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
If you’re like me, you let stacks of student papers sit for a while before you can bring yourself to respond to them. Once I get into reading and responding to them, it goes well, but there’s just something about diving into the first paper on the stack that is tremendously foreboding. There have been… Read More »The Rubric Criterion That Changed Everything
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!
Future English teacher Aaron DeLay has created this very cool slide about grammar and language instruction, drawing on scholarship by Patricia A Dunn and me. Please check it out, and please credit Aaron if you use this. Thanks, Aaron! Follow him @adelayedteacher If you’d like to learn more about Grammar Rants: How a Backstage Tour… Read More »A Great Take on Language/Grammar Instruction
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
This is a very personal post. Recently, I have had a number of people I’m close to use me as an example of someone who worked his way up to a successful career “without any help from anyone.” They like to use me as an example of why we should eliminate taxpayer-funded social programs. This… Read More »Who Helped Me for No Reason
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
My fellow and sister Deans of Education in the SUNY system sent the following letter in response to the SUNY Charter Schools Institute’s plans to permit teachers with virtually no qualifications to be appointed as “certified” teachers. See below the letter for links to the regulation change and a public comment link where you can… Read More »Letter from the SUNY Deans of Education to the Board of Trustees of the State University of New York
Check out this post I published on the Writers Who Care website: Power Dynamics: Writing Up, Writing Down, Writing Across
