Toni Morrison
It was so sad to lose Toni Morrison this year: her work and her contributions to the literary world are phenomenal and revolutionary pieces of writing that will be read and taught for years to come. Here’s a beautiful look at her legacy.
17. Makerspace in the ELA Classroom
In 2019, we did one makerspace project in my class. In 2020, I hope there are so many more and this article has me buzzing with ideas for taking advantage of our school’s incredible Makerspace… Also, if you’ve never checked out teachwriting.org, it’s about time you did!
18. Changing the Future of Teacher PD
This year, I had the absolute joy and pleasure of presenting at the Keeping the Wonder Workshop in Lexington, KY. The experience was PD like I’d never seen it before, so I wrote about it hoping that admin would see that teachers LOVE PD, but most schools are just doing it wrong…
19. Getting Started with GimKit
By far my favorite new tech discovery has been GimKit! There are so many features about GimKit that I love and this article will help you get started using it in 2020.
20. My 2020 Teaching Bucket List
To wrap up our list, I thought I’d share with you a personal post of my own: My 2020 Teaching Bucket List. A few weeks ago, I sat down to think about the things that I very seriously wanted to add to my teaching toolbox of experiences in the upcoming year. Here’s how I want to tackle 2020: give it a read and let me know in the comments what your bucket list items are!
Join me in my Teachers Pay Teachers store for a look around!
