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"Teachers self-promote. In that, we're no different than everyone else: proudly framing our breakthroughs, hiding our blunders in locked drawers, forever perfecting our oral résumés. This isn't all bad. My colleagues probably have more to learn from my good habits (like the way I use pair work) than my bad ones (like my sloppy system of homework corrections), so I might as well share what's useful. In an often-frustrating profession, we're nourished by tales of triumph. A little positivity is healthy. But sometimes, the classrooms we describe bear little resemblance to the classrooms where we actually teach, and that gap serves no one. Any honest discussion between teachers must begin with the understanding that each of us mingles the good with the bad. One student may experience the epiphany of a lifetime, while her neighbor drifts quietly off to sleep. In the classroom, it's never pure gold or pure tin; we're all muddled alloys. I taught once alongside a first-year teacher, Lauren, who didn't grasp this. As a result, she compared herself unfavorably to everyone else. Every Friday, when we adjourned to the bar down the street, she'd decry her own flaws, meticulously documenting her mistakes for us, castigating herself to no end. The kids liked her. The teachers liked her. From what I'd seen, she taught as well as any first-year could. But she saw her own shortcomings too vividly and couldn't help reporting them to anyone who'd listen. She was fired three months into the year. You talk enough dirt about yourself and people will start to believe it. Omission is the nature of storytelling; describing a complex space-like a classroom-requires a certain amount of simplification. Most of us prefer to leave out the failures, the mishaps, the wrong turns. Some, perhaps as a defensive posture, do the opposite: Instead of overlooking their flaws and miscues, they dwell on them, as Lauren did. The result is that two classes, equally well taugh

"What can teachers learn from the workplace culture of companies like Google? A new paper suggests that one way to improve students' happiness and performance is to revamp the classroom to look more like one of the United States' top companies.  Heather Staker, an adjunct researcher for the Christensen Institute, a nonpartisan think tank that focuses on innovation, authored a white paper that gives teachers a guide to creating higher-performing, happier classrooms in seven steps. The 81-page "playbook for teachers" includes three case studies-a mixed-income public school, a low-income charter school, and an independent affluent school-that show how teachers from all backgrounds and of all grade levels can make their classrooms look more like the highest-ranked workplaces."

"In the middle of the school year, I always regret my choice of becoming an AP and Honors English teacher. Not because I hate to teach, but because I'm always swimming in essays that I have to grade. In order to accommodate the load, I adapted the elementary way of thinking and formed a writers' workshop for my own classroom. Once they participate in the workshop, students are able to learn how to revise their own essays. Because of this, the time it takes for me to grade essays is literally cut in half. Suggestions for Implementing a Writers' Workshop in Your Classroom"

"So below are (at least) 60 thing you can do with Google Classroom. We'll be updating this list as new ideas come in, the platform changes, and we learn more about its subtleties on our own."

"Each Friday we collaborate with a classroom in New Jersey to test and publish three short writing ideas that address Common Core Standards and that are grounded in New York Times content. This week, all three prompts focus on the common theme of life on a coastline - a topic of great importance to our classroom collaborators, who recently went through weeks of disruption because of Hurricane Sandy."

"Students still use computers for writing outside of class, especially essays, but all writing in class happens by hand: notes from the whiteboard, notes from somebody's discussion comment, notes about which shoes to wear to Jim and Julia's party…. I tell them about the research, and, yes, they're skeptical-of course they are. It's like taking all their cuddly toys from the crib and convincing them it's still a place called home. But at least I know they're all present, if only functionally. I don't need to constantly worry about what might be going on in screenland. The classroom feels more like a classroom than an office, the conversations stronger precisely because more students usually otherwise engaged get involved. It comes down to a sense of kids being present together in a unified space, a space that allows for communities and communication to develop. Romantic, yes, as students are rarely present in the ways we aspire for them to be, but at least without technology, they space-out within the confines of their own imaginations. For instance, doodling when distracted instead of resorting to a virtual rabbit warren of visual excitement. As doodlers they are makers."

"If you haven't heard of Genius Hour or 20% time in the classroom, the premise is simple: Give your students 20% of their class time (or an hour each week) to learn what they want. These projects allow students to choose the content and still acquire/master skills and hit academic standards. I've written extensively about Genius Hour and 20% Time, but wanted to share a list of the 10 reasons you should consider Genius Hour in your classroom (for those of you on the fence) and why you will not regret making that choice!"

"Inquiry or interrogation? What if you asked your students which of these best describes their experience with classroom questioning? How do you think they would respond? My colleague Beth Sattes and I have posed this question to a wide range of students. The majority choose "questioning as interrogation" as the best fit for their experience. What makes them feel this way? Many believe that teachers ask questions to surface "right" answers, which students fear they don't know. Others think teachers ask questions mostly to find out who is paying attention - or not! Almost all students view follow-up questions as attempts to keep them on the "hot seat" and embarrass them for not knowing. And most perceive classroom questioning to be a competition that pits students against one another - Whose hand goes up first? Who answers most frequently? Very few students understand questioning as a process for collaborative exploration of ideas and a means by which teachers and students alike are able to find out where they are in their learning and decide on next steps. This is one of the primary themes running through our work."

"Language merely reflects our way of trying to make sense of the world. - Frank Smith Frank Smith (1982) says 'writing touches every part of our lives'. One of the first reasons we write is because it is a tool for communication in culture. It gives us the ability the share information over time and space with multiple individuals (explaining, recounting & opinion). It can also be used as a permanent record or as a statement e.g. in history, geography  & science genres. The third cultural aspect for writing is artistry (narrative and poetry). Finally, there is also the personal aspect to writing. Writing allows us all to reflect, express our perceptions of self, to socially dream or to be critical (memoir). By writing, we find out what we know; what we think. Ultimately though, writing is a means for us to express ourselves in the world, make sense of the world or impose ourselves upon it. The question now is why do children write at school? For these purposes? - Not often. There is a massive discrepancy between the writing done in the real-world and that of the classroom. Donald Graves says 'all children want to write'. It is just a case of allowing them to write about the things they are interested in. As Frank Smith says, 'all children can write if they can speak it.' If they can talk about it, they can write it down. The transmission of narrow decontextualized writing skills; that English is just a formal system to be learnt. The insistence on task-orientated writing. The insistence on teacher-chosen writing tasks. The insistence on the use of external stimulus (literature units, film-clips, topic-writing) at the expense of children's knowledge, interests, loves, talents and idiosyncrasies. The formal rather than functional teaching of grammar. These examples embody the 'commonsense' assumptions which claim an authority which is supposedly natural and unshakable. Writing in classrooms at present isn't seen by children as important

" five articles that use photography and narrative to reveal the texture of teenage life; next, 11 articles about young people making a splash in the world; and, finally, three news articles about teenage life that we think might provoke interesting classroom discussions. Let us know what you think and how we could make this feature more useful for your classroom. The next installment will be published on July 11."

Revision is a critical piece of the writing process-and of your classroom curriculum. Now, Google Docs has partnered with Weekly Reader's Writing for Teens magazine to help you teach it in a meaningful and practical way. On this page, you will find several reproducible PDF articles from Writing magazine filled with student-friendly tips and techniques for revision. You'll also find a teacher's guide that provides you with ideas for how to use these materials with Google Docs to create innovative lesson plans about revision for your classroom.

"When it comes to creating a community of writers, there is no perfect formula. Trial and error, as well as a few specific steps, may help you begin the process in your classroom, no matter what subject matter or age you teach. Like every other worthy endeavor, writing requires practice. That's why from day one, students should see writing as an integral part of your class. You might even consider incorporating writing into your ice-breaker. Have your students mimic a poem, do a random autobiography, or draft scavenger hunt questions. Let students experience variety and choice. They shouldn't craft only formal, academic papers in your class. They should see that writing fits a variety of purposes and patterns. Online blogs, creative writing, written instructions, and other forms of written expression should be part of your curriculum."

" It seems, we are in the dark about engaging students in the homework process.  Specifically, what contributes to homework resistance?  How can we better support students in not only completing, but learning (gasp) from assigned homework? To answer these questions, I examined a number of research articles.  I focused on interviews/surveys with classrooms that struggled with homework completion (to identify triggers).  Also, I used data from classrooms with high homework achievement (to identify habits from the homework pros).   Here are 6 research-backed reasons for why students resist homework- plus tips to help overcome them."

"Four years ago, I quit zeroes. They are no longer allowed in my classroom. I still have F's which communicate, in number and learning, performances well-below standard. Kids still receive failing scores in my classroom, but I don't tack on punishment, additional insult to injury in the form of sub-50% scores; 50% is now the lowest score possible in my class. The kids know from the mark that they have failed to meet standard; I don't need to crush them more with added penalties. It makes sense to me, it makes sense to my kids, and it makes sense to parents. It's also beginning to make sense to some of my colleagues, who, too, have adopted a no-zero policy. But not all. Some of my colleagues have accused me of malpractice, suggesting I am ruining kids' lives by not teaching them a lesson. And I guess of that I am guilty. But I sleep at night knowing that I have given kids a fair shake, and while I may not be teaching them the harsh lessons of life, I am giving them opportunity by creating a realm of possibility in room 219."

"Morone, with the backing of the high school district's administration, has developed an "open classroom" curriculum for all of the sophomore honors English students where students are given independence to demonstrate they have mastered the same standards the school has been using for years. "We are using the same core texts, the same curriculum designed by the school and approved by the board of education - but the way we are approaching the curriculum is very different," Morone said. "The first word that has to be put out there about it is that it is non-linear." Dr. Barry Bachenheimer, the regional director of curriculum in the district, said Morone's class is part of a "larger idea" of allowing flexibility to foster learning in the Pascack Valley High School District - which includes the "Pascack Period," a weekly 88-minute period where students can study, work out or sign up for non-traditional classes taught by teachers and even students. "

"Classrooms in the U.S. often focus most attention on literacy and math, largely because those skills are considered foundational and are tested. However most people will also need to communicate their thoughts and ideas to other people through oral language, and yet effective communication strategies are often not taught with the same precision and structure as other parts of the curriculum. School 21, a public school in London has made "oracy" a primary focus of everything they do. From the earliest grades on up teachers support students to find their voice, express differing opinions politely, and challenge one another's thinking. These are skills called for in the Common Core, but can be hard to find in many classrooms because students haven't been taught how to make "turn and talks" truly effective. The Edutopia team visited School 21 and captured some amazing videos of students practicing their communication skills with support from teachers."

"The Write-a-Thon grew its roots in 2015, during a little conversation between my school district's (Robbinsville, New Jersey) Superintendent, Dr. Steven Mayer and myself. The crux of the conversation was, "How can we teach teenagers to see writing as an exercise in self-discovery and authenticity not just a forced activity aligned with the harbingers of school?" So we talked. We listened. We brainstormed. And 3 months later the first Write-a-Thon was held in my classroom. A 2-hour writing event that afforded students the opportunity to write, to tell their story. The event hosted 13 writers including Dr. Mayer and received donations and support from my student's parents, faculty and my own friends and family. When concluded, the Write-a-Thon raised $1,300 for the Special Olympics of New Jersey. As I was planning the second Write-a-Thon, Dr. Mayer was tragically killed. The May event was held in his honor. An event that began with me, fighting tears, recounting our little brainstorming session and how though he is physically gone, his story, his passion is alive and well. The heart of the Write-a-Thon is simple - show up and tell your story. This week, the fourth installment of the Write-a-Thon had 30 student writers, ranging from 7th to 12th grade. The event hosted a $500 college scholarship essay challenge and was filmed by the Emmy winning "Classroom Close-up NJ" and will be featured in October 2017 episode."

"By creating intentional spaces for feedback and revision cycles in my classroom, students now think critically and authentically about their writing, which has led to diminishing the disconnect between how teachers and students define effective writing feedback. In my tenth-grade English classroom, we study multiple genres of authentic writing. After I give feedback on each draft of a piece of writing, I ask students to respond to two prompts:"

"Two years ago, English Language Arts teacher Tyler Rablin promoted cell phone use in the classroom, encouraging his students to bring their phones to class. He's had a change of heart. Next year, he'll be asking students to check their phones at the door. Rablin recently took to Twitter to share his rationale in an 8-tweet thread. We asked him to share more thoughts."

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