Two years ago I taught a course for first-year college students that was focused on social media. It was called, “The Language of Social Justice,” and we looked at how social justice was fought for and against on social media. I required all the students to sign up for some social media, including Twitter, which… Read More »Teachers, What’s Your Social Media Policy?
In Fall 2018, I designed a new course I called “Reading Social Media,” which is intended to explore the ways in which social media shapes and reshapes public discourse and those who engage in it. The course was taught in a fully-online environment, meaning that the students and I never met in person. We functioned… Read More »Three Successes and Three Areas to Improve: Reflections on Teaching My First Online Course to Undergraduates
I always enjoy the annual conventions of the National Council of Teachers of English. I’ve been attending them since 1991, give or take a couple I may have missed. This year’s NCTE Convention was especially meaningful for a few reasons. I wanted to take some time to reflect on what I’ve observed and learned.… Read More »My 6 Take-Aways from NCTE 2018 in Houston, Texas
I asked a first-year college class recently, “What can you tell me about academic honesty?” All the students could talk about was how bad plagiarism is and that they should avoid it or they would get in serious trouble. When I said, “I didn’t ask about plagiarism, I asked about academic honesty,” they were completely… Read More »Don’t Teach against Plagiarism, Teach for Academic Honesty
Today is the last day of 2017, and I decided it might be good to take some time to reflect on what I’ve encountered professionally this year. Warning: it may not make gripping reading, as it’s mostly my own navel-gazing, but perhaps it will inspire you to do some reflecting on your own professional year.… Read More »2017: Another Year in the Books!
My frequent “partner in ELA crime,” Leila Christenbury, and I presented on some aspects of our work at the 2018 NCTE Convention. If you’d like to see the slides from our presentation, please check them out here. Feedback in the comments section is most welcome. Stay tuned for Continuing the Journey 2: Becoming a Better… Read More »Making It New and Teaching Informational Text
I’ve gotten heavily involved in reading social media, primarily Twitter, and the many interesting links to news stories, blogs, and studies I get from those I follow. But I wanted this summer to try to pull back a bit on that and get back to reading more full books. I’m taking a few moments to check… Read More »A Review of My Summer Reading
The events in Charlottesville, VA have rightly begun crucially important discussions about politics, race, and racism in the classroom. I am still thinking through my own thoughts about this topic, though I am (and have been) firmly of the opinion that responsible discussion of political issues absolutely must be taken up in English classes. A… Read More »Two Books All (White) English Teachers Should Read
Check out this post I published on the Writers Who Care website: Power Dynamics: Writing Up, Writing Down, Writing Across
It was just about a year ago when I decided my 2016 New Year’s resolution would be to start a blog. It was a no-brainer what it would be about-education and teacher education–and edukention seemed to be a pretty honest name for what I planned to do: express my own opinions on whatever aspects of… Read More »The First Year of Edukention
