English Teachers Chat

This week I talk with colleague K. Keener about our trip to NCTE 2019 in Baltimore. We talk a little about Tommy Orange and talk about two of our sessions that occurred at the conference. Books to consider from our podcast: There There by Tommy Orange Say Yes to Pears: Food Literacy in and Beyond the English Classroom by Joseph Franzen and Brent Peters Special thanks to the GSEA of NCTE (Josh Coleman, Stephen Crawley, Darryn Diuguid, Craig Young and many others). Operation Game Design presenter: Dr. Michele Haiken Playing with fiction presenters: Jeanne Henry, Hofstra University, Lorraine Radice, Long Beach School District, NY Say Yes to Pears Authors: Joseph Franzen and Brent Peters Music from the podcast c/o Kevin MacLead. You kind find more of his royalty free music at  incompetech.filmmusic.io/ Daniel Valentin teaches American Wilderness, Ethics, and English 9 at Horace Greeley High School. He is currently reading New Kid by Jerry Craft  and is listeni...

Here at Horace Greeley one of our buildings received a drastic overhaul. Walls were knocked down, glass was put up, and nooks and crannies sprouted in all sorts of new areas. In many ways, it's the difference between the kitchens of yesteryear and the much more sleek open-space designs of today. From the distance, it's sleek. The cubicles, glass walls, and art-deco pop furniture all make the space super inviting. From surveys, students are positive about the space. "There seems to be more of an emphasis on work space," said one. "I feel less anxious in this space," said another. Of course, there were a few caveats, "there's too much furniture." "I'm not always sure where I can go." But one comment really resonated with me, "The space is more modern than the teaching." Yeesh! Of course, that's not a surprise. Even in my approach, I can't say I've evolved with any profundity. I've tried stations a...

Over the last year or so I heard about the potential for using picture books with high school students. I heard the clamor: "They have a place!" But no one could tell me why. Or more importantly: how? This all changed with Kwame Alexander and Kadir Nelson's The Undefeated  which was on the long list for the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature 2019. For those who haven't read it, the text is describe as "a love letter to America. To black America. To the grit, passion, and perseverance of our greatest artists, athletes, and activists." After reading it, I knew when I started my #OwnVoices unit with my Freshmen, we were going to start use picture books.  Intention: The most important part of choosing a picture book is intention. What do you want students to learn? What do picture books do that regular contemporary, classic and YA texts cannot do? For me, I used two texts, the aforementioned The Undefeated  and Thorn and Grigni's It Feels ...

This year I'm interested in students expressing themselves with not only a literary lens but with digital elements. Thanks to my wonderful colleague, Allison Mitchell, I was introduced to the wonderful world of one-pagers. A one-pager is a single page that blends and collages quotes, analysis, and images to form a cohesive expression . The Requirements: As detailed from Teach Writing , the best part about the requirements is that they're malleable to suit your needs. All four of my classes needed to include quotations, focus on a specific character and include multiple pictures and sketches of these ideas. But depending on the class, there were different elements that changed the focus. 9th graders were tasked to choose a metaphor from the text that thematically links to the one page. Think about what is the literal and figurative metaphor. Show it in visuals and describe it in text. My American Wilderness (upper level 11th/12th grade students) needed to demonstrate an ...

In our second episode of English Teachers Chat, Daniel Valentin interviews Dr. Tony Sinanis, author of Hacking Leadership. Together, they discuss some of their favorite LGBTQ books. Links to all the books discussed: Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang George by Alex Gino Pet by Akwaeke Emezi Other books mentioned: Hacking Leadership by Joe Sanfelippo and Tony Sinanis Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro Music from the podcast c/o Kevin MacLead. You kind find more of his royalty free music at incompetech.filmmusic.io/ Daniel Valentin teaches American Wilderness, Ethics, and English 9 at Horace Greeley High School. He is currently reading The Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay  and listening to Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine. He wants his students to feel empowered through books. Follow him  @DaValentinCCSD

October is LGBTQ history month. This is the perfect opportunity to expose our students to LGBTQ texts. For me, this is essential. As a student, the closest I could find to LGBTQ characters were Tom from The Glass Menagerie , the random David Sedaris piece and Michael Thomas Ford's books (which as a teenager I was way too young to be reading about). Now, there's a number of LGBT characters and representation in literature, but if you're an educator, where do you start? What I'm hoping is that my students will see queer texts not as queer texts, but simply texts. Often times (and not to generalize, but here I go anyway) my straight male students will avoid anything with even a hint of gay subtext. The more I talk to my students, it's clear that there is still an internalized insecurity. What they read might say something about themselves. In truth, a book is a book, queer characters or not. The easiest way to break the ice with that stereotype is that I always tel...

In our first episode, Daniel Valentin and his special guest Mary Devane talk about the vision, image and excitement around their school's new flexible space. See pictures below of our flexible space: Collaboration is taken to a new level with our glass walls. Fellow teacher Valerie Brunow, utilizing different layouts of L-Space. New shapes. New seating. New ways to think about learning. There are so many ways to configure a single space here in L-Building Daniel Valentin teaches American Wilderness, Ethics, and English 9 at Horace Greeley High School. He is currently reading Pet by Akwaeke Emezi  and listening to Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell. He wants his students to feel empowered through books. Follow him  @DaValentinCCSD