“Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context. The ability to read, write, and communicate connects people to one another and empowers them to achieve things they never thought possible. Communication and connection are the basis of who we … Continue reading What is literacy?
Every year, my school hosts Literacy Lunch. It is a time for families to come share in the love of reading, writing, and learning in classrooms, followed by a meal together in our cafeteria. Literacy Lunch has sometimes been a vehicle for explaining English Language Arts curriculum, and shifts in standards, to parents. Mostly it’s … Continue reading Living literacy
As my colleague and I present at a reading conference for educators this week, I watch the participants’ faces. Eager. Expectant. Reflective. Smiling and visibly misting over in turn, as my colleague and I talk about the diversity of the third, fourth, and fifth grade students who sign up, some of them multiple times, to … Continue reading Magical literacy and learning, part 2
Yesterday my colleague and I presented “Magical Literacy and Learning: The Harry Potter Club” at the North Carolina Reading Association. While we waited for the preceding session to end, I watched other educators gathering in the hallway outside the closed door where our session would be held. I could hear whispers: “Harry Potter . . … Continue reading Magical literacy and learning, part 1
I was sixteen years old the first time I went to New York City—that’s the same age, according to his own writing, that St. Patrick was kidnapped in Britain and carried to slavery in Ireland. I didn’t know this fact at the time. I arrived in the city that long-ago day with my high school … Continue reading In the name of St. Patrick
An elegy. Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all. -Ecclesiastes 9:11 He was born nearly seventy years ago. With cerebral palsy. He … Continue reading Spiritual Journey Thursday: On golf and good-bye
In the 1590s, Shakespeare penned: Now is the winter of our discontentMade glorious summer by this sun of York;And all the clouds that lour’d upon our houseIn the deep bosom of the ocean buried… Now is 2020: The year of our discontent. Heavy clouds of pain, anger, injustice enshroud our houses, our cities, our minds, … Continue reading We can’t go back
I’m a relative newcomer to Poetry Friday. First let me thank Irene Latham for hosting today’s Roundup and Carol Varsalona for extending the invitation on social media to come and honor author Nikki Grimes. Carol created a lovely rose-adorned Buncee card which reads: “Nikki Grimes—Do more of what makes your soul shine, because you inspire … Continue reading Poetry Friday: Soul shine
So, April has had a number of firsts for me, beyond “first pandemic.” It’s the first time I’ve attempted to write a poem a day for National Poetry Month. My first plunge into Poetry Fridays. And this is the first time I’ve participated in a Progressive Poem. Our poem was born on the first day … Continue reading Progressive poem is here
The coming of spring at my school means it’s time for Literacy Lunch, an annual event where families are invited to take part in literacy-related activities in class followed by lunch in the cafeteria with their children. It’s one of our best-attended events. We do it over three days; parents with multiple children typically come … Continue reading Read like a hero
