I Don’t Teach Zombies and Other Thoughts on Why the Arts Aren’t Dead
Washingtonians are the recipients of a strong, statewide commitment to promote Arts inclusion into our everyday lives; ArtsWA was commissioned by our government to support these ideals in public...
View ArticleIntegration 101 for the Arts-Curious Content Teacher
Featured Cover art by Jessica Ottewell via Flickr In April, I began a three part blog sharing my thoughts on Arts education. The series includes the following topics: Part I (April): Why...
View ArticleArt Means Business
In April , I blogged a rationale for funding Arts programs and integrated Arts instruction as part of basic education, based on 3 principles: We need the Arts to be human “Art Means Business” The Arts...
View Article6 Things I Want To Do With You While It’s Still Summer
DON’T FREAK OUT YET, TEACHERS. Let’s do all of these things and pretend that emails about class rosters and kickoff meetings aren’t already rolling in. Everything here is definitely in your...
View ArticleDisrupting Education: 4 Powerful Ideas from #TEDEdWeekend PHOTOS
I recently spent the weekend in New York City with 26 of my fellow Cohort 3 TED-Ed Innovative Educators (TIEs) from 11 different countries for TED’s first-ever TED-Ed Weekend. It was a...
View ArticleArts Integration for Artists and Non-Artists
Written responses from students have become overemphasized. Why do we tend to rely solely on written responses from students, even when we are not assessing a writing standard? Why do we tend only to...
View ArticlePicture Walks
The Burnout When we get to this time of year, 4th quarter and the burnout, it can be hard to keep students’ attention. My team likes to do an engaging novel study with a creative project for a final...
View ArticleIlluminating Relevancy in the ELA Classroom
It is a curious aspect of our jobs that we are preparing students for the adult world while they are yet in the child or teenage world. The challenge being many of the skills covered in our classes are...
View ArticleDitch the Short Stories. Go for Vignettes
It’s always the same routine dining out for lunch when away from my classroom for a conference. Instead of being across the hall in my department lounge that day with teachers I have known for a while...
View ArticleContemporary Art, Contemporary Perspectives
How is art a reflection of time, place, and culture? How can contemporary art be used to inspire and empower student voice? These guiding questions were the subject of a three-day intensive educator...
View ArticleLessons learned a half a world away
According to John Steinbeck, “People don’t take trips… trips take people.” I’m inclined to agree. This past Spring break, some of my family and I traveled to Beijing and Xi’an, China with a group of...
View ArticleIntroducing Rhetorical Analysis with Documentaries
In just a moment my students will start class viewing documentary films they recently selected in small groups. Non-fiction has exploded as a genre and the Common Core State Standards prescribes...
View Article
