Something I’ve noticed and that @johannawinant.bsky.social gets absolutely right: teaching students to focus long enough to build (on) an idea is a gift. It’s no longer standard, at least not in K-12. It requires safety and stamina, both of which are in danger in classrooms across the world.

Haha JUST had the AI allegory convo with my husband after this last episode!

Also- being as we start with college essay, I’ve had some really honest conversations with students about college advisors hired by parents and how they edit out voice when they take a draft and return a polished product. It’s WILD. Like kids saying “I would never say this. I don’t know this word.”

I think about voice a LOT in my college writing class. The fall always starts with the college essay as a narrative unit. I’m not saying I do it justice but I have tried a variety of things and feel it’s paramount, especially in this age of AI slop with perfect grammar.

I love this idea! I don’t know that I think it’s needed in every year. When I taught in the UK years ago we did a play in year 7 and year 9 or 10 in our school. Now in the US I think R+J is common in 9th and Macbeth is optional in 10th so some do it, and outside of honors that’s it.

Ok misread this at first. But I sometimes struggle to help kids look past the language, trying to get a big picture view. I rely on a lot of visuals because fluency is a barrier often in other “easier” books. This is tough.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

(Act I, Hamlet)

I taught Hamlet and got to take my class to a production nearby. Had a female lead, gave them a glimpse at real acted drama, interpretations, and led to great class convo!

I had Lamb vs Pickens and Prescott in fantasy with all to play for. 😭

Ok so I’m starting it after Xmas break, and have taught it before but not in a couple years. Have some plans but would love to add to them! Super excited for this!

Rhea Seehorn was so good in Better Call Saul. Thrilled to see her reunited with Vince Gilligan and leading the show!

Yesssss!!!!! Can this be the issue that unites the country please lol

Finale of Task 😬 and lots of meal prep and laundry so I feel prepared, if scared.

We decided to just do the whole thing and these Ss did great. And they had this experience they wanted of getting whole texts, rather than excerpts and summary like in other units. I know there were other reasons given for these choices but it felt like deficit thinking in that situation.

Yes, this. And also when I was coaching in a charter school, they had to use the NYS CC-aligned curriculum. Ss were considered at risk, Ts were often new. The curriculum taught excerpts of Romeo and Juliet for 9th grade and these students were mad. They felt robbed/slighted by low expectations.

You can add the extension to Chrome and then it’s an option for “open with” when you pull up a PDF file. With teacher accts we could also post Kami assignments in Google Classroom, so it was easy for students. The integration was good but I’m hopeful the extension is fine for kids this year.

Well we DID have cooler features available on it but despite the tech coach seeming to think we still have full teacher access, I don’t. But even still it’s a PDF reader and you can annotate (text box), highlight, etc. and it autosaves it all. But with higher level access it reads texts too!

I do similar things. Audio options for sure. We also use Kami for kids who need word processing because I have students annotate. They can use pdfs and annotate with Kami. Students can have speak- text on their Chromebook with options for any pdf to be read to them also.