by Christi Tuit, Laura DeJong, and Justine Keuning-LaFrence As a school counselor, an ELA teacher, and a school librarian, we have always used books to help students connect to fictional characters in order to learn things about themselves. We have found that stories can help us to see truths that are hard to face and […]
Editorial By Abby Zwart and Steve Tuit If your classroom and home are anything like ours are, they’re filled with books. (And books are a family thing in the Tuit house: Once, when a school administrator noted that he was reading during his free time, the youngest of the family responded, “Yes. I’m a Tuit.” […]
*Please see this month’s editorial for more context on this article. Introduction: What We Did Becoming a “Lifelong Explorer” is one of our school’s “Portrait of a Graduate” goals for all students. As staff members and educators, we want to live into those same goals and values as we aim to mold students into the […]
Young adult literature continues to be fertile ground for an amazing range of books covering almost every subject imaginable. Below are quick reviews of the best eleven books that I read in the past year. These books are appropriate for middle school and/or high school readers. Not all these books were published in 2019, but […]
by Martha Mahtani and Bill Boerman-Cornell The Holocaust perpetuated on the Jewish people by the German Nazi party during World War II has inspired a remarkable amount of excellent literature. Middle school and high school English teachers are quick to recognize the interest their students have for this era in history and are quick to […]
“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” —Charlie “Tremendous” Jones I finished fifty-four books in 2018. I know because I kept a list. I’m not sure why I did this. I haven’t kept a list of what […]
Over Christmas break this year, I read Waking the Rainbow Dragon (Dragon Masters #10) by Tracey West. I did this because before break I had a long discussion with a third-grade boy where we looked at hints in past Dragon Masters books as to what new dragons might be featured in upcoming adventures. (I may […]
Young Adult (YA) literature is exploding. A broad range of stories is coming out right now in the unprecedented numbers of books for young adults. On the one hand, this has meant some incredibly powerful stories that can connect deeply with our students in terms of both the brokenness of our world and also the […]
This year was another outstanding one for picture books. Once again, narrowing down this list to just ten was an almost insurmountable task. I encourage you to take a trip to your local independent bookstore and spend some time paging through picture books. You won’t be disappointed. The topics covered in picture books this past […]
I was at my desk collecting writing assignments when Hannah, one of my sixth graders, walked over. “Mrs. Blok,” she said, “when are we going to read a book that has a girl as the main character?” So far we had read The Phantom Tollbooth and King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table—both […]