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Love this idea. Is there a way to get names from the school-based counselors of students who need a love letter, and have our classes write letters to those particular students?

"In the second half of the year, my writing course shifts to a more focused study of argument. We read and analyze several mentor texts together as a class, starting with speeches and letters, including an in-depth analysis of the classic  "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King, Jr. (this year, I also paired King's text with "The Future Needs Us" by Rebecca Solnit and the introduction from Writings on the Wall by Kareem Abdul Jabbar). But the key to teaching students how to analyze argument-particularly in today's media rich world-is to make the time and space for students to take what they have learned and apply it independently. (In fact, that's true when you teach anything.) So this year, I changed up my argument unit a bit to include a two-week workshop period in which students would: Read several arguments from a variety of media (written, visual, auditory, film); Analyze the arguments for their line of reasoning; Write their own original essay which defends, challenges, or qualifies a claim made by one (or more) of the arguments they studied."

"McPhee has now published more than thirty books, work that first appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1963. He's written about Alaska (Coming into the Country), the Swiss Army (La Place de la Concorde Suisse), and an island in Scotland's Inner Hebrides (The Crofter and the Laird). His subjects have included the atomic bomb, the environmental movement, the U.S. Merchant Marine, Russian art, and fishing. Four books on geology. Three on transport. Two on sports. One book entirely about oranges. He has received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World, his comprehensive survey of North American geology. His work has inspired generations of nonfiction writers, and he has distinguished himself especially as a teacher of literary journalism." This is an interview with him about writing and teaching.

"At EL Education, we believe that this is best done consciously and intentionally. We are unafraid to say that teachers and schools shape student character. We specify what we believe they should work towards: students who are not just effective learners, but also ethical people, and active contributors to a better world. We believe that this is supported when educators elevate student voice and leadership and model a schoolwide culture of respect, compassion, honesty, integrity, and kindness. In times of crisis, small-scale or large, this also means modeling courage in standing up for those values, and standing against racism, injustice, acts of hate, and the undermining of public education. One unheralded but powerful possibility is this: giving students real material to engage with and supporting them to do work that matters to them. This is what helps students become ethical adults who contribute to a better world. In EL Education schools, this deeper learning is the daily fare of classrooms. And, it's what empowers them to engage in civil debate. If students are fearful about what may happen to them or their loved ones, we can help them research what has actually been said or proposed, and what is possible according to the U.S. Constitution as it has so far been interpreted. We can help them respond in ways that build their own agency: writing letters, like students at World of Inquiry, or making videos and organizing actions like the Melrose Leadership Academy Peace and Kindness March."

"The adoption of the Common Core could usher in a new era of standards-based grading."

"Helping students fail isn't just a matter of making them feel better-it's about thinking like a scientist, farmer, designer, or CEO-failing gives me the data I need to proceed. And knowledge? Those letter grades don't mean much. An A doesn't guarantee understanding, and an F doesn't preclude it. To "fail" could mean a thousand things-which is exactly why students need help to understand it. The Role Of Failure In Learning Properly understood, failure can help students see learning as a personal journey rather than a matter of external performance. It emphasizes meaning as contextual, and distinguishes procedural knowledge from content knowledge. The primary value, then, might be in teaching students learning and knowledge rather than responsibility."

Interesting advice on literary analysis essay writing: "There should be more or less of a jumble in your head or on your note paper after the first time and even after the second. Much that you will think of in connection will come to nothing and be wasted. But some of it ought to go together under one idea. That idea is the thing to write on and write into the title at the head of your paper… One idea and a few subordinate ideas - [the trick is] to have those happen to you as you read and catch them - not let them escape you… The sidelong glance is what you depend on. You look at your author but you keep the tail of your eye on what is happening over and above your author in your own mind and nature."

"While individual efforts are valuable, students can learn the skills of collaborating on civic issues by working together as a whole class. Here are the five broad steps they should follow: Identify issues important in their lives and community, and decide on one to address. Research the chosen issue and decide how to change or improve the situation. Plan an action, including determining a goal for change; identifying who or what body in the community has power to make the change; and deciding how to approach that person or those people. Carry out the action through letters, talks, meetings with officials, policy proposals, and activities, depending on the specific goals of the project. Reflect on the effort when it is over in order to understand their successes, challenges, and ways to continue learning in the future. Two features are especially crucial to making the experience authentic and empowering. First, students must own the key choices and decisions and figure out solutions to problems themselves, so they discover that they can do this. The teacher facilitates the work, of course, but leaves as much of the decision-making as possible to the students. Second, the work should culminate in some action focused on change in the school or community. It's not enough to just talk about change, practice mock legislatures, or serve in a soup kitchen (as valuable as these activities may be). Only when students see adults listening to them with respect, do they realize they have a voice and can make a difference in their world. Their efforts may not always succeed, but in being heard they come to value the studying, reading, writing and planning that they have done."

"The longest of the dashes - roughly the length of the letter "M" - the em dash is emphatic, agile and still largely undefined. Sometimes it indicates an afterthought. Other times, it's a fist pump. You might call it the bad boy, or cool girl, of punctuation. A freewheeling scofflaw. A rebel without a clause. Martha Nell Smith, a professor of English at the University of Maryland and the author of five books on the poet Emily Dickinson (the original em dash obsessive), said that Dickinson used the dash to "highlight the ambiguity of the written word." "The dash is an invitation to the reader to make meaning," Dr. Smith said. "It can also be a leap of faith.""

"Given those disparities, the district plans to recommend that, as long as students participate, teachers should revert to their previous progress grades. Students could potentially improve those scores, but they wouldn't be penalized. "I don't want to give everyone an A because we're just trying to be nice," said Patrick Keeley, the principal of the district's single high school. "But we don't want to ruin people's chances in the future, either," especially when it's due to factors outside of their control. Contrast Mountain Empire's context with that of the Salem City district in Virginia, near Roanoke. The district serves a small, fairly compact city. Every student in grades 3 through 12 has a Chromebook through its one-to-one program. Salem has about 200 "hot spots" for WiFi connectivity, and a cable company has agreed to provide free internet access for students qualifying for free and reduced-price lunches. So when its spring break ends on April 13, the district plans to make a legitimate go at covering the most essential of its remaining state standards via online learning-and to continue issuing letter grades for students' work. "We realize that if we tell kids today, 'Hey, your grade can't be any lower than it is now,' or if we tell them we're not going to grade them for the rest of the year, we're going to have a big chunk of kids check out," said Curtis Hicks, the district's assistant superintendent. "And that's not healthy for them for the short run, and it's not healthy for the long term, if students are underprepared for what comes next.""

"All over the country, local school board members, who are typically volunteers or serve for small stipends, have indeed been placed on the front line of a national culture war. Protestors are mobilizing against masks, vaccines, LGBTQ rights, removing police from schools, and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In early October, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland directed the FBI to meet with state and local authorities to create "strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff." BACK TO SCHOOL: LIVE UPDATES She Joined The School Board To Serve Her Community. Now She's In The Crossfire NPR spoke to school board members in California, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in addition to Watkins and a fellow board member in Georgia. All of them told similar stories: of being yelled at in meetings that are sometimes brought to a halt entirely; receiving threatening letters; being followed to their cars; and being photographed or filmed."