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"The biggest responsibility of any teacher is to equip students with the tools that they can use in everyday life. The content is important, but with information so easily accessible, it is ultimately more helpful to them if they have critical thinking, analytic ability, and research skills. You can best serve your students by engaging them in active debate, fun and absorbing problem-solving activities, and relevant research assignments. High-school students are among the hardest to engage, so you have to approach them in a way they understand. Traditional is out, online is in. Giving them the opportunity to use the tools they are most comfortable with can help them in ways that no amount of lecturing can accomplish. You can make your students better researchers, and thinkers, with the 10 online tools listed in this post"

" Regie Routman believes that sustained time for reading and writing meaningful text must be our first priority to turn students into readers, writers, and thinkers. In her latest ASCD book, Read, Write, Lead: Breakthrough Strategies for Schoolwide Literacy Success, Routman shares best practices that can lead to better engagement and achievement in reading and writing for all students, including second-language and struggling learners. One way to engage students in informational, complex text is to demonstrate close reading, also known as analytic reading.  In the following excerpt, Routman shares her thoughts on being a "reading role model" and why close reading is a necessity for students' understanding."