The Best of Writing Mindset in 2018
2018: Finding Strides in Writing and Teaching
As we close out 2018, I am so thankful for this tiny blog space that I share with you all. In January 2017, I started Writing Mindset as a way to reflect on teaching; however, it has transformed how I do business. I am constantly on the lookout for writing inspiration for the blog, and how I can put new ideas into my classroom to share. I sent out a newsletter to subscribers today talking to them about 2018 accomplishments. So much has happened this school year already that it seems a bit poetic to talk about endings…when we are in the middle. However, the end of 2018 marks many accomplishments in terms of blogging, writing, and reading. I wanted to take a moment to share these with you:
Writing Mindset got a new design layout on the home screen. Each time I do this I am reminded that we can teach ourselves new skills all the time. I am in awe of people who do web design, and I love looking at the visual changes that have happened since January 2017 to the blog.
There are currently 77 blog posts on the teaching blog. I can’t wait to add more in 2019!
In 2017, I had 800 unique visitors to the blog with 3,489 page views. In 2018, I currently have 2,894 unique visitors to the blog with 4,697 page views. I love to celebrate small growths, too!
Writing Mindset took on a new focus to help the teacher get away from burnout. By having the big conversations about practice, and the small conversations about strategy, maybe we can all stay teaching.
The Mentor Text Resource Library is coming alive. I am beginning to share my mentor text resources with others as they strive to find passages from middle grade and young adult novels-like me-to share with students.
Top Posts
This information is so helpful to look at and is so surprising in some ways and in other ways not so much. If I reflect on the top six posts from this year, I can understand teachers and readers of Writing Mindset…
Want more information about culturally responsive education and using diverse materials in their classroom.
Want more information about how to organize and handle the paper load.
Want to find an understanding on how to keep teaching when teaching is so difficult.
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.