Reflecting & Storytelling About Teaching
During the past school year, I wanted my 8th grade civics classes to be a place where students could experiment creatively with AI through large language models and image generators. I believe that AI is increasingly a helpful co-intelligence… Continue reading
Many pedagogical books aim to reach “both busy precredentialed and veteran teachers,” as China Harvey and Lisa Herzig hope for Teaching Beyond the Timeline: Engaging Students in Thematic History. In both its realism and optimism, this book absolutely… Continue reading
But it’s in students’ weekly choices of current events that their classmates and I will learn what issues matter most to them, which is how students will start to care about politics as a whole, now and as they grow up… Continue reading
One of my enduring memories of childhood is going to the house of family friends after a monthly Friday night Shabbat service. My mom would grab a brownie or piece of pie and then … Continue reading
With a protagonist so extra that the pages practically turn on their own, Laurie Frankel’s Family Family slides in enough wisdom about families and those who live in them (that is, all of us) to embroider on generations of samplers. We learn this novel’s expansive definition of family from… Continue reading
During this music concert, tucked into my favorite back-row aisle seat, I’m carried away by these high schoolers’ earnest 1960s musical storytelling and wonder which show will come next. When a West Side Story medley tees off, I sit up with familiarity and anticipation. Because of my dad, I’ve never not known this music… Continue reading
As a writer, eighth grade history teacher and school administrator, I’m as curious as anyone about what will happen when the robots eventually take over (more on that later). But after reading Ethan Mollick’s Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, I’m newly optimistic about the possibilities of AI in education – and trying to live more like … Continue reading
While reading Nina LaCour’s Yerba Buena on a drowsy Los Angeles winter afternoon, I turned the pages in a rush. I wanted to experience what would happen to main characters Emilie and Sara: first as teenagers in their own separate tales of trauma, then as adults eventually finding and re-finding each other in this coming-of-age romance. At the same time, the book’s sensory beauty made me want to notice… Continue reading
Earlier this school year, I laughed at myself while making copies in the faculty room. For an assignment that would end up being a one-page letter to a politician, I had created a 12-page directions packet. 12 pages! Admittedly, I tend to over-scaffold… Continue reading
The most effective reading lesson I’ve taught was one I didn’t initially know I was teaching. For the past decade in my 8th grade U.S. history and civics courses, students have brought in a current events article approximately once a week. They can choose from a wide variety of articles—just not those solely focused on… Continue reading
Sarah Cooper 