May 9, 2020
So, Sara and I have been working on an iteration of this project for almost a decade. We are going to be rolling out this resource this Fall. Nearly 200 lessons ready with slides to project and teacher notes to guide instruction utilizing poetry, prose, mentor texts, language lessons, standards based, while still being fun […]
April 30, 2020
Well – our spring was cancelled. We will sorely miss all the places and faces we were looking forward to seeing. But, as we stay home as we try to flatten the curve Sara and I are not resting. We’re busy at work making face masks . Sara performed an autopsy on a mask we […]
February 20, 2020
4.0 GPAs are a dime a dozen. Okay that’s a little inflammatory but the sentiment holds true. The admission process for colleges and universities has become tougher and tougher. With AP and IB classes and the extra emphasis toward college ready students the tip top of the crop is getting more and more crowded. So, […]
February 7, 2020
Sara and I have been visiting Eastern Middle School in Old Greenwich, Connecticut for over a dozen years in a row now. They are easily our most visited school. Why? Because we love them, and they love us. We’ve seen these sixth-grade teachers through baby booms, blizzards, missed flights… you name it we’ve seen […]
February 6, 2019
Sara and I love our visits to Ohio schools. We also love our travels around the country and the world – but our home state is still special to us, and the folks at Champion Middle sure made it easy to love this visit. This was one well prepared school thanks to our main poet […]
January 31, 2019
Sara and I are very proud of our new PD book From Striving to Thriving Writers: Strategies That Jump-Start Writing. And, we are more than humbled that one of our biggest influences on our teaching styles, Stephanie Harvey, has made significant contributions to the book. We feel that our philosophies meld nicely. I have attended […]
May 23, 2018
We’re not going to let something like the library burning down slow us up. This was Sara and my fourth trip to Jakarta Intercultural School. If three times is a charm – four times is the magic summoned. These repeated visits allow us to really become friend with the folks we are working with and […]
March 11, 2018
There’s no place like home. Our last school visit was in Chennai India and our next is in Kazan, Russia – but what a wonderful gift it was to roll out of bed drink a cup of coffee in our kitchen and then drive 15 minutes to Kirtland Elementary school to spend a day with […]
February 26, 2018
“Friends stick to you like lice to a scalp.” So surmised a 7th grade class as we worked on a co-created definition poem describing the word Friendship. Pretty apropos seeing as we made whole bunch of new friend during our visit to AISC. Librarian extraordinaire Jeremy Willette being one and I’d be remiss to not […]
February 4, 2018
We love coming to Eastern and consider ourselves honorary Gators – we show up wave to the office folks and head to the teacher lounge to store our lunches in the refrigerator. It really is a homecoming of sorts.
