Author Archives: Michael Salinger

January 9, 2017

Poetry, pupils, pedagogy and perspective.

Today Sara and I continued on our writing with cops and kids program. We met with Libbie Royko’s 7th graders and we completed the fist have of a guided writing clinic on conflict. We wrote an example piece together comparing a staged almost fight with a thunderstorm and then we brainstormed details for a personal […]


January 5, 2017

Another case against standardized high stake tests

Teachers are also trying to survive as they are tasked with teaching kids how to take these tests, which they do by digging through past tests, posted online. Forget joy of language and the fun of discovery in poetry, this is line-by-line dissection, painful and delivered without anesthetic.


January 4, 2017

Poetry, police, pedagogy and perspective.

So, Sara and my latest project involves students and law enforcement officers. It’s something we have been talking about for a long time but never had the chance to implement. We’ve had a couple false starts over the years but we’ve finally got our foot in a door. We’re just starting out and we will […]


December 5, 2016

Singapore American School

We’ve worked with the Language Arts crew in the middle school the last couple times but the official poet wrangler of SAS for this installment, Scott Riley, decided to mix it up a bit this time and we collaborated with the Social Studies and a Science class.


December 3, 2016

Singapore American School

We will be putting up a full post later, but in the meantime here’s a video from our latest visit.


November 27, 2016

Sekolah Adiwiyata Nasional, Gianyar, Bali

Enter two crackpot poets from Cleveland Ohio! Tada – Sara and I became the focus of a spectacular extravaganza orchestrated by the staff and the entire 900 members of the student body. We were led in to cheers, fed delicacies and test-drove those seats of honor as the kids ran through their routines.


November 20, 2016

NCTE 2016 Atlanta

The National Council of Teachers of English is probably my favorite conference that Sara and I attend. Not only do we get to attend a myriad of sessions, collecting ideas and learning about research we can bring back to the schools we visit – we have a lot of fun! We presented on writing across the […]


November 13, 2016

Escola Americana de Campinas

So this was the first time I met a monkey who I didn’t not like. One of the best perks to my and Sara’s job is the great folks from all over the world who we get to be friends with. This is the case with Heather and Tom who have just recently arrived at […]


Testimonials

“Sara and Michael bring infectious energy and joy leavened with deep knowledge of best practices in literacy to their work with children and teachers.” Ellin Keene – Author of Mosaic of Thought and The Teacher You Want to Be
“Sara and Michael bring magic, and a contagious love of words to both students and teachers alike!” Georgia Heard - Author of Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School More testimonials...