Reflecting & Storytelling About Teaching
As teachers over the past decade, we find the question of how to respond the day after a cataclysmic event has come up more than any of us would want. What do our students need and crave in these moments? How much do we share of our own feelings… Continue reading
Over the past five years, spurred by an imperative to help students make sense of our confusing world, the field of civics education has become what it rarely is: a hot topic… Continue reading
Culturally responsive teaching can take many different forms. An excellent recent EdWeek article defined it as taking into account “students’ customs, characteristics, experience, and perspectives as tools for better classroom instruction.” Although I often feel I’m only partially engaging with students’ backgrounds and experiences in my 8th U.S. history and civics classes, here are a few guidelines I try to follow… Continue reading
With judicious use of fascinating primary sources, history for middle schoolers can burst off the page.
We as teachers can synthesize or “layer” primary sources to to make the sum richer than its part, remember how hard it can be for students to grapple with unfamiliar documents… Continue reading
Lately I’ve come back to the same image when I fantasize about having every student back in the classroom, particularly the 8th graders I love so much. They are maskless. They need no sanitation. And, most of all, they sprawl. These middle schoolers lean shoulder to shoulder… Continue reading
In a school year when the Constitution has exploded into the news more than ever, my eighth graders and I have carefully discussed political articles as they’ve appeared. Yet I’ve also wanted to infuse life into this founding document beyond current events. Last year I spiced up… Continue reading
In the days following the election, though, “harder” won for me, and I nearly gave up talking about it. Sure, we had a great couple of classes in that liminal, fizzy, who-knows period before the election was called… Continue reading
When looking back at the MiddleWeb article I wrote the day after the election in 2016, I’m struck by how shocked my students and I were. In 2020, I’m feeling not so much shock as the need to shore up my teaching and once again dig into difficult topics… Continue reading
Sending my students into Zoom breakout rooms last spring to work on projects or discuss their opinions seemed easy – an extension of sitting in class and talking in pairs or small groups. After two weeks of online teaching with new students this fall, though, I’m rethinking how I use this appealing online tool… Continue reading
We live in a time of twin pandemics – the coronavirus and racism. In the upcoming election, the two intersect and could at any time explode in our classrooms. In the fall of 2016, I tended to avoid national political discussion in favor of local issues, because the country felt so polarized… Continue reading
Sarah Cooper 