Jason Reynolds in his keynote at the ALA Annual Convention this past summer talked about how we are all walking libraries. I loved this metaphor because it provided an image as to how each person is made up of a collection of their identities, experiences, and memories. We are all databases in motion. While many websites, blogs, and social media accounts are contributing to the call for the presence of more diverse texts, the work is still in progress. This comparison only clarified the position to mandate more diverse texts in classrooms and in the publishing industry overall because we have to honor the collective and individual experiences in our schools. Our main libraries, our classroom libraries, read aloud choices, and book talks all need to be purposeful and selective in voice, author, and representation. Because the goal, in the end, is to honor diverse voices as part of our daily and yearly norm.

When speaking about diverse texts, it is important to remember diverse to whom? The School Library Journal summarized the updates to the widely known infographic regarding diversity in children’s books. These infographics remind us that while progress has been made, there is still work to do in the field of education and in publishing. As teachers, we are reminded that diverse texts are a way to access comprehension and unlock engagement in our students because students see themselves in our curriculums. The concepts of windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors are more than analogies; they are points of access to be humans with our students. Cornelius Minor in We Got This.: Equity, Access, and the Quest to Be Who Our Students Need Us to Be reminds teachers that the very act of using diverse texts is engaging to our students because we are including them in the content and the strategies in our rooms. He also reminds us that “teaching without this kind of engagement is not teaching at all. it is colonization (28). Zaretta Hammond in Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students also reminds us “Instead, I want you to think of culturally responsive teaching as a mindset, a way of thinking about and organizing instruction to allow for great flexibility in teaching” (5). The use of diverse texts in our schools is a mindset and necessity- not a strategy.

Zaretta Hammond's book Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain: Promoting Authentic Engagement and Rigor Among Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students provides the link to understanding the importance of being culturally responsive and the science behind our students’ learning. In terms of the writing workshop or the general teaching of writing, culturally responsive teaching involves a shift in mindset regarding my instruction, but more specifically about students that I often will label as "struggling writers." It is not a coincidence in teaching that the term "culturally responsive teaching" often is parallel to conversations about students of color, English language learners, or students of lower socioeconomic status. My general education classroom looks entirely different from my advanced education classroom. Part of CRE Education is challenging the labels that are placed on our students. This post will outline some key points from Hammond’s book, and it will make some suggestions for the writing workshop within the English Language Arts Classroom.

I am not sure what I did before warm-ups. I think what I did before warm-ups when I was first starting out was make a warm-up activity that was catered to each and every lesson. As a new teacher, this was exhausting. After doing some research a couple of summers ago, I moved to canned warm-ups, and I have loved every minute of them. What I mean by canned warm-ups is that each day has a theme and each week uses a specific form. In other terms, there is a plan. 

I stumbled upon bullet journaling one day on Pinterest when I was looking for a new planner. As a middle school teacher, I, like many others, am addicted to office supplies. I know what pens I like, I know what size sticky notes I prefer, and I know that the idea of a fresh new notebook makes me almost giddy. I even started making my own notebooks with my dad as a hobby because I love notebooks so much.

I love and hate the self-help book section. It is packed full of gems like Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, and many others that make the wheels in my teacher-entrepreneur brain go crazy. However, I also have visions of myself as the teacher that is seen staring at the self-help book section in a bookstore with a crazed look in her eye, teacher bag thrown over their shoulder, dark bags under each eye, that just seems in need of...help. How many of us can relate to this image as we struggle with the teaching profession as a whole and the day-ins and day-outs of being a teacher? Enter in why I picked up this cute little blue book by Penquin press. I was tired, and it seemingly seemed to address a question I ask myself all the time:

Is teaching my purpose in life?

This started on a Saturday, the Saturday before the Monday when I had to hand back rough drafts to my students. I wanted no part of them. I wanted nothing to do with them. Glancing at my comfy blanket and cup of coffee, I was a human replica of the emoji "ugh." Not wanting to embrace my stack of papers, I started texting a fellow English teacher about her method of using rubric codes. She uses numbers to correspond with different points on a rubric that come up over and over. We have had this discussion before, yet, I was resistant because I had always wanted to follow "traditional" feedback routes. Things I love: ink over typeface, writing in the margins, and seeing a child's face go, "You spent alllll that time on my paper?" Yes, yes I did. I have had many conversations about the writing process lately because it seems as ELA teachers, we all tackle this beast differently. I am not willing to budge on giving feedback on rough drafts, even though some instructional models no longer call for this step in the process. Rubric codes never seemed to fit...until it did.