Teaching ELA in the 21st

            In reflecting on blogging my journey this semester as a graduate student, I have been grateful for a space to think through different texts and discussions in class while playing with the voice and identity that writing for a blog provides. I have certainly come a long way professionally from the creation of my blog, when I had just entered the English Education program and was only beginning to conceptualize what it would mean to have my own classroom. This has affected how I've been able to respond to many of these prompts and I've appreciated the space that blogging has allowed for me to consider and reflect on my own teaching practices in light of new learning in class. Outside of the professional sphere, I have also noticed changes in my writing and this semester as I approached writing blog posts I felt more comfortable and natural exploring the space of writing for a blog. It turns out this is not unusual, as there has been a connect...

     We Don't Have Time for This  Text Animation/Book Trailer      In response to the texts that I read on environmental justice, I decided to create a text animation/book trailer for We Don't Have Time for This  by Brianna Craft. Initially, I had hoped to create a text animation as a summary of the entire novel because many of my favorite parts of the novel (when the plot ties in nonfiction historical events of environmental racism into its events, the outcome of speaking at the city council meeting on halting the creation of the pipeline, why the cover speaks of romance when Isa and Darius are initially pinned as enemies) happen in the later half of the novel. However, when I began looking for clips to include in my multimodal creation for the text animation I quickly realized that finding clips and creating a animated summary for an entire novel would be far outside of my comfort zone (and may infringe of the content that is considered " fair u...

 Book Talk on the Text Set The texts included in this book talk are: We Are the Water Protectors by Carole Lindrom " Another World is Possible " by Helena Marschall We Don't Have Time for This by Brianna Craft        For more on my mention of how texts like these and community organizing can build resilience in young people, click here ! Incorporating Environmental Justice into Teaching      The topic of environmental justice is a high interest topic that many young people are very engaged in, and, luckily, it can be connected to many texts that are taught in the ELA classroom. Any story, fiction or nonfiction, where the setting is or has been at risk or is now different or affected by climate change is able to connect to the topic of environmental justice. In my teaching, I see connections for this topic in our unit about survival. Specifically, there is a text in this unit where we read an excerpt of A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park...