English Teachers Chat

For today I made a simple graphic highlight a number of 2022 books. These are all books I've read this year that I can't get enough of.  For some students, sometimes that familiar book is just the next step to push them towards something fresh.

I feel like we're not talking enough about genre and authentic voices. When I'm helping students pick out a new book, my first question is, "what are you interested in?" For many of my (and here I'm going to super gender stereotype here) female students, they can point to other texts they've enjoyed. They enjoyed Yolk or Grown or Instructions for Dancing, all amazing texts which can lead to a 100 other recommendations: Off the Record, Love is a Revolution, Kiss & Tell.  But other kids (and often my male students) will say, "I am looking for fantasy, dystopian, war or historical fiction." And while I have plenty of those titles. Many of those titles are from White authors, and I noticed a lack of other voices: Black, Hispanic, AAPI, Muslim, Jewish, etc. that explore these rich genres. I'm sure that's more to do with publishing companies than the authors themselves, but nevertheless, here we are. Underrepresented but more than worthy of our...

Yesterday I released my Best Books of 2021 . Today I return with my best YA books of 2021. All these books were published this year and worth all your attention. I hope you find sometime to read and love. If you want an easy one page printable, click here . 1. Love is a Revolution by Renee Watson I could go on and on about how much I love this book. It manages to capture teenage love and teenage apathy like none other. It’s in a class all its own this year (it also appeared on my best books of the year overall). So many books are trying to be so grand, but sometimes the most intimate stories are the most important ones. This is why I read YA fiction. 2. Off the Record by Camryn Garrett If they decided to turn Harvey Weinstein’s story, serial rapist and atrocious human being, into a YA novel, it would be this. But the book is so much more as you meet Josie, an aspiring journalist, who is thrown into the adult world. These are books that teens need, but everyone will be better for readin...

Well... it's that time of the year again. As of this writing (and still 10 days to go), I've finished 164 books. A record for me. But I'm here to tell you what made my top 10 adult books for the year (hopefully within the week I will publish my top 10 YA books). If you would like a one page printable copy, click here . So without further ado, here's the list.  1. The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.  The Prophets isn’t just the best written book of 2021, it might be the best written book of the millennium. Beautifully written but also heart breaking, this genre bending novel recalls Morrison at almost every turn, and in the process tells one of the most gorgeous and heart breaking love stories of all time. This is the story we need in 2021. A true reckoning of our past. 2. Bewilderment by Richard Powers After The Overstory, all attention is on Richard Powers. But Bewilderment is so different. Rather than a sprawling narrative, we’re given something far more intimate. A stor...

Maybe because I'm too much into fitness, or maybe because I'm too much into reading, it's clear to me, reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. It's an essential part of what makes people grow. It's healthy and fun, and downright addictive when performed regularly. In the world of fitness, we operate under the ideas of FITT: Frequency, Intensity, Time and Type. That same philosophy can be applied to our students too. Today we're going to look at Frequency. It's my firm believe that if students and teachers follow FITT principles, we'll all become more proficient and FITT readers. Before the How, Why? Frequency is all about how often reading occurs. For our students, we need to build an environment where reading happens not only in the classroom, but then is encouraged at home. Why? The data is clear: Disrupting Thinking, Beers and Probst, 137 A clear direct correlation exists between reading and student performance and language abilities. The...

Yesterday I released my Top Books of 2020 . Today, I wanted to give some attention to the top YA books of the year. Young adult literature is doing what adult literature can't keep up with: diversity. More diversity and experimentation is occurring for young adults than their adult contemporary counterparts. I hope the publishing industry is noting this because they need to fix this problem. I also must thank the Project Lit Community which brought to light so many amazing diverse authors to my attention this year.  As per usual, any books on this 2020 list was published in 2020. Give any one of these books a read and you'll be a better person for it. For a one page printable of this list, click here . So without further ado: 1. This is My America by Kim Johnson Tracy’s father sits on death row and she continues to write to the Innocence Project in the hopes to free him. With time waning, Tracy needs to stop the wrongful execution, but the people with power are controlling mu...

This year, I managed to read 157 books in 2020. And while 2020 sucked in so many ways, books were not one of them. As per usual, my top 10 books are books only composed of books published in 2020. So while I read some other remarkable books (and some that would near the top of this list), they were excluded to keep the focus on what's present. In terms of trends, I'm happy to say that my list was full of more diversity than ever before with half the authors of some minority. There's still a long way to go. This year, I'll also be writing my top 10 YA books of the year , so look forward to that later this week. For a one page printable of this list, click here . So without further ado: 1. The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett Is there any book more worthy of our attention than Bennett’s masterpiece? No book felt more pressing. A novel about race, American identity and the American Dream, the story of twin sisters who go and live completely different lives is unlike anythin...

When I say Anti-Racist books, what do you think? Does you mind go to Ibram X. Kendi's How to Be An Antiracist  or Tiffany Jewell's This Book is Anti-Racist . Great! What else? Anti-Racist texts are topping the charts of every best seller list. Take a look at the New York Times  Combined Print & E-Book Non-Fiction chart for the week of 6/22/20. This is a wonderful first step. Anti-racist texts occupy nine out of the 10 best selling books. But as educators (or even people just reading this random blog post from an ELA teacher in Chappaqua), is that enough?  Short answer: No.  Taking a look at the Combined Print & E-Book Fiction chart for the same week, and you'll see the problem. Anti-racist fiction is largely ignored. This is a problem. It needs fixing. Only two books on here are what I would categorize anti-racist. What's happening to our anti-racist fiction?  1. Are black writers not writing?  2. Are white publishe...