Teaching Teens in the 21st

I decided that before I can start posting about what I'm doing this year, I needed to share some of my favorite strategies from last year that went really well with the students. I was completely inspired by Kelly Gallagher after reading devouring all of his books at the beginning of the school year! I had the opportunity to go to a Kelly Gallagher workshop at Judson this spring, and it was absolutely amazing! He was so nice when I went up to him (I was terrified and starstruck), and even wrote "You're Welcome" on this piece of paper, because my students actually asked me to THANK HIM for changing the way we read novels in class.  Students + asked me + to say thank you to an author + about school stuff = UTOPIA! Here are some of my abbreviated notes from the day: His TOP Points: Kids should write 4X more than you can physically grade  Students suffer from word poverty. Must get students reading more in order to be exposed to vocabulary. We ne

I've noticed more and more that the reason I'm not blogging is because I do almost everything on my phone, and I always seem to be out and about. So...I've decided to create a facebook page, and I'm just going to test it out and see how easy it is to use compared to blogger.  Check out my new facebook page! I'm off to the gym, before I settle in to get some work done, and a new blog/fb post :)

I'm so sorry that I've been so bad at blogging this summer! I was part of the show, Legally Blonde: The Musical, and that consumed most of my life! It was a rewarding experience, and it had been nine years since I was on the stage, rather than backstage directing and choreographing. Here are a few pics! Second from left: Whipped Into Shape! (This was the hardest choreography I've ever done, but it definitely "whipped me into shape" this summer!) On the right-- Dressing Room! Me and the Hubster! Legally Blondes! "What You Want" "What You Want" Last Day of Tech Week Pre-Show! I promise, promise, promise, to upload pics of my new classroom stuff for this school year in the next couple of days. I'm so excited!