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The resource section of litereacyreserchcommons.org is intended to extend the conversation about policies and practices that are grounded in research about literacy development, learning, and teaching. If we post a resource, it means that we believe the resource is worthy of your study and examination.

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No One Gets to Own the Term "The Science of Reading" 

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No One Gets to Own the Term "The Science of Reading" 

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The Sciences of Reading from Crossland Literacy

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The Sciences of Reading from Crossland Literacy

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The youngest of 12 children born to sharecropping parents in East Texas, Ruth Simmons became the first Black president of an Ivy League university. (Courtesy of Ruth J. Simmons)

In America, successful Black folks often hear the admonishment "Never forget where you came from." But that warning rarely accounts for how wide the chasm can grow between your origins and your destination. When achievement catapults you far from where you were raised, keeping a foot in both worlds can require an instruction manual. In her debut memoir, " Up Home: One Girl's Journey," Ruth J. Simmons has written one.

The youngest of 12 children born to sharecropping parents in Grapeland, Tex., Simmons is best known as the first Black president of an Ivy League university: She presided over Brown University from 2001 until 2012. She also served as president of two other universities: Smith College, from 1995 until 2001, and Prairie View A&M, from 2017 until this year.

Her memoir rarely makes reference to these lofty positions. Instead, Simmons chooses to end this volume of her life story just as her academic studies are finishing. "Up Home" reads like a document of proof that Simmons has not, in fact, forgotten a single thing about where she came from - not the shanty-like farm home she was born into, nor the rat-and-roach-infested house her family was living in when she left high school. She has not forgotten her father's abuse nor her mother's acceptance of it. She remembers every educator from elementary school through college who illustrated for her, whether in style of dress, precision of diction or method of instruction, that there was a life beyond the one she returned to when school was over.

"Up Home" is a love letter to every person who helped Simmons make her way out of poverty, from those in her Texas hometown to those at Dillard University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in 1967. She then made her way to Harvard, where she earned her doctoral degree in 1973. Whether through church, school or her greater community, Simmons constantly looked for inspiration to help her transcend her family's provincial way of life.

At first glance, respectability politics seem to play a significant role in Simmons's early life. In recalling her teacher Miss Ida Mae, she muses: "Until that year, everybody I knew was an uneducated farmer or laborer who spoke or read with difficulty. To be in the presence of a person who spoke so well was a revelation. I wanted to seize control of these words and make them work for me." Simmons waxes romantic about several other educators with the same high regard for how they eschewed the common dialect and committed to perfecting their English, and explains how she embraced the same nuances of language, so that she might find within big, impressive words an inroad to a career beyond farmhand, domestic help or factory worker.

It isn't until these individuals reappear in "Up Home" that we see how Simmons comes to appreciate them more for their commitment to communities like hers than for their physical appearance or polished diction. When we encounter Miss Ida Mae again in the narrative, the teacher is in her 80s and attending a special program being held for Simmons in Grapeland, after she's been named president of Smith College. Simmons recalls: "'I'm so happy to see my baby!' she sang out as if I were still a six-year-old. ... It struck me more than ever how much her attitude and commitment to her students had influenced my views about education and my attitude toward my own students."

On its surface Simmons's memoir reads like a coming-of-age tale of remarkable success despite the author's humble beginnings, a victory lap for a woman who's achieved far more, academically and professionally, than many women of her generation. But the venerated college administrator upends and elevates that predictable theme with frequent, self-assessing asides in which she wonders if, in her quest to escape her surroundings, she judged them too harshly. This is especially true in her depiction of her relationship with her mother, who died while Simmons was in high school. "I was openly dismissive of practices that evoked country living. It certainly did not occur to me until years later that Mama would have had more appealing clothing and a more polished appearance if she had not put our needs before her own."

In the end, Simmons credits her mother's many sacrifices with propelling her success. Because her mother instilled in her eldest children a strong sense of responsibility for her younger ones, Simmons was able to rely on her older siblings for financial and moral support as she pursued various ambitions after her mother's untimely death. She laments that her mother passed before she was able to witness both her daughter's achievements and her gratitude - and she wonders, even now, how to bridge the gap between her experiences and those of all the family and community members who supported her. She writes of her studies abroad: "How could I speak of the beautiful train ride to the south of France or the ride along the Camargue on horseback without an air of self-importance? I was at once embarrassed to be able to enjoy these experiences when they could not and concerned that this new life would create a barrier between me and them. That feeling has remained as, even today, my life is immensely different from those of most of my siblings."

In writing a memoir with such an acute focus on the life she left behind, Simmons provides an instructive guide for those who straddle this line between a difficult past and an exultant present. Though the final third of the memoir seems rushed as she breezes through major life events like graduations, marriage, children and divorce, Simmons has succeeded in writing a measured and thoughtful account of her Before and After. "Up Home" concedes that it's difficult to continue cherishing meager beginnings after attaining a quality of life far beyond what is typically imaginable for someone born into Simmons's circumstances. But that continued concession makes her story even more compelling. Her dogged commitment to looking back and finding the laudable parts of her challenging early life provides as clear an explanation for her storied accomplishments as her degrees and career appointments.
Stacia L. Brown is a writer, audio producer and mother based in North Carolina. You can find more of her work at One Girl's Journey stacialbrown.substack.com.
By Ruth Simmons

Random House. 224 pp. $27

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Review | The inspiring story of the first Black Ivy League president

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Ruth Simmons's memoir is a love letter to everyone who helped her make her way out of poverty.

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So much good stuff here on Regie's website!

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So much good stuff here on Regie's website!

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What Matters Most for Teaching, Learning, and Living

How do we find hope and possibility in challenging times? How do we bring our truest selves into our teaching and personal lives? In this unique, inspiring book, beloved author Regie Routman artfully blends stories and strategies to show how we can introduce more joy and gratitude in our classrooms and in our lives.

Regie invites us to focus on what matters most in our work and in our relationships with those we hold dear. She shares ideas and practical takeaways for teaching, learning, and living. Wherever you are on your journey, no matter what loss or hardship you may face, The Heart-Centered Teacher will offer you a refreshing chance to pause, take a breath, and reflect on how you and your students can live more compassionate, generous, and authentic lives.

Routledge Amazon Bookshop Audiobook (Coming soon!) Chapter Resources

Advance Praise

"Regie Routman shares her unique and vulnerable perspective on teaching and life. As a reader, I felt like Regie was speaking directly to me, whispering in my ear, encouraging, connecting with me, and inspiring me. I believe this book will continue to inspire and uplift teachers of all levels for years to come. Simply put, The Heart-Centered Teacher is a delightful reading experience."

- VALENTINA GONZALEZ, Author and Educational Consultant

"I savored every sentence of The Heart-Centered Teacher. It is balm for the educator's soul, a necessary resource to help us navigate these complex and challenging times. Regie's book is essential reading for all teachers and school leaders, both professionally and personally."

- MATT RENWICK, Educator, Coach, and Author

"When the world seems to be crashing down upon educators, Regie Routman comes through with a book full of hope, inspiration, and ways to do 'the work.' With compassion at the forefront, she shares stories, strategies, and wisdom to help readers navigate the turbulent waters of our time. If you read one professional book this year, The Heart-Centered Teacher should be it. It's just what educators need."

- CRIS TOVANI, Educator and Author

© 2023 Regie Routman. All Rights Reserved. Login.

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Regie Routman's bio, books, articles, professional development activities, blog, and upcoming events.

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The one and only Regie Routman, Sep. 22, 2023

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Mike Schmoker is a former administrator, English teacher, and football coach. He has written dozens of articles for educational journals, newspapers, and TIME magazine as well as multiple bestselling books for ASCD. In an EdWeek survey of national educational leaders, he was identified as among the best sources of practical "nuts and bolts...advice, wisdom and insight" on effective school improvement strategies.

Schmoker is a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award by the National Association of Secondary School Principals for his publications and presentations. As a much sought-after presenter, he delivers keynotes and consults internationally throughout the United States, Canada, Australia, China, and Jordan.

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Results Now 2.0: The Untapped Opportunities for Swift, Dramatic Gains in Achievement

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Decades of research clearly shows what works in schools, yet a huge gap persists between those instructional best practices and what is widely taught-and not taught-in classrooms today. In Results No

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"Test prep is an awful substitute for a real education." ~Mike Schmoker

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"Certain professional books are bedrocks of my teaching DNA-none more influential than When Kids Can't Read-What Teachers Can Do. Now twenty years later, and informed by the latest research, Kylene Beers has significantly updated this seminal work. Smart, practical, and relevant for teachers at all grade levels, this new edition is a masterclass in the teaching of reading. It receives my highest recommendation."
-Kelly Gallagher, Author of Deeper Reading and Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
"Twenty years after her groundbreaking first edition, Kylene Beers once again empowers teachers to make reading accessible to all students through responsive instruction. Beers provides practical scaffolds that support all learners and insightful strategies for incorporating productive struggle in the classroom. With guidance from this text, all educators-from preservice to veteran-can improve their practice and help nurture independent readers."
-Carrie Beth Buchanan, Secondary ELA Specialist
"The first edition of When Kids Can't Read has been a trusted resource in my classroom through my last 12 years of teaching. With this updated second edition, Kylene provides teachers with extensions of her original work-rich with beautiful examples. I start every year by talking to my students about being responsible readers. A part of that responsibility is acknowledging when we struggle, the same goes for us as teachers. It is difficult to know where to start and where to go next. The way this text is organized provides teachers with a scaffold to better support their students and their own learning. More than just an update, the second edition of When Kids Can't Read brings new ideas and information to teachers. It is evident in reading and learning from Kylene that her primary goal is the reading success of all students; this book and the support it will provide teachers makes that goal more of a reality."
-Brent Gilson, MS/HS (and one-time elementary) teacher, Magrath High School (Magrath, Alberta, Canada)
"Reading is complex work, but more importantly, it's work that develops us as humans as we connect our own lives to the world within books. The second edition of When Kids Can't Read highlights for us that all children deserve the opportunity to develop as readers, ultimately leading to their development as people. Kylene Beers reminds us that the most important factor in that work is you, their teacher. This book will support you in the journey that is learning and loving to read."
-Andrew Jenkins, Lead Director, Region West, LAUSD
"This book will prove to be a gift to kids and a tremendous aid for their teachers. The new and revised thinking in the second edition, alongside the original ideas from what we've known When Kids Can't Read to be, make this book exactly what secondary teachers need. Beers takes on the complex anxiety teachers feel when teaching kids who don't have the reading expertise, experiences, stamina, or faith in themselves to tackle what school and society ask them to read, comprehend, and act upon. This book helps make that teaching anxiety feel like a solvable situation for teachers."
-Jennifer Ochoa, Secondary ELA Teacher; Author of Already Readers and Writers: Honoring Students Rights to Read and Write in the Middle Grade Classroom
"I consider teaching and learning my life's work. It's been approximately 20 years since I started teaching and ran across Kylene Beers' original When Kids Can't Read as a novice teacher. Now, I find myself serving as an Executive Director of Professional Development and Curriculum for a mid-size, high-needs, chronically underserved school district in Central Texas. Twenty years later, I have also been inspired to disrupt the deficit thinking that plagues most school communities. I appreciate Kylene's transparency and honesty about her 'work' and commitment to becoming more inclusive. Reflective ways of being and thinking are pivotal to empowering others to use literacy to leverage their life stories and to connect with others. According to Beers, 'Reading offers us that chance to revise our lives.' I could not agree more...reading was a game-changer in my life. The new edition of When Kids Can't Read will serve as a foundational text to build collective efficacy of high-impact literacy practices for our district, campus leaders, and teachers. As a result, we can establish structures and processes to better support literacy instruction and access for students."
-Dr. Keonna White, Executive Director of Professional Development and Curriculum, Waco ISD

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When Kids Can't Read-What Teachers Can Do, Second Edition

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When Kids Can't Read-What Teachers Can Do is an essential guide for educators who teach struggling readers. This updated edition by Kylene Beers offers practical teaching strategies and scaffolds for comprehension, vocabulary development, fluency, and engagement. Reading matters, and this book can help transform students' lives.

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Section One: Planning Decisions

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section Two: Teaching Essential Discourses

1. Narrative

2. Informational

3. Argument

4. Multigenre Research Projects

This book is divided into two sections. Section 1, "Planning Decisions," takes you through the process we used-and you might consider-to plan a year of teaching. The section includes five chapters:

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section 2, "Teaching Essential Discourses," begins with an introduction that explains the general framework for planning a unit of study in a specific writing discourse. Then, in the four chapters that follow, we detail the decisions we made in four discourse studies: narrative, informational, argument, and multigenre. Our hope is that by reading about the decisions we made as we planned together, you will be inspired to reimagine the beautiful possibilities for your teaching.
- Introduction

This book is a brilliant work of architecture-the making of an English course. How do you shape the movement of the 180 days, balancing open space and structure, individuality and assessment, breadth and depth (not to mention managing the damn thing). Two of our country's most innovative teachers, Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher take on this challenge in a cross-country collaboration, exploring the art of the possible. This book-and its amazing video accompaniment-illustrates not so much the fixed course everyone should teach (even they don't totally agree on that), but how to think through the making, and the principles that should be its foundation.-Thomas Newkirk

Spending 180 days on the job and in the world with Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher is like apprenticing yourself to a year in the kitchen with two master chefs who speak honestly and passionately about the challenges we face and the choices we must make every day in our own classrooms. I learned something new on every page, verbally annotating just about every suggestion with a mental "Yes!" or "Try this!" At every turn, they acknowledge and address the constraints, especially of time, we all face in our classes-then show us how they manage to teach their students so much and so well despite those constraints.-Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher's Companion

"This book is everything. I mean this whole-heartedly and without exaggeration - this book is everything. It is everything I needed when I began teaching, and it is exactly what I need now to reflect on my practices, my curriculum, and my kids. The depth of knowledge and experience here, living alongside the breadth of thinking across the time and space of a school year, takes my breath away. Thank you, Penny and Kelly. May my children have teachers who have read and used this book."--Kate Roberts, author of A Novel Idea

Who among us hasn't wished to be a fly on the wall of Penny's and Kelly's classrooms? In 180 Days, we aren't just flies-we are invited into their brains, their plan books, and their friendship as they answer the question that plagues every teacher: how to do it all in one year? This book is not about how to find time where time doesn't exist. It's not about turning 180 days into 200 days so you can fit everything in. This book is about making decisions about what really matters enough and how to make the most of the time we are given with our students. It honors teachers as decision-makers and reminds us of the power of professional collaboration to change not only our students' learning but also our own professional lives.-Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell, coauthors of Writing With Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis

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180 Days represents the collaboration of two master teachers-Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle-over an entire school year: planning, teaching, and reflecting

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Chris Reed, Auckland, NZ talks about how 180 Days has helped him & his HS colleagues

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Chris Reed, Auckland, NZ talks about how 180 Days has helped him & his HS colleagues

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Chris Reed from Auckland, New Zealand 4 17 23

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VERNACULAR ELOQUENCE:

WHAT SPEECH CAN BRING TO WRITING

Winner of a PROSE award, Language & Linguistics

Read More "

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REVIEWS OF VERNACULAR ELOQUENCE

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Writing without teachers

Writing with power

Everyone

can write

Being a

writer

Sharing and

responding

Writing

about media

Embracing contraries

Nothing

begins with n

Landmark essays on voice

Writing

to learn

(co-editor)

a community

of writers

What is

English

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Peter Elbow: The Democratization of Writing

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VERNACULAR ELOQUENCE: WHAT SPEECH CAN BRING TO WRITING Read More " Read More " Read More " Read More " Read More " Read More " Read More "

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Donald Graves and the Revolution in Children's Writing

Children Want to Write is a collection of Donald Graves most significant writings paired with video that illuminates his research and his inspiring work with teachers. See the earliest documented use of invented spelling, the earliest attempts to guide young children through a writing process, the earliest conferences. This collection allows you to see this revolutionary shift in writing instruction-with its emphasis on observation, reflection, and approaching children as writers.

Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

Children Want to Write is a collection of Donald Graves most significant writings paired with video that illuminates his research and his inspiring work with teachers. See the earliest documented use of invented spelling, the earliest attempts to guide young children through a writing process, the earliest conferences. This collection allows you to see this revolutionary shift in writing instruction-with its emphasis on observation, reflection, and approaching children as writers.

Heinemann is honored to have been Don's publishing partner for more than three decades and over more than a dozen books -to have watched his research and vision become not only a classroom reality but the core of our publishing philosophy. His influence is so vast that we will meet him again and again on the pages of every book and resource we publish. His spirit pervades each of our books- in the conviction that children want to write and read if given the chance; in the flourishing of the workshop model of instruction that he pioneered; and in his abiding faith in teachers' ability to make sound instructional decisions.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Chapter Ten: Reflect, Reflect, Reflect

Related PD Services

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Children Want to Write is a collection of Donald Graves most significant writings paired with video that illuminates his research and his inspiring work with teachers. See the earliest documented use of invented spelling, the earliest attempts to guide young children through a writing process, the earliest conferences.

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Don Murray’s mission was to demystify writing by revealing as much as possible about the habits, processes, and practices of writers. This book shows

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James Moffett: Selected Works - The WAC Clearinghouse

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Curated by Jonathan M. Marine and Paul Rogers

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Summary: Blau recounts the core NWP idea that the most reliable and credible solutions to the problems of learning and teaching are found in the wisdom and knowledge possessed by experienced and successful classroom teachers.

The Only New Thing Under the Sun

"...there is no new thing under the sun," says Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes. And then he asks, "Is there any new thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new?" His answer: "It hath been already of old time" (Eccl. I, 9-10).

The wisdom of Ecclesiastes has been tested by twenty-five or thirty centuries of human experience and found to be largely true for every generation. But in our time what may seem to be the truest of its maxims has been challenged by our own experience as members of the California Writing Project community. For there does seem to be one new thing under the sun and that new thing is the writing project. And what is fundamentally new about it, new in the history of education and in the history of efforts to improve classroom teaching, is the essential model of professional development that was envisioned by James Gray in its founding at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1974. Jim's vision, his radically new insight and the foundational principle of the Bay Area, California, and National Writing Projects, was the idea that the answers to the most serious academic problems that beset schools and classrooms can be found in the expertise of experienced classroom teachers themselves. What experienced classroom teachers know, he insisted, is all the curriculum one needs for an effective professional development program.

It was a new and shocking idea and it has not yet been fully understood in most precincts of the academic community. It is an idea that runs so much against the grain of conventional thinking about schools and teachers that many newer sites of the National Writing Project struggle for years to get it right. And when applications for federal funding through a National Writing Project grant are unsuccessful, more often than not they are unsuccessful because they fail to demonstrate an understanding of this first principle of the National Writing Project model.

Let me try to state the principle more fully and accurately: it is that the most reliable and credible solutions to the problems of learning and teaching that face classroom teachers and their students are to be found in the reservoir of wisdom and practical knowledge that is constituted by the collective knowledge in the possession of experienced and successful classroom teachers themselves. Thus the writing project looks to experienced and successful classroom teachers as the best resource available to the educational community for solving the academic problems that trouble us. Teachers are, in other words, not seen as a source of the problem but as the principal resource for the solution.

What Follows from Recognizing the Expertise of Teachers

A number of corollary principles follow from this first principle of the writing project, and they yield the familiar litany of guidelines and principles for a National Writing Project site. These include:

the axiom that the best teacher of teachers is another teacher

the requirement that sites foster and honor teacher leadership, and

the custom of investing site leadership in a team that typically includes a university faculty member and a K-12 classroom teacher as co-directors.

Our first principle also leads logically and logistically to a few closely related principles and practices that have become cultural markers and even funding requirements of writing project sites and that also enrich and secure the authority of classroom teachers. First, there is the principle that while experienced classroom teachers are repositories of authoritative professional knowledge on what works in classrooms, they are also, as exemplary teachers, members of a profession and model learners for their students and for each other. As model learners, writing project teachers commit themselves in summer institutes first to function as writers, producing and responding to each other's work in progress and taking some pieces from incubation to publication. In this context, teachers examine the writing process and the perils and challenges of writing from the inside, with themselves as experimental subjects, interrogating in the experiment their own assumptions about writing and learning to write, and exploring the most useful ways to respond to writing.

As model students and professionals, these teachers will also be inclined to reflect on, challenge, and enhance whatever they claim as their professional knowledge. What this means in practice is that writing project fellows are expected to talk about and write about what they know and do in their teaching and (as a requirement for participation in a summer institute and beyond) conduct workshops or presentations for their colleagues, demonstrating some successful and principled approach to teaching composition or critical literacy. Through writing about their teaching and preparing for presentations that frame their practices within a rationale or theory, writing project teachers clarify and articulate their instructional goals both to themselves and to their colleagues. By creating teacher demonstrations of their best practice, teachers make their knowledge visible and open avenues for interrogation and critical reflection. And such questioning and self-examination-as every teacher of writing knows-inevitably lead to the refinement or revision of what is known.

It also follows that if writing project teachers are model learners and professionals who challenge and reflect on their knowledge and share it with colleagues through their writing and presentations, they will also challenge and reflect and seek to refine and validate their knowledge by examining it in the context of the discourse of the larger professional community, which means at least becoming familiar with the seminal body of theory and research in their field. This practice of including opportunities to read and discuss seminal works in the professional literature of the fields of composition and literacy studies is standard for writing project sites and a component of what the National Writing Project grant application reviewers refer to as the NWP model.

Many sites enrich their discussion of seminal readings and enlarge their participation in the discourse of the profession by inviting leading scholars and theoreticians to serve as guest consultants for a day or more in their summer institutes. The work of writers like Peter Elbow, Bonnie Sunstein, Miles Myers, and the late James Moffett may be better known to classroom teachers through presentations at writing project sites than it is through published essays and books-better known, that is, in the sense of being more widely known, but perhaps also in the sense of being more deeply understood.

Problematic Issues and the Spirit of the NWP Model

Not surprisingly, however, presentations by such eminent figures in our field-even by the same figures whose works we read during a summer institute-are not a feature of the writing project model, though they are not a violation either. Though guest lecturers appear at many mature and respected writing project sites (including my own), the practice remains a problematic one insofar as it threatens to obscure the intellectual authority and value of the expertise brought to a summer institute by the participating teachers themselves.

Discussions of when and whether the use of guest consultants in a summer institute does or doesn't compromise the spirit of the writing project model sometimes take on the character of moral or ethical discourse and resemble the discourse of casuistry in the seventeenth century, or of ethical criticism or psychotherapy today, where discussion will focus on such questions as when fiscal prudence or frugality becomes the sin of avarice or when courage becomes recklessness, or when a healthy appetite and appreciation of food becomes gluttony or an eating disorder. We ask ourselves and each other, in other words, when the use of guest scholars, in the case of a particular summer institute, might lead to the obscuration or marginalization of the expertise of participating teachers and when, on the other hand, it serves to enhance and publicly authorize the expertise of those same teachers.

Such discussions around problematic activities sponsored by writing project sites frequently show us how the model envisioned by Jim Gray is as much a spiritual or intellectual model as it is a set of particular practices. In fact, many of the most heated debates I have participated in, witnessed, and heard about in reviews of writing project site funding applications are debates over whether and to what extent particular practices or their absence signify that a site enacts or violates or fails to enact the spirit or principles of the writing project model-the model is recognized as most essentially a model of principles, one that is subject to change and development in practices, in the interest of more fully actualizing the spirit that informs the model.

But although what is essential to the writing project model is its spirit or principles rather than its practices, I hasten to add that as with all spiritual disciplines, the spirit or principles of the writing project model can be known only through its practices, and that the practices traditionally and conventionally associated with the writing project model are the most reliable guide to discovering and sustaining its spirit. Any new writing project director would therefore be well-advised to enact all of the practices that are specified in the model that we have inherited from Jim Gray and the Bay Area Writing Project, even if the spirit behind those practices is not understood. For it frequently requires obedient adherence over time to the practices that instantiate the writing project model before the directors and teacher-leaders of a writing project site discover for themselves the meaning and importance of those practices.

Beyond the Summer Institute: The Creation of Learning Communities

My account of what Jim Gray created will be misleading, however, if I seem to be describing a program that merely prescribes how to conduct a summer institute. On the contrary, the writing project that has grown from Jim's conception into some 161 sites [in 1999] nationwide includes summer institutes virtually everywhere, but also includes an extensive school-based inservice program through which writing project summer fellows share their expertise with a wider community of colleagues, and a constellation of academic-year programs for veterans of summer institutes, which is known as the continuation or continuity program.

The idea that teachers might be the principal contributors to the professional learning of their colleagues might have been a new and difficult one for the educational community to assimilate, but what the teachers of writing project sites have created for themselves, building on their own professionalism and expertise, has to have been a surprise even to our visionary founder. Could Jim Gray-with all his faith in classroom teachers, and blessed as he was with colleagues in his home site like Miles Myers, and Mary K. Healy, and Mary Ann Smith, and Cap Lavin, and Rebekah Caplan, and Jane Juska, and Bob Tierney, and Ruby Bernstein, legendary names in our profession-have imagined what would come out of the feature of the model that was labeled as the continuity program, a feature that most of us in the early years of the NWP thought of merely as some additional follow-up meetings during the academic year to keep our writing project teachers updated and well-informed-Saturday workshops in BAWP and weekday "renewal meetings" at my own site at the University of California, Santa Barbara, for example.

Who would have imagined that virtually all mature writing project sites throughout the country would typically discover that much of the most important work of a writing project takes place not in summer institutes but in the multitude of teacher-led and teacher-initiated programs that sites now list in their annual reports as activities constituting their continuity program. I'm talking about teacher research groups, case-study groups, special interest groups, and a multitude of book clubs and writing groups. Such groups might have five or fifty writing project fellows as members and might meet quarterly or monthly or more often than that. Mary Ann Smith belongs to a BAWP writing group that has been meeting monthly for over twenty years. Bob Tierney, who has retired to the now famous (because he is there) distant outpost of Poker Bar, drives seven hours each way every month to keep attending that writing group.

At my site a group of twelve teachers known as the SCWriP Teachers Collaborative has functioned as a combined writing group, book club, teacher research group, and support group, meeting monthly for twelve years, acting as the midwife to several published articles, numerous workshop and conference presentations, experimental approaches to solving refractory teaching problems, and one important and nationally influential book. One of its members moved to Illinois for a couple of years and continued attending meetings by phone. Some meetings, unfortunately, had to be conducted in the hospital room of a member whose final thoughts and deathbed journal entries were a tribute to the personal and professional importance of her group and the writing they had inspired and influenced.

Many writing project sites-most mature sites-also conduct advanced institutes in summers or during the school year for veterans of invitational summer institutes. A dozen sites have conducted advanced institutes in literature. Many have conducted specialized institutes in writing across the curriculum, or working with struggling readers, or multicultural literature, or technology, or bilingual language arts teaching. Special interest groups at my site and at others have been responsible for organizing important initiatives and special projects which became big-budget programs under the sponsorship of the writing project-including young writers camps, parent projects, tutoring programs, and programs designed to provide access to higher education for historically underrepresented populations of students.

What is most important about the continuity program-and this I think is what Jim Gray and Miles Myers and others in the founding group did anticipate-is that it made each writing project site the locus for an ongoing and active community of colleagues, engaged in their own continuing professional development-a community that functions, in other words, as a learning community and a realization of the kind of community of scholars that the university has historically aspired to become but in its modern bureaucratized form has rarely managed to sustain, except in richly endowed specialized institutes and think-tanks. That is to say, the writing project is a site for continuing professional collaboration and inquiry, where learning is nurtured and valued, and where knowledge is as much produced as consumed, without the distinction raised by hierarchies of power (such as those that separate administrators, teachers, students), without bureaucratic or economic structures of reward or advancement. Learning is nurtured, shared, and disseminated among colleagues for its own sake and for the satisfaction of those who learn and become thereby more effective practitioners of their profession.

Learning Communities and the Culture of Schools

The intellectual power, activity, and productivity unleashed in writing project continuity programs-programs offering no financial incentives or extrinsic rewards for teacher-participants-is, I believe, unprecedented in the history of education and resists easy explanation. One possible explanation is that exemplary teachers are by definition exemplary learners and are therefore eager to share and explore ideas with a hunger that cannot he satisfied in any five-week summer institute. Once teachers begin to taste the intellectual pleasures of working with colleagues in a genuine community of learners, they aren't willing to return to a professional life that lacks such satisfactions.

Schools, however, for a variety of cultural and sociological reasons, are notoriously anti-intellectual places and have traditionally possessed no institutionalized mechanisms for nurturing or sustaining communities of teachers who wish to explore pedagogical and substantive ideas. So writing project teachers have created structures for continuing such work beyond the summer and for all the days of their professional lives.

In the meantime, writing projects and their fellows appear to be changing the culture of schools to make schools themselves more hospitable contexts for groups of teachers who want to form communities of learners with their colleagues. In fact, it now seems evident that writing project sites have had a significant impact on the culture of schools in their service areas by introducing into the schools the same sorts of inquiry groups, case-study groups, and teacher research groups that have operated so successfully at writing project sites outside the sponsorship of schools.

Just as importantly, the writing project and its fellows are changing the culture of schools in a parallel way for students. Having experienced what it means to learn in a community of learners, teachers are inclined to count such learning as more authoritative and authentic than any other and to think of such learning as the proper aim of instruction. They therefore become determined to turn their own classrooms into learning communities that will function like a writing project, where respect for the intelligence of every learner is the starting place for all activity, and where all learners are expected and required to take responsibility for their own learning as well as for assisting others to learn-a community where learning entails the production of knowledge as well as its reception and where knowledge is always seen as provisional and subject to challenge and refinement.

If that description sounds like everybody's definition of a model classroom, it is surely not every student's experience of classroom learning. Few of us have had any sustained experience of learning in such a community during our years as students in classrooms, and all of us know something of how difficult it must be to translate such an ideal for a classroom into the classrooms we actually inhabit in schools. Classrooms do not typically include twenty to twenty-five students carefully selected as exemplary teachers and learners and they do not consist of adults whose professional lives have committed them to solving the very problems that define the curriculum.

Still, it is true that all good teachers find some ways to foster authentic and engaged learning in their classrooms some of the time. And the surest methods or strategies or programs for instruction that are most likely, most often, to produce such learning are usually those that fellows of a writing project site demonstrate to each other and to their colleagues in inservice programs. What the writing project provides more importantly than these strategies and programs of instruction, however, is an experience for teachers in a model community of learners, a model that works so well for most of the teachers who experience it that they spend the rest of their professional lives trying to create some version of it in their classrooms, where the conditions of membership and daily life do not usually conspire to help them.

A cynic might say that the writing project is so unlike a classroom that the experience it provides has no relevance to the life in the world of the school. But good teachers are not cynics-at least not about their teaching. It is a standing joke among writing project teachers, many of whom are veterans of thirty or more years of teaching, that we continue to teach every year with equal anticipation because we are hoping to finally get it right. Which does not for a moment imply that for thirty years we have gotten it wrong. Rather, it speaks to our recognition of the difficulty that teaching presents to every teacher who continues to care about students and the challenges that each student and classroom present to us anew.

It is the case, I believe, that the writing project is and is not like our classrooms. It bears the same relationship to our classrooms, I would propose, as the Garden of Eden bears to the world we live in. We need a vision of Paradise, and are blessed through the writing project with an actual experience of such a learning Paradise, in order to set worthwhile goals and ideals for ourselves in the fallen world we actually inhabit. Just as importantly, the writing project, like the Garden of Eden, is just like the world we inhabit in our everyday working lives, in the sense that it remains vulnerable to the same threats and temptations to give up our task of learning either to adopt intellectually reductive but bureaucratically convenient answers to complex questions or to embrace a vision of hopelessness rather than possibility. If the Garden of Eden were not spiritually very much like the world we live in, Adam and Eve would never have been tempted and would never have been able to fall.

True Learning and False Knowledge

Significantly, I think, the principal temptation placed by God in the Garden of Eden is the temptation of knowledge, represented by the tree of knowledge and the tempting fruit hanging from its branches. And it remains the case that knowledge is the temptation we are obliged to resist and are assisted in resisting through the culture of the writing project. Knowledge is a temptation for us as it was for Eve in the Garden of Eden when it is offered to us as a substitute for learning. Eve falls intellectually before she succumbs to the temptation of the fruit, when she decides (as we see in Milton's inspired account of God's justice) that her ignorance renders her inferior to her husband and insufficient to endure the condition of her life of insecure happiness in the Garden-a life that is marked at almost every moment by opportunities to learn. Indeed, she is promised that if she remains obedient to the injunction against the knowledge represented by the fruit, she will grow in learning to the point where she will be able to move easily between the Garden and heaven itself.

But how can knowledge be a sin and how can Eve be faulted by divine justice for wanting knowledge? The answer is that knowledge is a sin when it is false knowledge, and it is always false knowledge when it is acquired without learning.

And how can you obtain knowledge without learning? You get it whenever you take as your knowledge the fruits of learning that you have not earned through your own learning experience. When, for example, you take somebody else's interpretation of a text as your own. When you take and reproduce as an answer to a problem a statement or procedure you have not understood for yourself. These are temptations because what they offer-if you take them as your knowledge-is a false knowledge, false in the sense that they do not derive from your experience as a learner and can only be possessed the way you possess objects or material wealth as something to display as a token of your status or value. And once your knowledge becomes the token of your value, it also becomes a stolen possession you are unwilling to surrender, and as such it becomes an obstacle to further learning. Thus we have two characteristics of false knowledge. First, it is knowledge that is false in the sense that it has not been acquired through learning, and second, it is false in the sense that it becomes an obstacle to further learning.

We are most inclined to use knowledge as a token of our value, moreover, when we have acquired it by devaluing ourselves in the act of betrayal against ourselves that we commit whenever we make the decision that we cannot tolerate the insecurity or sense of powerlessness we feel in not having definitive answers to the questions that puzzle and vex us. Our true power resides, however, in what we can mistakenly regard as our powerlessness, which is to say in our power to learn. For it is as learners that we express and manifest our most distinctive human quality as beings who grow and continue to grow intellectually and spiritually. The incapacity to learn, the refusal to change intellectually are the singular marks of those we classify as fools or mentally ill. And the attempt to prematurely take possession of knowledge that one has not earned through the slow but reliable process of growth and learning defines the sin of our first parents and the Faustian bargain with the devil.

These literary and theological speculations, which may seem to mark a digression in my meditation on what we owe to James Gray and the Bay Area Writing Project, are nevertheless relevant to the present occasion because they point to the purity of the writing project model as a model for learning even in the face of pressures to relinquish learning for the false gratifications that come with claims of premature knowing. For twenty-five years Jim Gray has been vigilant in warning the California Writing Project and sites of the National Writing Project against embracing any fashionable theory of learning or teaching or any instructional reform-however promising or supported by research and theory-that might foreclose on alternative approaches and other answers put forward by a successful classroom teacher.

Even those of us who are intellectually committed to the writing project and who have taken it upon ourselves to articulate a theory for the model and practices that define the writing project have found Jim indifferent or hostile to any theoretical label we might be inclined to propose as a way of identifying what approach the writing project takes to improving the teaching of writing in schools. From Jim Gray's perspective-and it is a perspective we must be reminded of whenever we are inclined to waver from it-no label or school of thought can be applied to the writing project, if it threatens to make the writing project less hospitable to the ideas and experience of some successful teacher whose practice is inconsistent with the labeled principles. The writing project has therefore assiduously refused to embrace such attractive and widely respected movements or pedagogical stances as constructivism or whole language, or critical pedagogy, or literature-based instruction. We must not become proponents of any of these, Jim would insist, if that might suggest that we are not open to whatever might represent its opposite and might be brought into our community by an experienced and thoughtful classroom teacher. For Jim Gray and those of us who remain faithful to the writing project model, the writing project remains aggressively agnostic with respect to any approach that may be offered for school reform or instructional improvement, and yet militantly orthodox in its faith, first, in the capacity of teachers to continue learning from their own experience and from the wisdom of peers, and then, in the ultimate authority of teachers to determine for themselves what works and doesn't work in their own classrooms.

Fortunately, Jim has not allowed his retirement to remove him from the discourse of our community and he resides near at hand to advise and chastise us as we continue to define and refine the work of the writing project. He serves as a mentor to all of us, and we who have been privileged to work with Jim as site directors and fellows of CWP sites remain, in our best professional moments, his protégés.

Originally published in Volume 21, Number 3.

About the Author SHERIDAN BLAU has taught in the departments of education and English at the University of California, Santa Barbara, since the 1970s. In 1979 he founded the South Coast Writing Project and became its director. Later he established, also on the UC Santa Barbara campus, the Literature Institute for Teachers, based on the NWP model. Blau, a past president of the National Council of Teachers of English, is the author of numerous books and articles, most recently The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers, for which he received NCTE's Richard A. Mead Award. This text reflects what Blau has learned during two generations in the classroom: "I'm teaching more and more with my mouth shut and my eyes open to see what my students are learning."

Download "The Only New Thing Under the Sun: 25 Years of the National Writing Project"

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The Only New Thing Under the Sun: 25 Years of the National Writing Project

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Summary: Blau recounts the core NWP idea that the most reliable and credible solutions to the problems of learning and teaching are found in the wisdom and knowledge possessed by experienced and successful classroom teachers. The Only New Thing Under the Sun "...there is no new thing under the sun," says Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes.

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In our conversation below, Sheridan Blau and I discuss how education changes not just what a person knows and can do but who a person is. Learning carpentry makes someone the kind of person who measures, cuts, and builds things out of wood. Learning literature makes someone the kind of person who reads, thinks, talks, and writes about texts. Learning these things means becoming the kind of person who does these things. This dynamic solves, Blau suggests, the problem of transfer, that much discussed difficulty many students have in taking what they learn in one class and applying it in another class or outside of class altogether. More specifically, Blau offers, "The problem of transfer is a fake problem. It assumes that it's knowledge that transfers but if students are learning they're becoming different people." In short, it's transformation that transfers.

Having served for thirty five years as the founding director of the , which will owe as much to Blau as I do. More recently Blau has co-edited South Coast Writing Project, Dr. Sheridan Blau is currently Professor of Practice in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Most importantly to me, he also authored what is pretty much my favorite book on teaching: The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers. I first read The Literature Workshop, which is the focus of our conversation, a decade ago as I began my doctoral studies. The book resonated with me deeply and shaped the trajectory of my literary pedagogy as it unfolded over the next ten years, culminating (at least for now, since I hope to keep growing) in the book I am writing Deep Reading: Teaching Reading in the Writing Classroom and written a number of fine articles, including " Fostering Authentic Learning in the Literature Classroom, " which would be the perfect introduction to his writing if you want to start with a shorter text.

In addition to transformation and transfer, Blau and I also discussed a range of other topics related to teaching, learning, and literature. When I asked him about the model of collaborative pedagogical inquiry he describes in his book as operating in the National Writing Project, he stressed the value of the workshop model that teachers often experience there and then take back to their own classrooms. It's not merely about putting people in small groups, for instance. It's about "being in a community of inquiry where people are actually trying to figure things out." "The workshop idea is to have people working on a problem that's a legitimate problem." We talked about how lectures can have a use, particularly if they are given in the wake of collaborative inquiry, answering questions learners actually have, solving problems they have already been working on.

When I asked Blau about Louise Rosenblatt, whose influence he acknowledges in The Literature Workshop, he observed, "It's almost as if Louise said everything. There's nothing left to say. Things I thought I was discovering, she had actually said one way or another." He teaches her book Literature as Exploration regularly in a course on germinal texts in English education. We rounded out the discussion with his Milton workshops (he runs workshops on problems in Paradise Lost with doctoral students), the place of literary theory in the teaching of literature (he wants students to study established theories but even more importantly to develop their own theories), and a commentary assignment he has developed since writing his book, through which students find themselves "developing a repertoire of things you might do when talking about literature, things you might say," what critical moves they and their classmates might make. I so enjoyed talking with Blau. I remain indebted to his work.

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Becoming the Kind of Person Who Does These Things | A Conversation with Sheridan Blau

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In our conversation below, Sheridan Blau and I discuss how education changes not just what a person knows and can do but who a person is. Learning carpentry makes someone the kind of person who measures, cuts, and builds things out of wood. Learning literature makes someone the kind of person who reads, thinks, talks,...

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Book Talk: Toward Changing the Culture of Literature Classrooms on JSTOR

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Todd DeStigter, Book Talk: Toward Changing the Culture of Literature Classrooms, English Education, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Oct., 2003), pp. 80-85

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Teaching Texts and Their Readers

Sheridan introduces the literature workshop as the most effective approach to solving many of the classic instructional problems that perplex beginning and veteran teachers of literature, proving that a workshop model can help students read more difficult texts than they think they can.

Sheridan Blau is among the small number of writers who have really original things to say about teaching and learning.
—Gerald Graff

Sheridan Blau is a gem in the English teaching profession: a teacher-researcher and an innovative teacher who blows the lid off of traditional forms of literary instruction.
—Jeff Wilhelm

I can't think of a more helpful book about teaching literature. It's sophisticated, subtle, and responsive to complex theory—yet practical and accessible.
—Peter Elbow

In this groundbreaking book, Sheridan Blau introduces the literature workshop as the most effective approach to solving many of the classic instructional problems that perplex beginning and veteran teachers of literature. Through lively re-creations of actual workshops that he regularly conducts for students and teachers, Blau invites his readers to become active participants in workshops on such topics as:

helping students read more difficult texts than they think they can read

where interpretations come from

the problem of background knowledge in teaching classic texts

how to deal with competing and contradictory interpretations

what's worth saying about a literary text

balancing respect for readers with respect for texts and intellectual authority

ensuring that literary discussions are lively and productive

how to develop valuable and engaging writing assignments.

Each workshop includes reflections on what transpired and a discussion of the workshop's rationale and outcomes in the larger context of an original and practice-based theory of literary competence and instruction.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

Introduction: Principles for Practice
I. Teaching and Learning Literature: A Problem with a Solution
1. Stories from the Classroom: Lessons on Learning Literature
2. From Telling to Teaching: The Literature Workshop in Action
II. How Readers and Texts Make Meaning
3. Which Interpretation Is the Right One? A Workshop on Literary Meaning
4. The Problem of Background Knowledge: A Workshop on Intertextual Literacy
III. How to Talk and Write About Literature
5. Where Do Interpretations Come From?
6. What's Worth Saying About a Literary Text?
IV. Writing Assignments in Literature Classes: Perennial Problems and Provisional Solutions
7. Writing Assignments in Literature Classes: The Problem
8. Writing Assignments in Literature Classes: Models for Solutions-in-Progress
V. Foundations of Literary Knowledge
9. Honoring Readers and Respecting Texts: Value and Authority in Literary Interpretation
10. What Do Students Need to Learn? The Dimensions of Literacy Competence

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Sheridan introduces the literature workshop as the most effective approach to solving many of the classic instructional problems that perplex beginning

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S4 E6: Tips for creating presentations for colleagues

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S4 E6: Tips for creating presentations for colleagues

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S4 E6 April 12, 2023 Tips for creating presentations

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Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry, Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press, July 2023), and Something About Living, winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, forthcoming from University of Akron Press, 2024.

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Lena Khalaf Tuffaha is a poet, essayist, and translator. She is the author of three books of poetry, Water & Salt (Red Hen Press), winner of the 2018 Washington State Book Award for Poetry, Kaan and Her Sisters (Trio House Press, July 2023), and Something About Living, winner of the 2022 Akron Prize for Poetry, forthcoming from University of Akron Press, 2024.

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Rafeef Ziadah - 'We teach life, sir', London, 12.11.11 (EN/BG subtitles)

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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered "internal refugees" or "present-absent aliens." Darwish lived for many years in exile in Beirut and Paris. He is the author of over 30 books of poetry and eight books of prose, and earned the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize from the Lannan Foundation, the Lenin Peace Prize, and the Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres Medal from France.

In the 1960s Darwish was imprisoned for reciting poetry and traveling between villages without a permit. Considered a "resistance poet," he was placed under house arrest when his poem "Identity Card" was turned into a protest song. After spending a year at a university of Moscow in 1970, Darwish worked at the newspaper Al-Ahram in Cairo. He subsequently lived in Beirut, where he edited the journal Palestinian Affairs from 1973 to 1982. In 1981 he founded and edited the journal Al-Karmel. Darwish served from 1987 to 1993 on the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. In 1996 he was permitted to return from exile to visit friends and family in Israel and Palestine.

Mahmoud Darwish's early work of the 1960s and 1970s reflects his unhappiness with the occupation of his native land. Carolyn Forché and Runir Akash noted in their introduction to Unfortunately It Was Paradise (2003) that "as much as [Darwish] is the voice of the Palestinian Diaspora, he is the voice of the fragmented soul." Forché and Akash commented also on his 20th volume, Mural: "Assimilating centuries of Arabic poetic forms and applying the chisel of modern sensibility to the richly veined ore of its literary past, Darwish subjected his art to the impress of exile and to his own demand that the work remain true to itself, independent of its critical or public reception."

Poet Naomi Shihab Nye commented on the poems in Unfortunately It Was Paradise: "[T]he style here is quintessential Darwish-lyrical, imagistic, plaintive, haunting, always passionate, and elegant-and never anything less than free-what he would dream for all his people."

Mahmoud Darwish died in 2008 in Houston, Texas.

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Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish was born in al-Birwa in Galilee, a village that was occupied and later razed by the Israeli army. Because they had missed the official Israeli census, Darwish and his family were considered "internal refugees" or "present-absent aliens." Darwish lived for many years in...

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" Movingly unravels themes of belonging, Islamophobia, and the interlocking oppressions thrust upon immigrant women." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"[A] surreal crash-course in perspective, agency, and self-love." -Booklist, starred review

"Artfully profound and achingly beautiful, Elhillo's verse aptly explores diasporic yearning for one's home and a universal fascination with possibilities." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Elhillo's tender and descriptive writing may leave readers feeling the need to live life to the fullest...[a] passionate, piercing YA collection of poems." -Shelf Awareness, starred review

"A love letter to anyone who has ever been an outsider, or searched to understand their history, no matter where they come from."

" Richly imagined [...] An immersive experience of the intersectionality of gender, class, race, religion, and identity." -The Horn Book

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Home Is Not a Country by Safia Elhillo: 9780593177082 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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" Movingly unravels themes of belonging, Islamophobia, and the interlocking oppressions thrust upon immigrant women." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review "[A] surreal crash-course in perspective, agency, and self-love." -Booklist, starred review "Artfully profound and achingly beautiful, Elhillo's verse aptly explores diasporic yearning for one's home and a universal fascination with possibilities."

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"May these poems challenge and awaken you. May they shake you into action. May they help you find the words for what you already know to be true... These words remind me that home is a series of shared memories, not brick and mortar. Home is where we go to remember and revisit who we've always been. Mohammed El-Kurd's poetry is a home returned to us."

"Rooted in Palestine and ranging across the world, these are poems that hurl themselves at the boundaries of what poems can do; lyrics that put a premium on anger, that reflect the serrated edges of living in the world today, that gift new and powerful phrases to the lexicon of liberation.""'At 24, Mohammed El-Kurd is already a poet of note. He is also a visual artist, and an activist like Rifqa. He has synthesized and overcome his American education in poetry. He no longer feels like he has to hide in his words.'-
-Ahdaf Soueif, author of Cairo: My City, Our Revolution

Rifqa is an absolute marvel, and El-Kurd is precisely the kind of poet- Palestinian or otherwise-we need right now: unafraid of the truth. The legacy of his grandmother, the eponymous Rifqa, flits across these poems, and with it comes wisdom, hope, and, most crucially of all, memory ... El-Kurd doesn't flinch from the violence and death that comes with dispossession. But make no mistake. These are the poems of the defiantly, unapologetically, wholly alive."
The Markaz Review

-Hala Alyan, author, The Arsonists' City

" Rifqa is an admixture of the most intimate violence-wounds that are as difficult to reveal as they are to heal-together with song and dance that beseech the sun to sustain this life and these lands that ensure it. Rifqa El-Kurd lives in Mohammed and Mohammed breathes life into us, scented with fire and jasmine flowers, so that we may know her, and the victory she embodied, too."
-Noura Erekat, author, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

" Rifqa is the collision of strength and vulnerability. Earnest in its exploration of the grave realities in one corner of the globe, it is a banging on the doors of the world. It illustrates the wit that is necessary to weave together the tragic with the hopeful and the painful with the joyful. Rifqa is a testament to overcoming fear in expression, a book that will resonate with you, one you hold and return to over and over again."
-Mariam Barghouti, journalist, researcher, activist, and commentator

"Palestinians have long fought with poetry. Napoleon's army in Palestine was defeated by warrior poets. El-Kurd's words are part of this long and dazzling lineage. An elegy to our ancestors, maternal, whose resistance we hope to honor, each poem is a rock hurled at the occupier and the oppressor. A beautiful and important book."
-Randa Jarrar, author, Love Is an Ex-Country

"Mohammed El-Kurd weaves the ancestors and Land into every breath of these poems. 'Every grandmother is a Jerusalem,' El-Kurd reminds us, in jasmine-scented memory, in liminal space and punch line, in auto- and anti-biography. Here is poetry the whole of us can turn and return to-even in grief, even in contradiction. Liberating itself from respectability & other colonialist gazes weaponized against Palestinians, here is poetry insistent on truths we've carried for generations. JERUSALEM IS OURS. El-Kurd writes this with its whole chest, knowing our lives-the whole & future of us-depend on it.
-George Abraham, author, Birthright

"El-Kurd's poems are attuned to language as a terrain of struggle. Refusing the myriad euphemisms that conceal and authorize Israel's ongoing violence, he insists on a clarity that emplots each act in a field of history ... But if El-Kurd's poems witness the relentless reiterations of settler colonial violence, they also document the rebuttals and tendernesses-Mahfoutha Ishtayyeh chaining herself to a tree, "olive skin on olive skin," in the face of an Israeli bulldozer; Rifqa El-Kurd welcoming her grandson home from school each day with jasmine wrapped in Kleenex-seeds of other futures nestled within the present."
-Jewish Currents

"Paying powerful homage to his Palestinian people's lives and struggles, while elegantly educating the reader, Mohammed El-Kurd's debut poetry collection, Rifqa, is a symbolic masterpiece ... The poet understands politics is as much about emotion as it is logic, and his devastating way with words lets him deploy this knowledge in full."
-The New Arab

"Like other Palestinian poets, from Fadwa Tuqan to Rashid Hossein to Mahmoud Darwish, Kurd has a significant role to play in forging an international front against settler-colonialism and imperialism around the world ... We should be grateful that this is Kurd's first book rather than his last, and that we can look forward to many decades of poetic innovation from this extraordinarily multifaceted and politically engaged poet."
-Middle East Eye

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Each day after school, Mohammed El-Kurd's grandmother welcomed him at the door of his home with a bouquet of jasmine. Her name was Rifqa-she was older than Israel itself and an icon of Palestinian resilience. With razor-sharp wit and glistening moral clarity, El-Kurd lays bare the brutality of Israeli settler colonialism.

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They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi, Dena Takruri: 9780593134597 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir. "I cannot even...

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"In this companion memoir to Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007), Barakat continues her tale of growing up in Palestine from 1972-1981, a politically turbulent time... When her willingness to question and explore opens doors for her, Barakat receives encouragement and support from surprising sources, validating her sister's statement that 'being Palestinian teaches you to be ready for any destiny.' This is a compelling personal history, brimming with humor, wisdom, and empathy." - Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This intense memoir paints a dark picture of growing up in Israeli-occupied Palestine, where 'we are made to live with no land, no country, no rights, no safety, and no respect for our dignity.' The author, a poet, picks up in 1971, where her earlier memoir, Tasting the Sky (2007), left off. She recounts her years from second grade through high school, dividing the book into five sections based on their different homes in Palestine. . . A poetic, deeply felt coming-of-age story." - Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"In this sequel to Tasting the Sky (2007), a memoir and winner of the Arab American Book Award, Barakat moves beyond her early school years during the Six-Day War and its uprooting aftermath. She focuses on the years 1971-81, when she-a feisty protofeminist-and her family shifted about in the occupied West Bank, trying to find a place that felt safe and like home. . .The beauty of the writing is its clear-eyed matter-of-fact-ness. Barakat doesn't plead for sympathy (political or emotional); she just recalls, in concrete detail, this particular world as she experienced it as a young woman, and the result is as inspiring as it is engrossing." - Booklist

"Barakat's lovely, lyrical style depicts an adolescence that will be simultaneously familiar to readers in its universal themes (struggle to become one's own person, family life and its usual squabbles) and very different in its backdrop of 1970s Palestine...Barakat wonderfully captures the mood of the time and place once again. At times humorous and heartbreaking, this work will immerse readers in Barakat's experience, leaving them with-perhaps-a broadened worldview. . . Highly recommended for upper middle school and high school libraries." - School Library Journal

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"In this companion memoir to Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (2007), Barakat continues her tale of growing up in Palestine from 1972-1981, a politically turbulent time... When her willingness to question and explore opens doors for her, Barakat receives encouragement and support from surprising sources, validating her sister's statement that 'being Palestinian teaches you to be ready for any destiny.'

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A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that does for Palestine what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan.

Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejos are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp. We follow the Abulhejo family as they live through a half century of violent history. Amidst the loss and fear, hatred and pain, as their tents are replaced by more forebodingly permanent cinderblock huts, there is always the waiting, waiting to return to a lost home.

The novel's voice is that of Amal, the granddaughter of the old village patriarch, a bright, sensitive girl who makes it out of the camps, only to return years later, to marry and bear a child. Through her eyes, with her evolving vision, we get the story of her brothers, one who is kidnapped to be raised Jewish, one who will end with bombs strapped to his middle. But of the many interwoven stories, stretching backward and forward in time, none is more important than Amal's own. Her story is one of love and loss, of childhood and marriage and parenthood, and finally the need to share her history with her daughter, to preserve the greatest love she has.

Set against one of the twentieth century's most intractable political conflicts, Mornings in Jenin is a deeply human novel - a novel of history, identity, friendship, love, terrorism, surrender, courage, and hope. Its power forces us to take a fresh look at one of the defining conflicts of our lifetimes.

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A heart-wrenching, powerfully written novel that does for Palestine what The Kite Runner did for Afghanistan. Mornings in Jenin is a multi-generational story about a Palestinian family. Forcibly removed from the olive-farming village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejos are displaced to live in canvas tents in the Jenin refugee camp.

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Jude never thought she'd be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind her, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her home town start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives.

At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven't quite prepared her for starting school in the U.S. -and her new label of "Middle Eastern," an identity she's never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises-there are new friends, a whole new family, and a school musical that Jude might just try out for. Maybe America, too, is a place where Jude can be seen as she really is.

This lyrical, life-affirming story is about losing and finding home, and most importantly, finding yourself.

" Poetic and powerful...There are so many reasons to read this novel. It's a book about kindness, for one; it sings, for another...And that's Jude. I wanted nothing more than to be her friend and listen to whatever she had to say about life. She deserves to shine in the spotlight, and so does Other Words for Home." (NPR)

"Warga portrays with extraordinary talent the transformation of a family's life before and after the war began in Syria.... Her free-verse narration cuts straight to the bone... [and] confront[s] the difficult realities of being Muslim and Arab in the U.S. Poetic, immersive, hopeful." (Kirkus Reviews, *starred review*)

"From start to finish, Warga's middle-grade debut puts its hands around your heart and holds it...Other Words for Home should find its way into every middle-grade reader's hands." ( Booklist, * starred review*)

[In] this timely book... rhythmic lines distill Jude's deepest emotions.... Warga effectively shows, as she writes in an author's note, that "children who are fleeing from a war zone... want the same things all of us do-love, understanding, safety, a chance at happiness." (Publishers Weekly, * starred review*)

"Told in verse and divided into five sections chronicling Jude's flight from Syria and adjustment to America, this powerful middle grade novel explores the complicated concepts of war and corruption, home, family, belonging, and how, in Jude's own words, "It is strange to feel lucky/for something that is making my heart feel so sad." ( School Library Journal, * starred review*)

"Offers offers a realistic portrait of the strength it takes to move to a new country, as well as of the complicated dynamics between first- and second-generation immigrants." (The Horn Book, *starred review*)

" Other Words For Home is a salve for the world we live in today. It's a hope-filled story that doesn't pander, but instead peels back layers of culture and identity, fear and prejudice, exile and belonging, all wrapped around a young Syrian girl-Jude. Chocked with equal parts fear and moxie, Jude is a heart trying to figure out how to beat outside the body. I ached for, but simultaneously, found that though our stories are different, I her. This is a necessary story. We're lucky to have it in the world."-(Jason Reynolds, award-winning, bestselling author of Ghost and Long Way Down)

"Through Jude's eyes readers see firsthand what it is to leave behind one's beloved home and family as many refugees do every single day. Young readers will laugh with Jude, cry with her, and root for her every step of the way. A beautiful, powerful, and necessary book." ( Aisha Saeed, New York Times bestselling author of Amal Unbound)

" An emotional, gorgeous book that takes you into the fraught interior life of Jude, a dreamer, actress, daughter and little sister--who is also a Syrian refugee. Told in verse, Jude's story is one that is rarely shared, which makes its relatability that much more powerful. An absolute must-read book." ( Sabaa Tahir, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Ember in the Ashes series)

" Other Words for Home is a gorgeously written middle grade novel with words that soar off the page. Told in stunning verse and featuring an effortlessly lovable narrator, this book will be a staple of middle grade shelves for years to come." (Rachel Strolle, Teen Librarian, Glenside Public Library)

"Jasmine Warga's exceptional middle grade debut is a moving story about family, belonging, and the difficulty of straddling two cultures. Told in sure, thoughtful verse, Warga skillfully draws parallels between the political and social climates of both Syria and the U.S. through the eyes of an insightful and relatable main character, Jude." ( Sara Grochowski, Children's Specialist, McLean & Eakin Booksellers, Petoskey, MI)

"Other Words for Home is like a family recipe. At the beginning you know that this is cared for, curated, and passed down. There is an heirloom quality to this story and yet it is fresh and modern. Jude's immigrant story is rich and light and full of personality. At the end, Jude has developed her own sense of of home; she is at home with herself. This is not just an immigrant story-it's a LIFE story." ( Amanda Connor, Kids Team Leader, Joseph-Beth Booksellers.)

"Other Words for Home is such an important book and should be required reading for every student at a middle-grade reading level. The character of Jude teaches us empathy as we read what it's like to be a young teenager from Syria trying to fit in in America. She tries to learn the English language while tackling discrimination and classmates unwilling to understand and accept her, including her cousin of the same age. Jasmine Warga has created a story that is both powerful and gentle, big but full of small moments, a happy but sad story that will live in your heart." ( Marilyn Robbins, BookBar, Denver, CO)

china: Beijing Yutian

Czech Republic: Argo

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Jude never thought she'd be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind her, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her home town start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives. At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud.

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Bring the (book) party to your inbox with the NOVL enewsletter for YA readers By clicking 'Sign Up,' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

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Editorial Reviews

School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
ALA Booklist Top 10 Scifi/Fantasy Book for Youth
ALA's Best Fiction for Young Adults List
Children's Africana Book Award Honor Book for Older Readers
ABA IndieNext Pick
Junior Library Guild Selection

"Superb...a refreshing and unique coming-of-age story. The way Amani uses her heritage to facilitate her survival makes Mirage a beautiful and necessary meditation on finding strength in one's culture." - Entertainment Weekly, Top Pick of the Month

"Daud's debut novel has the flair of an Arthurian drama, the lavish sensory detail of a Nizar Qabbani poem, and the sleek technical flair of a sci-fi series...this audacious combination is so skillfully done that it'll shock breath into your lungs. If you loved The Wrath and the Dawn and Children of Blood and Bone, Mirage will captivate you." -The Christian Science Monitor

"This poetically written novel will appeal to many, particularly fans of Cinder by Marissa Meyer and An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. Verdict: This debut novel has what it takes to be the next big thing in sci-fi/fantasy." -School Library Journal, starred review

"This gorgeously written, immersive, and captivating series starter is sure to have fans eager for a sequel." - ALA Booklist, starred review

"Prepare yourself for a story that's enriching, thrilling, and captivating." - BuzzFeed

" Mirage is smart, sexy, and devilishly clever. Somaiya Daud has penned a tale worthy of all the stars in the sky, and I can't wait to read what she writes next." - Renée Ahdieh, author of The Wrath and the Dawn

"Daud is a masterful storyteller. Mirage gives readers an exquisitely wrought world with deft characters, death-defying stakes, and an aching romance. Bound to linger in your dreams." - Roshani Choksi, author of The Star-Touched Queen

"Somaiya Daud's Mirage reads like the lushest of fantasies, set in an unforgettably immersive world that is both dangerous and impossibly lovely. The characters are complex and nuanced, and the story is by turns romantic, harrowing, climactic and hopeful, though the unresolved ending paves the way for an even grander sequel. I didn't want it to end, and I can't wait to return to the world Daud has created." - Rosalyn Eves, author of Blood Rose Rebellion

" Mirage is full of my favorite things: secrets, intrigue, gorgeous mythology, and complicated characters. It will break your heart and fill you with hope." - Kat Howard, author of An Unkindness of Magicians

"A rich, dazzling, powerful debut. Somaiya Daud is an author to watch." - Tahereh Mafi, author of the Shatter Me series

"Lush and dangerous, Mirage had me entranced. Amani's journey-from rural innocent to calculating young woman, from village girl to royal impersonator-is galactic. Daud's novel asks, 'what does it mean to impersonate your enemy?' And the answer she provides here is nothing short of thrilling. I was here for all of it, and I desperately need to know what happens next." - Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Beasts Made of Night

" Mirage is full of characters who feel like they existed long before the story began, and a rich world that is as beautiful as it is cruel. Somaiya Daud is a rare talent. A smart, romantic, exciting debut." - Veronica Roth, author of Divergent and Carve the Mark

" Mirage reads as an impossible trick of the light, a feather that carves words into stone, a banquet of longing and loss. Every page comes roaring to life in a way that overwhelms and transforms you. This isn't a debut novel so much as an heirloom, and the work of a master storyteller." - Margaret Stohl, coauthor of Beautiful Creatures and author of Black Widow: Forever Red

" Mirage had me enthralled from its first page to its last. It's a heart-wrenching, romantic, and exhilarating page-turner. Begin preparing yourselves for it now. Somaiya Daud is a brilliant writer and she has written a brilliant book." - Courtney Summers, author of Sadie

"With its breathtaking worldbuilding and characters who grabbed me from the first page, Mirage is by turns thrilling and ruminative, sexy and heartbreaking. Somaiya Daud has written a moving and unforgettable debut." - Sabaa Tahir, author of An Ember in the Ashes

From the Publisher

2018-05-15
Abducted from her small village, Amani finds that her survival depends on being the perfect body double to an arrogant and cruel princess. Amani lives with her family in an impoverished village on Cadiz, a moon of the planet Andala that has been occupied by the Vathek Empire. At her coming-of-age ceremony she is violently stolen away to the imperial palace, Ziyaana, where she is shocked to find that she looks exactly like the princess Maram vak Mathis, known to be as cruel and ruthless as her Vathek father but with the visage of her Kushaila mother. In response to increased rebel attacks, Amani is groomed as a body double and must navigate the complexities of court, including the charms of Maram's fiance, Idris. Daud's debut, set in a Moroccan proxy world, addresses colonialism, appropriation, suppression, and erasure, along with orientalist tropes. Readers may recognize a possible reference to William Beckford's gothic orientalist novel Vathek, used to describe invading colonizers. In addition to a cast of characters of color, Daud also introduces concepts specific to the Indigenous Amazigh of Northwest Africa, including the warrior queen Dihya, who serves as a symbol of feminism and anti-colonialism.Though the machinations of politics and identity create a slowly burning narrative, readers will appreciate the rich world and prose built by a much-needed diverse voice. (Science fiction. 13-adult)

Kirkus Reviews

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School Library Journal Best Book of the YearALA Booklist Top 10 Scifi/Fantasy Book for YouthALA's Best Fiction for Young Adults ListChildren's Africana Book Award Honor Book for Older Readers ABA IndieNext Pick Junior Library Guild Selection "Superb...a refreshing and unique coming-of-age story.

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Popular Instagram cartoonist and Muslim-American Huda Fahmy presents a hilarious, relatable, and painfully honest new collection of comics that break down barriers and show how universal our everyday problems, worries, and joys actually are.
At some point in our lives, we've all felt a little out of place. Huda Fahmy has found it's a little more difficult to fade into the crowd when wearing a hijab.

In Yes, I'm Hot in This, Huda navigates the sometimes-rocky waters of life from the unique perspective of a Muslim-American woman, breaking down misconceptions of her culture one comic at a time. From recounting the many questions she gets about her hijab every day (yes, she does have hair) and explaining how she runs in an abaya (just fine, thank you) to dealing with misconceptions about Muslims, Yes, I'm Hot in This tackles universal feelings from an point of view we don't hear from nearly enough.

Every one of us have experienced love, misunderstanding, anger, and a deep desire for pizza. In Yes, I'm Hot in This, Huda's clever comics demonstrate humor's ability to bring us together, no matter how different we may appear on the surface.

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Popular Instagram cartoonist and Muslim-American Huda Fahmy presents a hilarious, relatable, and painfully honest new collection of comics that break down barriers and show how universal our everyday problems, worries, and joys actually are. At some point in our lives, we've all felt a little out of place.

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If you are on this page, chances are you attended a training session on advocating for Arab and Muslim students in educational spaces. We will continue to add to this page as we curate and create resources. We appreciate you for being an advocate for our community of learners. Sawsan Jaber, Abeer Shinnawi, Kefah Ayesh, Mona Mustafa, and Zainab Jabak

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Arab_American_Advocacy72 Profile and Collections - Wakelet

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Public Collections from Arab American Advocacy If you are on this page, chances are you attended a training session on advocating for Arab and Muslim students in educational spaces. We will continue to add to this page as we curate and create resources. We appreciate you for being an advocate for our community of learners.

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This month, educators will have to consider how they discuss the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with students who have no living memory of that day or the events that unfolded in the aftermath.

Teaching the history of that Tuesday is important. But Penn GSE's Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher says the lesson shouldn't stop with the horrors of the plane crashes or the heroics of the first responders. Rather, this is a chance for students to examine how 9/11 has shaped much of the last two decades, in America and around the world.

Ghaffar-Kucher and a team of educators, scholars, and community activist leaders created the Teaching Beyond September 11 curriculum project to help deepen students' understandings of how the attacks continue to reverberate in communities across the globe.

The curriculum, aimed at high school and college students, features 20 modules, each grounded in a year between 2001 and 2021, exploring themes like social justice, representation, public opinion, democracy, and US foreign and domestic policy. Teachers may pick and choose which modules they wish to teach; further, the lessons within the modules can be taught sequentially or individually. And the curriculum is designed to take these conversations beyond social studies classrooms, with ideas for teaching in literature, art, and other subject areas. To receive new modules as they are released, sign up for the Teaching Beyond September 11 modules.

Drawing from the curriculum, Ghaffar-Kucher offers these suggestions for how you can broaden lessons related to September 11:

Discussing civil liberties

In the weeks, months, and years after 9/11, a series of laws was passed with the intention of improving state security that gave American law enforcement services new powers and raised questions about civil liberties.

The "no-fly" list, for example, was designed to prevent suspected terrorists from boarding planes. But scores of people with no connection to terrorism - including the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. John Lewis - wound up being listed, which made air travel difficult to impossible for them.

This example can be a jumping off point for a discussion about how laws are made, and the potential unintended consequences they can have beyond the originally targeted group, even when the law is widely-supported.

Addressing Islamophobia

Islamophobia has a long history in the United States and elsewhere in the world. But 9/11 supercharged the hate and bigotry on both a personal and political level. Muslim and Arab Americans, as well as those mistaken to be Muslim, felt under suspicion or under attack. Barack Obama's first campaign for president was filled with accusations that he was a "secret Muslim." And one of Donald Trump's first actions as president was to ban immigrants from some predominantly Muslim countries.

Given that Islamophobia in the United States is tied to racism and xenophobia, educators can discuss the concept of identity and how Muslims, immigrants, and people of color are often excluded from conversations about "real Americans." This is especially important given that many of these groups have been in the United States since the 1800s and some even earlier. For example, between 10-30% of enslaved people brought to the Americas from the 1600s onwards were Muslim.

Reflecting on media representation

Over the last 20 years, we have seen more Muslim characters in mainstream shows and movies. But the women are often seen as repressed victims and the men are often portrayed as plotting terrorists.

Raise questions about how media portrayals like these can affect public perceptions and how those perceptions, in turn, can affect everything from community support for a new mosque project to attempts to ban wearing a hijab in public to how actions are perceived by Muslim members of Congress.

Interrogating hate violence

Xenophobia, white supremacy, and Islamophobia also affected non-Muslim communities post 9/11. Sikh Americans have been the victims of hate crimes since they first immigrated to the US more than 125 years ago. But the community saw a spike in violence against them after 9/11, starting with the murder of Balbir Singh Sodhi just four days after 9/11 to the recent April 2021 murder of eight people, including four Sikhs, at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis.

Have students reflect on identity, and the assumptions we often make based on not just race and ethnicity, but even articles of clothing. Contrast the assumptions that are often made about white Americans with those made about people of color, for example white men with beards verses brown men.

Building solidarity

The drastic increase in hate crimes against Muslim, Arab, and Sikh communities has impacted these groups within the classrooms as well. Cases of bullying and harassment not just from peers but also teachers and administrators are well documented.

The most infamous example came in 2015, when Ahmed Mohamed, a young Black Muslim boy was accused of bringing a bomb to school. In reality, he just wanted to show off a clock he had made. Creating a space where all children in the classroom feel that they belong - irrespective of their race, gender, ethnicity, or religion - is something all teachers can work towards.
This project is generously funded by the University of Pennsylvania's Global Engagement Office with support from Penn's Graduate School of Education and the Penn Libraries. Additional support comes from Penn's Middle East Center and the South Asia Center.

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This month, educators will have to consider how they discuss the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with students who have no living memory of that day or the events that unfolded in the aftermath. Teaching the history of that Tuesday is important.

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Not the Kite Runner! Accurate Mirrors for Arab Students in English

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The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume's latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha's Vineyard, her life changes forever. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house; her brother has muscular dystrophy; her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. Caitlin, on the other hand, lives part of the year with her wealthy mother Phoebe, who's just moved to Albuquerque, and summers with her father Lamb, equally affluent, on the Vineyard. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. Caitlin, determined never to be ordinary, is always testing the limits, and in adolescence falls hard for Von, an older construction worker, while Vix falls for his friend Bru. Blume knows the way kids and teens speak, but her two female leads are less credible as they reach adulthood. After high school, Caitlin travels the world and can't understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, won't drop out and join her. Though the wedding briefly revives Vix's old feelings for Bru, whom Caitlin is marrying, Vix is soon in love with Gus, another old summer friend, and a more compatible match. But Caitlin, whose own demons have been hinted at, will not be so lucky. The dark and light sides of friendship breathlessly explored in a novel best saved for summer beachside reading.

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THE QUEEN OF DIRT ISLAND | Kirkus Reviews

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The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume's latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha's Vineyard, her life changes forever.

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The beautiful world of Mary Oliver in our hands! Although no longer alive, Mary Oliver's words are exactly that-life. In reading these selections, we can hear her voice telling us, showing us and, at times, goading us to embrace the world around us. We are moved by her eye on the natural world and how it affects our heart. What a gorgeous way to explore her poetry.

A New York Times Bestseller, chosen as Oprah's "Books That Help Me Through" for Oprah's Book Club

"No matter where one starts reading, Devotions offers much to love, from Oliver's exuberant dog poems to selections from the Pulitzer Prize—winning American Primitive, and Dream Work, one of her exceptional collections. Perhaps more important, the luminous writing provides respite from our crazy world and demonstrates how mindfulness can define and transform a life, moment by moment, poem by poem." -The Washington Post

"It's as if the poet herself has sidled beside the reader and pointed us to the poems she considers most worthy of deep consideration." -Chicago Tribune

Pulitzer Prize—winning poet Mary Oliver presents a personal selection of her best work in this definitive collection spanning more than five decades of her esteemed literary career.

Throughout her celebrated career, Mary Oliver has touched countless readers with her brilliantly crafted verse, expounding on her love for the physical world and the powerful bonds between all living things. Identified as "far and away, this country's best selling poet" by Dwight Garner, she now returns with a stunning and definitive collection of her writing from the last fifty years.

Carefully curated, these 200 plus poems feature Oliver's work from her very first book of poetry, No Voyage and Other Poems, published in 1963 at the age of 28, through her most recent collection, Felicity, published in 2015. This timeless volume, arranged by Oliver herself, showcases the beloved poet at her edifying best. Within these pages, she provides us with an extraordinary and invaluable collection of her passionate, perceptive, and much-treasured observations of the natural world.

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Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver|Paperback

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The beautiful world of Mary Oliver in our hands! Although no longer alive, Mary Oliver's words are exactly that-life. In reading these selections, we can hear her voice telling us, showing us and, at times, goading us to embrace the world around us.

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EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation.

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Editorial Reviews

10/03/2022

Machado movingly excavates notions of identity, family, and Native culture in her debut, a memoir. Raised in the 1980s Honolulu suburbs, as the daughter of a Portuguese and Native Hawaiian father and a Southern white mother, Machado was aware of the melting pot of ethnic customs surrounding her, but felt disconnected from her heritage: "For as long as I could remember, I felt a nagging urge in the pit of my stomach to get out of my reality." While studying abroad in college, she experienced bouts of anxiety and homesickness, which she alleviated by partying and drinking. Later, Machado moved to L.A. to avoid witnessing her mother's declining health from fibromyalgia and lupus. In 2001, Machado's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and as her reluctant caretaker, Machado careened between love and resentment. Machado's narrative hums with raw emotion, as she writes of rejecting the idealized island girl stereotype, and as an adult, seeking a connection to her ancestors. Her depiction of Hawaii is far from the carefree paradise shaped by tourists and Western colonialism, and instead offers a sharp consideration of class distinctions and the islands' history. The result is a luminous coming-of-age portrait. Agent: Lauren Abramo, Dystel, Goderich & Bourret (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

Mapuana Makia lends fluidity to this memoir's descriptions of Hawaii-its lush settings, legends and lore, and musical language. In contrasting tones, Makia delivers the painful history of colonialism and stereotyping of Hawaii as merely a tourist destination. Similarly, Makia gives listeners a felt sense of the intersectional issues faced by Machado through the juxtaposition of her proper, directive white Southern mother and her passive-seeming Indigenous father. Most memorable are Makia's vivid depictions of Machado's fierce rebelliousness and discomfort in a seeming paradise." -AudioFile Magazine

"Narrator Mapuana Makia skillfully reads the historical sections of this memoir, enlivening them with her lyrical pronunciation of Hawaiian words. She brings out the passion in Machado's telling of myth and legend and conveys Machado's forthright approach as she shares her personal stories and history. A moving portrait of a woman navigating culture and identity, elevated by the use of beautiful Hawaiian language." -Library Journal

"Mapuana Makia handles the story adeptly and has a deliberate clarity that helps the listener absorb sections exploring Hawaiian culture and mythology. Her commitment to that tone and pacing also makes clear the book is a memoir, handling the sometimes challenging subject matter as a retelling; never going too far to infuse dramatic flair. She instead lets the author's words carry the weight. This is not to say her read lacks depth or flavor, though. She's an excellent choice for the material." -Booklist

"[A] memoir about loneliness, loss, and finding a cultural identity...[that] gorgeously portray[s] the complexity of Machado's spiral into despair...Machado's rich descriptions and frank voice make the book worth reading." -Kirkus Reviews

"Machado movingly excavates notions of identity, family, and Native culture in her debut, a memoir...[Her] narrative hums with raw emotion...Her depiction of Hawaii is far from the carefree paradise shaped by tourists and Western colonialism and instead offers a sharp consideration of class distinctions and the islands' history. The result is a luminous coming-of-age portrait." -Publishers Weekly

"Mixing in Hawaiian history and folklore throughout her memoir, Machado offers a heady and enticing read." -Booklist

"At long last, a book that shatters the colonial gaze too often cast on the Pacific; here, Jessica Machado brings the islands to life with incendiary dynamism and pitch-perfect prose. A mesmerizing portrait of a woman, her 'ohana, and the ancestral knowledge deep within - I never wanted this to end. Local is an unforgettable debut and a triumph for Kanaka and APIA literature." -T. Kira Madden, author of Long Live the Tribe of the Fatherless Girls

"Machado is a ferociously talented writer who blends insight, compassion, history, and love into this breathtaking story of home, family, and belonging. This book is necessary reading for anyone who has ever wanted to understand Hawai'i, their families, or themselves." -Lyz Lenz, author of Belabored

"A deeply moving memoir about navigating pain-both personal and systemic-through the complex history of Hawai'i. By revealing her own story, she also reveals the stories of the Kanaka, and the result is both heartbreaking and uplifting." -Samhita Mukhopadhyay, author of the forthcoming The Myth of Making It

From the Publisher

12/01/2022

For the people who did not grow up in the lush paradise of Hawai'i, it is easy to imagine life on the islands as being easy and uncomplicated. The locals have easy access to the beach, and the environment is warm and relaxed in the mind of a tourist. Machado's book sets the record straight on what it is like to grow up in Hawai'i. Raised by a father whose ancestors are Indigenous to Hawai'i and a mother from the American South, Machado's experience growing up on the islands was different. Feeling divided from the history and mythology of Hawai'i due to the influences of the mainland, the author had a difficult time finding her place as a local and spent much of her time looking for an escape from her home and herself. Her story about her relationship with her family and herself is interwoven with the history and culture of Hawai'i as a way for Machado to reconnect with the home she thought she left behind. VERDICT This is the perfect book for anyone feeling lost, working through grief, and attempting to find a connection with someone to feel less alone. -Leah Fitzgerald

Library Journal

2022-09-21
An editor at NBC News recounts her childhood in Honolulu and young adulthood in Los Angeles.

After her parents' divorce, Machado, whose background includes Kanaka Maoli, Portuguese, and White Southern Baptist, felt disconnected from her aloof mother and lived in constant conflict with her fiery father during the few moments when he was around. While she was a teenager, she writes, his parenting method "was not one of steady guidance but of pointed instruction and interrogation." The family's lack of togetherness violated the Hawaiian concept of 'ohana, or caring for the family and community. "Instead of feeling one with the land," writes the author, "we often felt like islands unto ourselves." After college, the author moved to LA, where she lived with a roommate from Hawaii. Taking on restaurant work to stay afloat, she was arrested for a DUI and mandated to attend AA meetings and alcohol education classes. The author also writes that she endured sexual assault by a friend and former roommate. During these years, Machado's mother, who already suffered from a host of health problems, was diagnosed with cancer. Eventually, the author's mother and stepfather moved to California, and Machado participated in her care until her death. Throughout, Machado makes sense of her story through Indigenous Hawaiian folktales and the island's anti-colonial history. It's clear the author conducted extensive research about these topics. The second half of the text is the strongest, gorgeously portraying the complexity of Machado's spiral into despair. However, the protagonist's slow unraveling is never fully resolved. The author doesn't delve deep into many of the struggles she faced, leaving readers to wonder what exactly happened and how she overcame the obstacles. This lack of cohesion renders the book's ending unsatisfying and its initial pages difficult to interpret. Overall, though, Machado's rich descriptions and frank voice make the book worth reading.

A vulnerable but unfocused memoir about loneliness, loss, and finding a cultural identity.

Kirkus Reviews

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A powerful, lush memoir about a Hawaiian woman who ran away from paradise to discover who she is and where she belongs.Born and raised in Hawai'i by a father whose ancestors are indigenous to the land and a mother from the American South, Jessica Machado wrestles with what it...

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"...a notably effective adaptation. Successfully broadens the reach of the original to a younger audience." -"...an incredibly accessible read geared to teens... guided by Stone's energetic narration; kids will definitely see themselves in his [Kendi's] journey." - "The young person's version gives teens the tools they need to create a more just society and encourages them to undo some of the damage created by generations before them." -
"Attention to gender, sexuality, class, and honest self-critique makes for an ambitiously inclusive addition to a growing booklist of youth-oriented racial equity work, but the concluding four c's of changemaking-cogency, compassion, creativity, collaboration-are on full display here in a standout text." -Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"[A] book that illuminate[s] how each of us are gradually drafted into the thinking, the lies and distorted truths which can render a person unable or at least unwilling to challenge the systems and practices which masquerade as normal, as functional and fair. In reality, many of those systems drive and sustain vast inequality along with pervasive belief in group inferiority or superiority. [A] book that seems to want to equip young people living now, in the midst of surround-sound injustice, open and almost gleeful bigotry - in public and in private - with the language and the skills to recognize they too have been drafted. Then it calls on them to decide if, where, and how they will revolt against that system." - Time Magazine

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How to Be a (Young) Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi, Nic Stone: 9780593461600 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Skip to Main Content (Press Enter) "...a notably effective adaptation. Successfully broadens the reach of the original to a younger audience." -"...an incredibly accessible read geared to teens... guided by Stone's energetic narration; kids will definitely see themselves in his [Kendi's] journey."

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* Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller *
* GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 *
* 2020 Alex Award Winner *

A Vogue Best Novel of 2019
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One of Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten Romance Novels of 2019
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A Library Journal Best Romance of 2019
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A She Reads Best Romance of 2019

"[An] exquisite debut... It's hard to watch [Alex] fall in love with Henry without falling in love a bit yourself - with them, and with this brilliant, wonderful book." - The New York Times Book Review

"[A] fireworks in the sky, glitter in your hair joyous royal romance that you'll want to fall head over heels in love with again and again. A+" - Entertainment Weekly

"A rivalry between the son of a U.S. president and the Prince of Wales turns into a whirlwind romance in this charming story about true love." -
"[An] escapist masterpiece... It's a truly glorious thing to live inside the world of this book and to imagine it becoming reality, too." -

"The super specific love story you never knew you needed." - Cosmopolitan

"Effervescent and empowering on all levels, Red, White & Royal Blue is both a well-written love story and a celebration of identity. McQuiston may not be royal herself, but her novel reigns as must read rom-com." - NPR

"In between sweet and steamy love scenes, Red, White & Royal Blue allows readers to imagine a world where coming out involves no self-loathing; where fan fiction and activist Twitter do actual good; and a diverse, liberal White House wins elections. This Blue Wave fantasy could be the feel-good book of the summer." - Starred Review

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"With a diverse cast of characters, quick-witted dialog, and a complicated relationship between to young people with the eyes of the world watching their every move, McQuiston's debut is an irresistible, hopeful, and sexy romantic comedy that considers real questions about personal and public responsibility." - Library Journal, Starred Review

"[An] outstanding debut... with quick wit and clever plotting. The drama, which involves political rivals, possible betrayals, and even a meeting with the queen, is both irresistible and delicious. Readers will be eager to see more from McQuiston." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

" Red, White & Royal Blue is funny and fun, and the family and political dynamics feel spot-on, but it's the frank and unforgettable romance between these two young men that will compel readers to start it all over again when faced with the last page. It's that hard to say goodbye to this couple." - OPRAHMAG.COM, "The 27 Greatest Romance Novels to Read In Your Lifetime"

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"Royal watchers, prepare yourselves, because this LGBTQ+ romance is destined to leave you swooning." -

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"This book is like that perfect dessert you allow yourself only on the really good or really bad days. And I loved every deliciously satiating page of it." - Julia Whelan, author of My Oxford Year

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Instant NEW YORK TIMES and USA TODAY bestseller ** GOODREADS CHOICE AWARD WINNER for BEST DEBUT and BEST ROMANCE of 2019 ** 2020 Alex Award Winner * A Vogue Best Novel of 2019A Vanity Fair Best Book of 2019One of NPR's Favorite Books of 2019One of Entertainment Weekly's Top Ten Romance Novels of 2019 A BookPage Best of the Year A Kirkus Best Book of 2019 A Library Journal Best Romance of 2019A Shelf Awareness Best of the Year A She Reads Best Romance of 2019 "[An] exquisite debut...

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To be literate is to think through multiple perspectives, exploring diverse texts, and using the power of story to give students the life skills to discuss just about anything with critical curiosity. Critical Comprehension transforms this vital work into an accessible, three-step lesson process.

Using picture books, multimodal texts, and thoughtfully framed questions, each differentiated lesson expands students' understanding of a text through:

First read: the "movie read", during which the text is read without interruption

Second read: The teacher poses questions that probe deeper meanings through interaction with the text to summarize, name and highlight issues, analyze and infer, to make more informed decisions about what to believe and what to question.

Third read: Harnessing students' curiosities, the class revisits the text to talk back to theme, symbols, central idea, or social, cultural, historical influences at work on author and audience

Popular media, classic novels, breaking news - the world's content is ready for students to absorb. But are we ready to help them read it well? Equipped with this resource, the answer is, Yes, we are.

To be literate is to think through multiple perspectives, exploring diverse texts, and using the power of story to give students the life skills to discuss just about anything with critical curiosity. Critical Comprehension transforms this vital work into an accessible, three-step lesson process.

Every chapter contains ready-to-go lessons to support critical literacy in your classroom.

Lessons center around recent children's books written by and/or about people in traditionally marginalized groups and guide conversation around crucial societal issues.

Using picture books, multimodal texts, and thoughtfully framed questions, each differentiated lesson expands students' understanding of a text through:

First read: the "movie read", during which the text is read without interruption

Second read: The teacher poses questions that probe deeper meanings through interaction with the text to summarize, name and highlight issues, analyze and infer, to make more informed decisions about what to believe and what to question.

Third read: Harnessing students' curiosities, the class revisits the text to talk back to theme, symbols, central idea, or social, cultural, historical influences at work on author and audience

Sidebars and reflection questions throughout the book provide added insight into key social issues as well as transferable teaching ideas.

Modifications in lessons provide suggestions for younger students or older students, so teachers can plan instruction best suited to their student population and classroom context.

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Popular media, classic novels, breaking news - the world’s content is ready for students to absorb. But are we ready to help them read it ...

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Unearthing Joy | The Scholastic Teacher Store

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In this sequel to Cultivating Genius, Gholdy Muhammad adds a fifth pursuit-joy-to her groundbreaking framework. Dr. Muhammad shows how joy, which is rooted in the cultural and historical realities of Black students, can enhance our efforts to cultivate identity, skills, intellect, and criticality for ALL students, giving them a powerful purpose to learn and contribute to the world.

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In Julie Otsuka's new novel, The Swimmers, a rag-tag group of regulars shows up every day, many of them for years, to swim laps in a university pool. One day, a crack - the "length of a wire" - appears at the bottom near the drain; then another, reproducing in spiderlike clusters all over the bottom of the swimming pool.

When the pool is shut down for safety reasons, the collective daily rhythm of the swimmers' lives abruptly stops. One swimmer is particularly affected by this rupture in the pattern of the everyday: her name is Alice, "a retired lab technician now in the early stages of dementia." We're told that, "even though [Alice] may not remember the combination to her locker or where she put her towel, the moment she slips into the water she knows what to do." Untethered from the practice of those repetitive daily laps, Alice's mind floats free.

The Swimmers is a slim brilliant novel about the value and beauty of mundane routines that shape our days and identities; or, maybe it's a novel about the cracks that, inevitably, will one day appear to undermine our own bodies and minds; and - who knows? - it could also be read as a grand parable about the crack in the world wrought by this pandemic.

Otsuka's signature spare style as a writer unexpectedly suits her capacious vision. As she did in her celebrated 2011 novel, The Buddha in the Attic, about so-called Japanese "picture brides," brought to the U.S. in the early 1900s to wed men they didn't know, Otsuka tells her story in short block paragraphs written mostly in the collective first person.

The narrators of the opening section of her novel are the "we" of the swimmers; in the second part, the "we" is the institutional voice of the nursing home where Alice winds up; the ending section takes us into the mind of Alice's adult daughter - desolate, guilty, exhausted.

You'd think the subjects here and this choral type of narration would make for a cold, impersonal dirge of a novel. Instead, The Swimmers has the verve and playfulness of spoken word poetry, as in this opening mega-sentence where the swimmers collectively introduce themselves:

"IN OUR "REAL LIVES," up above, we are overeaters, underachievers, dog walkers, cross-dressers, compulsive knitters ( Just one more row), secret hoarders, minor poets, trailing spouses, twins, vegans, "Mom," second rate fashion designer, an undocumented immigrant, a nun, a Dane, a cop, an actor who just plays a cop on TV ("Officer Mahoney"), a winner of the green card lottery, a two-time nominee for Outstanding Professor of the Year, a nationally ranked go player, ... two Roses (Rose, and the Other Rose), one Ida, one Alice, one self-described nobody ( Don't mind me), one former member of the SDS, two convicted felons, addicted, enabled, embattled, embittered, out of print, out of luck ... in our prime, in a rut, in a rush, in remission, in the third week of chemo, in deep and unrelenting emotional despair ( You never get used to it), but down below, at the pool, we are only one of three things: fast-lane people, medium-lane people or the slow.

With The Swimmers, Otsuka is plunging into chlorinated waters that John Cheever has pretty much had all to himself since 1964. I'm thinking, of course, of Cheever's classic short story " The Swimmer," which was later made into a film starring Burt Lancaster.

Cheever's swimmer, Neddy, was solitary, paddling his way one surreal summers' day through a series of backyard suburban pools, as, within the space of hours, summer turned into fall and Neddy himself aged. What is it about swimming - the doggedness of all those repetitive laps - that invites these thoughts about mortality and the meaning of it all? "I thought ... that we could stay down here forever," says one of Otsuka's shocked swimmers when the pool closure is announced. "It all went by so fast," [says another] ... "But I was so happy in my lane," protests a sidestroker named Irene. Alice says, "Me too."

The Swimmers, perhaps because of the variety of voices Otsuka assembles, glides lightly through these philosophical waters, more lightly I think, than Cheever's metaphor-heavy short story did. But why compare? There's room enough for all in this Olympic-sized existential pool.

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Still waters run deep in 'The Swimmers,' a brilliant novel about routine and identity

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In Julie Otsuka's new novel, The Swimmers, a rag-tag group of regulars shows up every day, many of them for years, to swim laps in a university pool. One day, a crack - the "length of a wire" - appears at the bottom near the drain; then another, reproducing in spiderlike clusters all over the bottom of the swimming pool.

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Katie Hafner's taut and utterly delightful debut is a novel of multitudes. It is travel escapism, a family drama, a character study, social commentary on pandemic isolation and an incredible journey back to center. We are emerging from a period of forced introversion, and The Boys provides the perfect antidote. ... There is a surprise at the center of this book, so original and unusual that I stopped pushing forward for a day to reread the first half again and check for inconsistency. Hafner doesn't miss a beat. ... I will just say this: What a wonder of storytelling. I will be thinking of these boys for a long time to come." -Weike Wang, New York Times Book Review

"Clever, skillfully crafted ... a laugh-out-loud delight to read .... Also a poignant exploration of loneliness and the ways trauma survivors can go to extraordinary lengths to avoid facing their psychic wounds." -San Francisco Chronicle

"Think of Katie Hafner as Anne Tyler, but much weirder.... Hafner is a smart, funny observer of human foibles and in Ethan she has created a character so endearing that it would not be a surprise if this debut novel led to a career with Tyler's longevity." -Minneapolis Star Tribune

"Hafner makes a splash with her debut novel thanks to one stunning twist. No spoilers here, but this story about the bubbly Barb, her wallflower husband, Ethan, and the 8-year-old twins they decide to foster is a funny, poignant meditation on a timely topic: loneliness. It's also nearly impossible to put down." -Philadelphia Tribune

"Remarkable .... Starting out as a lighthearted romance before taking an unsettling turn...upends expectations in the best way." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A breeze to read, with characters who feel alive." -San Diego Magazine

"Tender and emotionally intelligent ... An audacious feat of narrative bravado." -Maria Semple, author of Where'd You Go Bernadette

"The Boys is utterly charming ― one of the most delightful books I have read in ages. As we bike through Italy's little villages with introvert Ethan Fawcett, stopping to drink a caffè shakerato as church bells ring in a mournful E flat, what we see around us is the wide and beautiful horizon of the human heart. I absolutely loved this little miracle of a book." -Meg Waite Clayton, New York Times bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris

"This is a treat-yourself read, the tale of an endearing human on a hilariously misguided quest for love and connection, in the delight-filled tradition of Anne Tyler. But Hafner bakes a surprise into the center of her confection- a glorious, mind-blowing twist that propels the story to unexpected heights and depths. With exquisite compassion and humor, this novel leaves its readers deeply nourished, heart, mind, and soul." -Debra Jo Immergut, author of You Again and The Captives

"Unexpectedly funny, touching, disarming-The Boys got under my skin from the very first page. Hafner is a wry and wise explorer of the secrets buried deep in our most intimate relationships. This novel will stay with me for a long time." -Laura Zigman, author of Separation Anxiety

"Journalist and author Hafner's fiction debut is a striking entry to relationship fiction that is timely and optimistic. ... With beautifully rendered characters and rich language, this is a treat, especially for fans of Anne Tyler and Elizabeth Berg." -Booklist

From the Publisher

2022-04-27
A quirky couple's decision to foster 8-year-old twins ends up driving them apart.

With his extreme introversion and severe anxiety issues, Ethan Fawcett is mostly relieved when lockdown hits. After all, he's "wired for quarantine." "If Barb hadn't come along," he muses, "...I'd have shuffled my way straight into a solitary middle age." But she did, and she thinks he's adorable-so by the time Covid shows up, they've been happily married for years. Ethan is a genius engineering geek; Barb is a research psychologist who studies loneliness among the elderly. Once lockdown hits and social isolation becomes a problem affecting millions, this expertise rockets her to media stardom. Ethan, at that point, is fully booked taking care of Tommy and Sam, a pair of Russian orphans Barb brought home on a whim in 2019. The boys were supposed to give the couple a chance to practice parenthood before they launched into what they had just learned was not going to be the old-fashioned, easy way of making babies. Ethan falls head over heels for the boys, which unlocks a level of manic anxiety and vigilance in him that makes Barb's life unbearable. Even as she is repelled, she thinks she understands. Ethan's parents died in an accident on vacation when they were 38. That birthday is coming for him "like a heat-seeking missile." There's a lot to love in this book-every corner of it is filled with clever invention and loopy charm of the Kevin Wilson variety, and suspense is created by a growing pile of unanswered questions that will keep you flying through it to the end. What the heck did those boys do in Italy that caused the tour operator to disinvite the family from all future expeditions? Why does Barb go completely sour on the boys, to the point that Ethan must choose between her and them? It turns out everything revolves around a huge, nearly unforeseeable (though in retrospect, carefully seeded) plot twist.

Like a soup that is either wrecked or nailed by one crazy ingredient-and you don't know what it is till your bowl is empty.

Kirkus Reviews

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Katie Hafner's taut and utterly delightful debut is a novel of multitudes. It is travel escapism, a family drama, a character study, social commentary on pandemic isolation and an incredible journey back to center. We are emerging from a period of forced introversion, and The Boys provides the perfect antidote.

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Lahore, Pakistan. Then.
Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.
Juniper, California. Now.
Salahudin and Noor are more than best friends; they are family. Growing up as outcasts in the small desert town of Juniper, California, they understand each other the way no one else does. Until The Fight, which destroys their bond with the swift fury of a star exploding.

Now, Sal scrambles to run the family motel as his mother Misbah's health fails and his grieving father loses himself to alcoholism. Noor, meanwhile, walks a harrowing tightrope: working at her wrathful uncle's liquor store while hiding the fact that she's applying to college so she can escape him-and Juniper-forever.

When Sal's attempts to save the motel spiral out of control, he and Noor must ask themselves what friendship is worth-and what it takes to defeat the monsters in their pasts and the ones in their midst.

From one of today's most cherished and bestselling young adult authors comes a breathtaking novel of young love, old regrets, and forgiveness-one that's both tragic and poignant in its tender ferocity.

Judges Citation

In unflinching prose, All My Rage by Sabaa Tahir layers grief and love in a complex exploration of how we hurt each other and how buried traumas can cloud all. Seamlessly traversing from Lahore, Pakistan to Juniper, California, Tahir has created a compelling cross-generational story where characters are interconnected in their search for community. All My Rage is of the moment, urgent in its honest depiction of abuse, debt, and the significance of forgiveness.

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Lahore, Pakistan. Then. Misbah is a dreamer and storyteller, newly married to Toufiq in an arranged match. After their young life is shaken by tragedy, they come to the United States and open the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel, hoping for a new start.

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The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume's latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha's Vineyard, her life changes forever. Victoria, or more commonly Vix, lives in a small house; her brother has muscular dystrophy; her mother is unhappy, and money is scarce. Caitlin, on the other hand, lives part of the year with her wealthy mother Phoebe, who's just moved to Albuquerque, and summers with her father Lamb, equally affluent, on the Vineyard. The story of how this casual invitation turns the two girls into what they call "Summer sisters" is prefaced with a prologue in which Vix is asked by Caitlin to be her matron of honor. The years in between are related in brief segments by numerous characters, but mostly by Vix. Caitlin, determined never to be ordinary, is always testing the limits, and in adolescence falls hard for Von, an older construction worker, while Vix falls for his friend Bru. Blume knows the way kids and teens speak, but her two female leads are less credible as they reach adulthood. After high school, Caitlin travels the world and can't understand why Vix, by now at Harvard on a scholarship and determined to have a better life than her mother has had, won't drop out and join her. Though the wedding briefly revives Vix's old feelings for Bru, whom Caitlin is marrying, Vix is soon in love with Gus, another old summer friend, and a more compatible match. But Caitlin, whose own demons have been hinted at, will not be so lucky. The dark and light sides of friendship breathlessly explored in a novel best saved for summer beachside reading.

Did you like this book?

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The years pass by at a fast and steamy clip in Blume's latest adult novel (Wifey, not reviewed; Smart Women, 1984) as two friends find loyalties and affections tested as they grow into young women. In sixth grade, when Victoria Weaver is asked by new girl Caitlin Somers to spend the summer with her on Martha's Vineyard, her life changes forever.

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Home\ Books\The Empathy Academy, by Dustin Grinnell

At an experimental school on Nantucket Island, Montgomery Hughes discovers a dark secret.

In 2032, biotech entrepreneur Sonja Woodward has created a genetic test that can identify a predisposition in teenagers for unethical behavior before they reach adulthood. Those who test positive are sent to Woodward Academy on Nantucket Island. Montgomery Hughes, a high school senior, is among the first students sent to the school.

But Monty is there under false pretenses. He switched his test score with another student's and is using an alias to hide his identity. Haunted by his disgraced father's scandal, Monty is convinced he's a bad seed. At Woodward, Monty discovers a dark side to Sonja's ethics-intervention school. Students who don't respond are treated in a secret lab with a technology that alters genes associated with empathy: the equivalent of a high-tech lobotomy. When Monty's identity is revealed, Sonja's gene-editing "cure" offers her the perfect opportunity for punishment-and Monty is scheduled for treatment.

The Empathy Academy by Dustin Grinnell is a high-concept philosophical novel that explores the science and perils of using genetic technology to predict and enhance complex human behavior. Would society be possible without empathy? Is everyone born with it? And can empathy be taught to those who don't have it?

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The Empathy Academy, by Dustin Grinnell - Atmosphere Press

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At an experimental school on Nantucket Island, Montgomery Hughes discovers a dark secret. In 2032, biotech entrepreneur Sonja Woodward has created a genetic test that can identify a predisposition in teenagers for unethical behavior before they reach adulthood. Those who test positive are sent to Woodward Academy on Nantucket Island.

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Ben Wolf, 18, goes in for a routine sports physical before his senior year and learns he has an aggressive form of leukemia and…

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First, I got myself born. A decent crowd was on hand to watch, and they've always given me that much: the worst of the job was up to me, my mother being let's just say out of it.

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Beneath Its Pink Cover, ‘Lessons in Chemistry’ Offers a Story About Power

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The best-selling debut author Bonnie Garmus created Elizabeth Zott, a chemist battling a sexist 1950s establishment, as the role model she craved — and found that readers wanted the same.

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Kids Need Real Models, Not Role Models | Dr. Keonna White | TEDxHarkerHeights

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Naomi Shihab Nye was born on March 12, 1952, in St. Louis to a Palestinian father and an American mother. During her high school years, she lived in Ramallah in Palestine, the Old City in Jerusalem, and San Antonio, Texas, where she later received her BA in English and world religions from Trinity University.

Nye is the author of numerous books of poems, most recently Cast Away: Poems for Our Time (Greenwillow Books, 2020). Her other books of poetry include The Tiny Journalist (BOA Editions, 2019); Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (Greenwillow Books, 2018); Transfer (BOA Editions, 2011); You and Yours (BOA Editions, 2005), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award; and 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East (Greenwillow Books, 2002), a collection of new and selected poems about the Middle East. She is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction for children, including Habibi (Simon Pulse, 1997), for which she received the Jane Addams Children's Book Award in 1998.

Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit. About her work, the poet William Stafford has said, "her poems combine transcendent liveliness and sparkle along with warmth and human insight. She is a champion of the literature of encouragement and heart. Reading her work enhances life."

Nye's poems and short stories have appeared in various journals and reviews throughout North America, Europe, and the Middle and Far East. She has traveled to the Middle East and Asia for the United States Information Agency three times, promoting international goodwill through the arts.

Nye's honors include awards from the International Poetry Forum and the Texas Institute of Letters, the Carity Randall Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Pushcart Prizes. She has been a Lannan Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow. In 1988, she received the Academy of American Poets' Lavan Award, judged by W. S. Merwin.

Nye served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2010 to 2015, and is the Poetry Foundation's Young People's Poet Laureate from 2019-21. In April 2022, for National Poetry Month, Nye will be the Guest Editor of Poem-a-Day. She currently lives in San Antonio.

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Naomi Shihab Nye - Naomi Shihab Nye gives voice to her experience as an Arab-American through poems about heritage and peace that overflow with a humanitarian spirit.

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Once Upon an Eid Stories of Hope and Joy by 15 Muslim Voices

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STARRED REVIEW *"Thoughtful and uplifting." ―Kirkus Reviews STARRED REVIEW *"A range of diverse, multidimensional characters . . . A stimulating, celebratory read." ―Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW *"A joyous title that radiates love." ―School Library Journal A joyous short story collection by and about Muslims, edited by New York Times bestselling authors Aisha Saeed and William C.

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Fahmy’s fictionalized graphic-novel memoir explores the complexities of identity and what it costs to be pleasing.

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Editorial Reviews

★ 07/11/2022

Katouh's powerful debut, a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, follows one Syrian 17-year-old's struggles balancing duty to her country and to herself. Before the Arab Spring, Salama Kassab dreamed of studying herbology, becoming a pharmacist, and traveling the world. Now, a year after the 2011 uprising, she's volunteering as a de facto surgeon at her local hospital, tending to those wounded in the violence surrounding them. Following Mama's death and the military arrests of Baba and her brother, Salama cares for her pregnant sister-in-law, Layla, who wants Salama to arrange them both passage on a boat to Germany. But Salama's hesitancy to flee her country in its time of need, coupled with a budding relationship with Kenan Aljendi, whom she met after treating his younger sister, leaves her feeling unmoored. Her trauma manifests into a PTSD-induced hallucinatory companion named Khawf, who dispenses advice and forces her to examine her responsibilities to Layla, Kenan, herself, and Syria. Katouh's lyrical prose, combined with a moving portrayal of first love, unflinchingly depicts both the costs of revolution, and the strength it takes to fight for one's beliefs. Ages 14-up. Agent: Alexandra Levick, Writers House. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow A Washington Post Best Children's and YA Books of the Year An Amazon Best Young Adult Books of the Year A Mary Sue Best YA Novels of the Year An NPR Best Book of the Year A NYPL Best Book of the Year

Praise for As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow: An Amazon Best Book of the Month " A searing story of war, loss, family and love, of seeking grace in madness and hope in tragedy, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a phenomenal tale, a piercing keen for the Syria that was and the Syria that is. An absolute must read."-Sabaa Tahir, #1 NYT bestselling author of An Ember in the Ashes

" Wrenching and lyrical, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow heralds a stunning new voice in young adult literature. This heartbreakingly beautiful novel challenges the reader to open their hearts and minds to the ongoing revolution in Syria against a ruthless dictator—one who has taken too many lives and forced nearly 13 million Syrians to flee their homeland. Zoulfa Katouh reminds us of the awesome power of love, hope, and tenacity even in the most desperate circumstances. A gorgeous, compelling read that you will not be able to put down."-Samira Ahmed, New York Times bestselling author of Internment

" Brilliant, beautiful, powerful. As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow will leave a profound mark on your soul, transforming the way you see love, loss, and the human capacity for resilience and hope that soars above all."-S.K. Ali, author of Love from A to Z

" As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow paints a stunning and often chilling portrait of the Syrian Revolution that will stay close to my heart. Zoulfa Katouh's driving narrative, beautifully drawn characters, and thoughtful prose bleed across the page. Resilience, loyalty, and bravery intertwine into the backdrop of war and siege, brutality and terror. Teens Salama and Kenan shine with the kind of hope and love that overcomes the greatest fear. Magnificent and moving."-Laura Taylor Namey, New York Times bestselling author of A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow and When We Were Them

"We don't deserve Katouh's gorgeous words and heartbreaking story, but she has blessed us with it anyway. AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW is not only stunningly written, it's also an incredibly important work of our time, a book that will no doubt touch millions and leave us all broken and aching for more of Katouh's writing."-Jesse Q. Sutanto, bestselling author of Dial A for Aunties

" As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow is h auntingly beautiful. Katouh masterfully tells a story that's both painful and captivating, you won't be able to put the book down. Her characters are so achingly real they'll live with you weeks after you've finished reading. The story manages to embrace fear in the time of war, love in spite of loss, and hope in the face of darkness. I cannot stress it enough, this book is a must read." -Huda Fahmy author of Huda F Are You?

" Compassionately and unflinchingly told, As Long As the Lemon Trees Grow is both a transcendent love story and a battle cry. Katouh will make you weep with sorrow, rage, and joy-and you will thank her for it. An unforgettable book from a rising star."-Allison Saft, NYT bestselling author of A Far Wilder Magic.

"As gorgeous as it is groundbreaking, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow holds many things at once: beauty and ruin; brutality and sweetness; tender love in the midst of shattering violence. Katouh writes with urgency and grace, and while she never shies from the horrors of war, neither does she miss a single note of hope-and there are so many. This book is devastatingly beautiful."-David Arnold, NYT bestselling author of Mosquitoland and The Electric Kingdom

" Life-affirming and poignant, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow left me speechless more than once. As characters, Salama and Kenan leap off the page, and my heart ached for them as they bonded over Miyazaki and dared to love in the face of war-torn reality that Katouh rendered unflinchingly but with a human touch."-Joan He, New York Times Bestselling author of The Ones We're Meant to Find

" As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow left me absolutely breathless. Through unflinching—and at times positively devastating—prose, Katouh paints with her words a beautiful story of home and loss, but also of defiant hope. Her pages hold within them something special, something truly rare. My heart will never be quite the same."-Ayana Gray, New York Times-bestselling author of Beasts of Prey

*" Katouh's lyrical prose, combined with a moving portrayal of first love, unflinchingly depicts both the costs of revolution, and the strength it takes to fight for one's beliefs."-Publishers Weekly, starred review

*"Katouh's riveting debut novel reads like the seasoned writing of Ruta Sepetys and Julie Berry and will likely find a shared audience with those titles as well.Elements of this story and facets of the drive shown by the characters will be best respected by an older teen audience. A must-read."-School Library Connection, starred review

"... readers will linger over the many exquisite sentences in this memorable novel that honors the stories of countless Syrians. Searing in its intensity."-Kirkus

"Katouh masterfully weaves many threads together to form a raw, nuanced, and deeply human plot that will make you think, swoon, and brace for impact. AS LONG AS THE LEMON TREES GROW should be on the top of your must-read list."-YA Books Central

" Leaving one's homeland is not an easy thing, and it can be difficult to understand if not for the stories like this, which carefully and thoughtfully account for all the trauma leading to these painful decisions."-Booklist

"... a masterful portrait of the horrific cost of oppression and violence, and gives a compassionate face to an ongoing crisis that is responsible for immeasurable human suffering."-NPR

* "An unflinching representation of the early days of the Syrian revolution that incorporates sophisticated and unexpected narrative techniques and surprising revelations."-Horn Book, starred review

"As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a heartrending love letter to Syria from Zoulfa Katouh. This stunning tale follows Salama Kassab, a young woman who lost everything when the crisis of the Syrian Revolution broke out. She has now taken on the role of a doctor and, though haunted by the injured victims of the government, she is torn with whether to leave her country or stay. As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is equal parts hopeful and heartbreaking as it raises awareness for what is happening in Syria and proves that the country's fight can take place from any part of the world and in any manner."-The Mary Sue

From the Publisher

2022-07-13
When her city of Homs comes under fire in the Syrian revolution, an 18-year-old pharmacy student faces a gut-wrenching decision.

Salama, an avid horticulturalist, is living a nightmare: Her father and older brother were captured by government forces during a protest; her mother died in a bombing. Salama's left with Layla, her pregnant sister-in-law and best friend-and Khawf, Arabic for fear. Khawf is the personification of her trauma who pushes her to attempt the treacherous journey by sea to seek refuge in Germany. Starving and exhausted, Salama nevertheless wavers. Wracked with guilt over what might happen to Layla and her baby if they delay, she finds meaning in helping her beloved homeland by volunteering at a hospital. But the burden of treating streams of victims, many of them children who die in agonizing ways, takes a toll on her fragile mental health. Salama meets 19-year-old Kenan, who is caring for his orphaned younger siblings and is committed to doing his part by uploading videos of protests to YouTube. Their blossoming love is an act of hopeful defiance, but as the Free Syrian Army's hold on Homs becomes increasingly tenuous, the reality of their dire fate should they be captured heightens the urgency. Harrowing moments are juxtaposed against painfully beautiful memories of peaceful times, and readers will linger over the many exquisite sentences in this memorable novel that honors the stories of countless Syrians.

Searing in its intensity. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews

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As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow|Hardcover

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A love letter to Syria and its people, As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow is a speculative novel set amid the Syrian Revolution, burning with the fires of hope, love, and possibility. Perfect for fans of The Book Thief and Salt to the Sea.Salama Kassab...

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"S. K. Ali is Jacqueline Woodson meets Judy Blume." - Cheryl North, Literacy, Secondary Education, UMBC

At Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Montrose, California on book tour, 2019

My name is S. K. Ali and I love writing all kinds of stories. This may be my favorite thing about being a writer - the way you can explore the moors of your mind, scythe in hand, ready to harvest your imagination.

Wait, that sounds bleak, because nothing harvestable grows on moors. (I just looked it up online and it mentions heather, bilberries, grasses, thick layers of peat. And earthworms. All of which I do not want to come close to harvesting.)

Ah-ha! That's precisely where the imagination-part comes in handy. IMAGINATION GROWS ON MOORS! So yes, I'll resume roaming said moors, scythe in hand.

(I hope you appreciate how I solved that metaphor-conundrum so neatly.)

Thus far, I've written:

They've all been realistic stories but I have speculative stuff brewing inside me too. Maybe something to do with the moors, and the heather, bilberries, grasses, thick layers of peat and earthworms there. (Or, maybe something about the bog people. <- Only click that link if you're not eating, have a strong stomach, and aren't scared of corpses.)

I also hope to write an adult novel, or two, one of these days. Insha'Allah.

Thank you for visiting me. And welcome, again, to my words. ❤

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"S. K. Ali is Jacqueline Woodson meets Judy Blume." - Cheryl North, Literacy, Secondary Education, UMBC My name is S. K. Ali and I love writing all kinds of stories. This may be my favorite thing about being a writer - the way you can explore the moors of your mind, scythe in hand, ready to harvest your imagination.

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April 27, 2022
Written by Julia Sen, OLC Program Coordinator

April has flown by, but we didn't want to let it end without acknowledging that it's been Arab American Heritage Month!

We've put together a book list with books by Arab and Arab American authors, focusing on books for kids from birth to high school. Here you'll find a wide range of #OwnVoices books that reflect the Arab and Arab American experience from picture books, to graphic novels, to middle grade chapter books and young adult memoirs. A few that we're excited to share with you are: Arab Fairy Tale Feasts, in which author and storyteller Karim Alrawi combines original fairy tales with traditional favorite dishes (date filled cookies, anyone?), The Cat Man of Aleppo , a Caldecott winner and true story of Mohammad Alaa Aljaleel, ambulance driver who created a safe haven for cats amidst Syria's civil war, and This is All Your Fault by Aminah Mae Safi, a young adult novel which focuses on three young women determined to save their indie bookstore in LA.

The Arab American experience is far from monolithic: Arab is an ethno-linguistic category encompassing people from the 22 countries in the Arab League, plus 4 more where Arabic is one of the official languages. Many Arabs are Muslim, but not all Muslims are Arab, and there are many Arabs who are Christian, Jewish, Ba'hai, and more. For more info (and maps!), we love this slideshow Arab American Heritage Month, put together by OUSD.

One last note -after much consideration, we've chosen to call our list Arab and Middle Eastern American, in order to include authors from countries like Iran and Turkey, who don't fit easily into any of our ever evolving and imperfectly named lists.

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April is Arab American Heritage Month! - Oakland Literacy Coalition

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April 27, 2022 Written by Julia Sen, OLC Program Coordinator April has flown by, but we didn't want to let it end without acknowledging that it's been Arab American Heritage Month! We've put together a book list with books by Arab and Arab American authors, focusing on books for kids from birth to high school.

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Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity Podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. Listen, I have someone who is fired up. I have someone who is a BFF, a best friend forever, a good friend of mine. So Dr., excuse me, Dr. Sawsan Jaber is here with me today. So without further ado, Sawsan, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Thank you for having me, Sheldon, and for using your platform and your voice to really have these conversations that are super important for educators everywhere.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Well, you called me out and I appreciate you calling me out on Twitter. You were like, there's a lot of silence with what's going on with our Palestinian community. And so I have to admit, I haven't done a good job of covering it. I haven't done a lot of work on being vocal and active, the advocacy piece.

So I wanted to bring you on, but I didn't want you to come onto the show and educate me on everything. So I wanted to do some work ahead of time, because I'm one of those proponents of, it's not my duty, it's not any person of color, their duty to educate others on what's happening in their community. So before we get into today's topic, I'd love for you to share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do.

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

I am currently a high school English teacher, but I wear a million and one other hats. I'm a consultant with Education Unfiltered Consulting. Unfiltered, I think, says so much about who I am as a person and what my mantra is as an educator. Don't hold back. I speak my truth, whatever the price is going to be, if that's what I believe it's going to be.

I think that I've lived by that fearlessly in my career. I've been an educator for 21 years. I've worked here and abroad. I've held a variety of different positions and I've worked with students from all different, beautiful backgrounds. And I think that I've seen a lot that's caused me to believe and to really hold on to the idea that we really need to disrupt these systems that exist and really work hard to speak these truths that are purposely hidden, and to just share what we know to be the truth.

And sometimes people aren't ready for it, but we're going to speak it any way and hope that with time they'll come around and they'll listen. But so that did it in a nutshell. I feel like that what we're going to be talking about is so much more important than anything that I have to say about myself, honestly.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay. Okay. Well, again, I appreciate you.

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Thank you.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Let's do this. There's a lot happening in the Middle East, and there's a lot specifically happening between Israel and Palestine. Could you share a little bit of background about why you're so passionate, why you called me out, and again, I appreciate it. Let's start there. What's happening? Why are you so passionate? Why are we calling out folks that are quote unquote equity advocates? And why is there work that needs to be done in this area?

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Well, that's a question that needs to be unpacked on a number of levels. I think, first of all, because I feel ... well, my personal background, I am Palestinian. I am a daughter of Palestinian refugees. I'm somebody who grew up attending school from P through 20, whatever, in the United States. As an Arab Palestinian Muslim student and a woman who covers, I've never felt seen, I never felt like my professors or my teachers at any level really understood me beyond what they learned from the general media.

That said, the second piece of that is the media, and the American and Western intentional creation of the Arabs as this villainizing Arabs. And when you even say the Middle East, in my mind I'm imagining everybody who has never visited the Middle East and knows very little about the Middle East. Whenever they hear the Middle East, the image that they have is these people that blow things up, we're violent, we can't co-exist.

This is the image that's been created about who we are as a people, which is so far from the truth. Middle Eastern Arabs are so hospitable, so friendly. The Islamic religion is such a peaceful religion that even cautions people to hurt trees in times of war, if they don't have to imagine the human life. There's so much that is unknown and so much that is misrepresented by the West in order for us to normalize things that are happening in the Middle East currently.

So I feel like as an American, my tax dollars are supporting ethnic cleansing and genocide of my own people in Palestine and my lineage. And that's unacceptable. As an American who is a teacher and an educator, and my whole life's journey is to make sure that kids are seen and heard, and that they are empowered in our classrooms, I have never been seen, heard, or empowered, and that hasn't changed for my own children.

I have sat down in class after class and with conversation after conversation with educators in my consulting role to talk to them about misrepresentation of Arab students. about feeding Arab students stereotypes of themselves and immersing them in their own stereotypes, and how demoralizing and exclusive that is of students and how that impacts their academic gains, and how that impacts who they are and how they feel about who they are, and how that impacts the sense of double consciousness that's created by Arab American students, because they have this other personality that they have to develop in order for them to survive their contexts.

And so if we don't start to address these things in our classrooms accurately, and we don't start to address these things as responsible American citizens that are civically engaged, voting people in who are not supporting injustices in different parts of the world through our tax dollars, while we have so many needs in our own country that need to be addressed. Then that money can go to support. Then we're doing a lot of things wrong.

So it's just so late. There's so many layers of it. I just feel like ... and then the final part of that, I think is I'm so frustrated with people who are doing equity work, constantly omitting the experiences, the stories, the histories of Arab American and Muslim students. It's always missing. I attend conferences for equity and nobody's talking about our kids.

I listen to podcasts. There's very few people who are even, when we talk about inequities and marginalized groups, we're often not even in that list. Even though post 9/11 and way before 9/11, we are ... Banks calls it failed citizens of the United States, because there's never been an acceptance of who we are. Regardless of how many generations of our families have been here, we are often viewed as perpetual foreigners.

As a matter of fact, yesterday we were at a protest for Palestine and we're constantly told to go back to our countries. Well, I was born here. My children were born here. My children are second generation American. So this is our country. We have a right to be here, just like everybody else. And we're constantly saying that because in the eyes of many people in America, we are considered foreigners.

And so that creates this failed citizenship that gives you this feeling of, I don't belong here or there. I don't have a homeland. I can't visit Palestine. I can't go back to Palestine. We have no right to return. My grandfather has the key to his parents' home and his land. He hopes to be able to go back. That's not going to happen in his lifetime. But yet here he's considered a terrorist and a foreigner, and he'll never be accepted as an American, no matter how many years he's lived here, no matter how many generations after him continued to live here, we will continue to be told to go back to our country.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

I love having you, and you know you and I can talk all day. I love talking to you. So, okay, one of the things is you said was as a Palestinian and I just did a protest and we were constantly being told, go back to your country. And your response to me just now was well, we can't go back to our country. Could you explain that a little bit further, as far as why you cannot go back to your quote unquote country, even though you were born here and your children were. Explain that a little bit more.

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Okay. So it's really hard to explain it without going back to 1948. So I guess the land of Palestine has always been coveted. It's a land that's very rich of natural resources. It's a land that has holy significance to Christians, Muslims, and the Jewish population as well.

For us, for Muslims, there's Al-Aqsa Mosque. That's in the center of Jerusalem, which is one of the reasons why all Muslims feel an attachment to Palestine because of the religious significance of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We believe that's where prophet Mohammed ascended to the heavens.

And then you have the Holy Sepulchre Church, also that's there for Christians. And so it's always been a coveted land. Prior to 1948, when the occupation of Israel in Palestine started, Britain was occupying Palestine. So after World War II, we have these refugees of the Holocaust, the Jewish population had nowhere to go, and so Britain decided to give them Palestine.

And the slogan that came out was "A land for a people, for a people without a land." And the way the media has portrayed and painted this Palestinian conflict, or they call it even a conflict, but conflict is so understated with what this is. It's an aggression, it's genocide, it's ethnic cleansing. It's not a conflict, is that it's so hard to understand. But for anybody who is American, the best way to understand it is to liken it to the Native Americans.

Colonists came to America, came to the United States. They decided that they were going to start a new country here, that this was a land without a people. There were Native Americans here. We massacred, we killed, we did whatever we needed to. Native Americans today are in reservations with the highest numbers of alcoholism, the highest numbers of suicide with very little quality of life.

Even though we are colonizing their land, this is their land. We all came from somewhere else. It's the same thing, but magnify it times 10, because now there's also a military rule involved. So Palestinians were living in this land, this was their land for generations, for decades, forever. There was a civilization there, there was development there, there was socioeconomic building there. It was far beyond its time in that time. And they decided to give them this land.

So I sent you a map. I think I showed you how in 1948, 750 refugees were the result of creating this Israeli state on Palestinian land. And from those 750, my village, my grandfather's village, was the first village. Deir Yassin was the first village to be completely massacred. It didn't happen peacefully. People were killed. People were displaced. Villages were destroyed. 450 villages were completely destroyed.

And most of those people were massacred. And what happened was we have all of these refugees that are until today, a lot of those villages are still living in refugee camps. My father grew up in a refugee camp. And as a result of that, Israel has created these two states, by international law. But there is no Palestinian state. Gaza is on one end. The West Bank is on another. They're not even close to each other. Israel is in the middle. Israel has complete and total control over who goes in, who goes out, the water, the electricity, COVID shots. Palestinians don't have access to COVID shots.

Again, violations of international law. Gaza, the third most densely populated strip of land in the world, I think it's, what is it, 30, 36 square miles with 2 million people in it. Tiny little land with people that are living literally on top of each other is completely blockaded by air, sea, and land. They have no freedom of movement whatsoever.

And every few years [Paran 00:12:05], a 15 year old child living in Gaza, has been through five wars. Five. These are people who are ... They don't have a military. They don't have an army. They don't have weapons. They have no bomb shelters like Israel. They have nothing. There's poverty. There's social ... 95% of kids in Gaza are socially, emotionally, they need support. They need help. And this last aggression, we bombed the COVID center. We killed the only few doctors in Gaza that are there, specialists that are there.

There's not a lot of doctors there. They can't have people come in. They don't get aid. We killed doctors. We killed ... There's no safe space in Gaza when these aggressions happen. Schools are bombed, hospitals are bombed, churches and mosques are bombed. There's no safe space. There's nowhere for these people to go.

So even myself as an American citizen, when I use my American passport, there's refugees all over the world now, Palestinian refugees, because this has been going on since 1948. Some people can never go back into Palestine because in order to get into the Palestinian territory, is not even what we call Israel now, but the Palestinian territories, you need permission by the Israeli government. So if you're going through Jordan, there's only two entrances, either you'd go straight to Tel Aviv and you fly into the Israeli capital, or you go into, through the Jordan, there's a bridge that you can drive into.

Either way, you're intercepted by Israeli soldiers who have to do a full security check. I can go in through my American passport, but they have to decide if they're going to let me in or not. So many Palestinians will never be able to go back to their home countries. And if they do, they go in as visitors and they leave because they have passports from other countries where there's alliances and you can go in through your other passport as a visitor.

But you're interrogated, you're humiliated. You're only allowed to be there for in certain parts. There's checkpoints every step of the way for the Palestinian people and the West Bank, another small strip of land, there's 500 plus checkpoints for the Palestinian people to go through. So even Palestinians living in Palestinian, there's this Western idea that there's two separate countries, or there is no country.

Palestinians are living under military rule, even in the Palestinian territories. Illegal settlements by international law, illegal not because I said they're illegal, illegal by the definition of international law. Settlements are being built all around Palestinian villages, settlers, and that's what's happening now in Palestine. So you've got [Shef'tara 00:14:24].

There's Palestinian homes there. It's a Palestinian village. Settlers come in from different parts of the world. They decide they want this house. Palestinian families have to leave this house and they have to give it up for new Israeli settlers. And if they've resist or fight back, they're terrorists, they're shot, they're killed. They react to them violently. So they have to leave their homes quietly and Shef'tara is resisting, leaving their homes, which is their right. So we hear about Israel having the right to protect itself. Well, we have to call a spade, a spade.

It's about time the United States calls a spade, a spade. There is an occupier and there's the occupied. There is an oppressor and there is oppressed. Palestine is occupied, the Palestinians are occupied, Israel is the occupier. The first thing that happens is we have this gaslighting. You are anti-Semitic. This is not a religious war. We have nothing against Jewish people.

Pre 1948, Palestinians, Christians and Muslims live peacefully next to each other. And they co-existed. And the only thing that made Palestinian susceptible to this occupation was their hospitality because they opened their doors to Jews after the Holocaust, because they wanted to welcome them into their country.

But Jewish people, Zionists had a different idea. They didn't want to come live with the Palestinians under Palestinian rule. They wanted to create their own country and make it Israel and erase the Palestinians and their land and ethnically cleanse them completely. And they were supported and still continued to be supported by countries like the United States of America.

So here we are, and I was thinking about it this morning when I was thinking about what are the key things? Because there's so much to say that I want to share with you today. But I was thinking about other countries in our own recent history that have violated international law. What have we done? We've sanctioned them. We've waged war on them. We've removed their leadership.

Why is it that Israel continues to break international law again and again and again, and what we do is we keep funding them to continue breaking international laws. We keep sending them more of our tax dollars to break international laws. President Biden just signed another $738 million. Besides the 3.8 billion that they already sent. We are in an international pandemic.

We're in the worst financial state ever. People are in need of that money here at home. Why are we still continuing to sign that money over? And that's where I feel like people who are talking about advocacy and education in schools, this is where we're not educating our American students. This is where we're not talking about these things. This is where people don't know how much of a hand ... This all goes back to [inaudible 00:16:57]. if you're not actively fighting against it, then you're part of the problem.

So either you're with it or you're working against it. But to say I'm not for it, or I don't understand it, I feel like those are all excuses that people use so that they can comfortably sit in their homes and act like this is not happening. How many more images of kids being pulled out of rubble do we have to see before we decided enough is enough? How many people have to die? How many more refugees does the world have to see created that nobody wants to accommodate.

We don't want them here in America and they don't want them in Europe. And so where are these people supposed to go? We keep funding the creation of more refugees and the displacement of more people, but we don't want to bring them here, and we don't want to support them here before we say okay, we're not going to support this anymore. Let's sanction Israel. Let's put a stop to this in the ways that we know how that we have done with other countries.

But we have this blind support, and anytime you try to speak up, you're anti-Semitic. This is not about religion, this is about Zionism. We are anti-Zionism, we are not antisemitic. We have nothing against Jewish people. We have nothing against the religion of Judaism. This is about Zionists who are ethnically cleansing people left and right and it's happening on social media.

People are seeing the images of it, and we're still trying to justify, normalize it as a government trying to protect itself, which is ridiculous. Because if we just look at the disproportionate use of violence, of power, constantly in that region of the world, it'll tell a different story. We just have to look.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

We have to look, and I appreciate you leading the charge on the importance of if you're doing educational work. If you're doing equity work, if you're doing training, any of those types of things, we cannot pretend, or we can't say oh, I don't know enough to speak on this, but I ... The onus is on us to be able to learn as much as we can so that we can support this movement.

Let's relate this to here in the United States. So my majority of my audience is United States and Canada as well. We have students that are from Palestine that are in our classrooms. What are some of the things that you would say to educators who have our students that are a part of our Palestine community? What are some thoughts that you have there?

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

You know, generally Sheldon, I think I've done so much work about the importance of inclusion, of any students of color. The importance of ... We can't talk about academic gains before we talk about the social, emotional health of our kids. We can't talk about academic games before we talk about identity development. Before anything else about teaching them, seeing them as assets, about creating mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors.

There's all these catchy things that we talk about in education, about making sure that every student is proud of who they are, that they feel like they can bring their linguistic and cultural pluralism to the classroom and own it with pride, that they can use that identity, those intersections of their identity, and build on who they are. And in order for them to be able to do that, there has to be an immersion of yourself as an educator in those spaces that of the students that you teach in order for you to understand those communities better.

And the worst thing that we can do is immerse kids in stereotypical images of who they are, or deflect on them through stereotypical lenses, which is the problem with that, it's why we're doing implicit bias training. That's why we talk about things like really, that's why there're Senate bills that require schools to do the work on implicit bias so that we're not walking into classrooms with our own understanding that we were taught in school or our own experiences as whatever demographic we come from and deflecting that experience on our own students and making sure that we are holding them up to that assimilation or that standard, that they have to be this thing in order for them to be successful or be valid in our spaces.

That's what's happening to a lot of Palestinians ... As an Arab in general, they're already feeling like they don't belong. Because Arabs are X, Y and Z, especially after 9/11. Arab kids are being called terrorists all day long. When I did my dissertation, my work on Arab kids, there was girls going on the bus and had paper balls thrown at them. And everybody's screaming Allahu Akbar and hiding every day for months before the school decided to do something about it.

These are the experiences of Arab kids already. Now add onto that the layer of being Palestinian, a country that's not even recognized by the United States as a country. And I think that even on my post, on social media, that's what some people are, educators are even commenting like, Palestine isn't even a country. It doesn't even access. What are you talking about? Like this imaginary thing.

And so that idea, and that mentality makes it even more difficult because you're negating where these kids even come from, you're negating their identity altogether. And so you're positioning Palestinian American kids to be perpetual defenders, or you're silencing them altogether, which is ... All the research will tell us. If we're going to apply the same research we apply to our black students, to our LatinX students, to our LGBTQ students, to our Asian American students.

That is the same research we're applying here. We're not reinventing anything. These kids are like everybody else. They need to have pride in who they are. They have a history. These kid also can benefit from trauma informed practices. I grew up glued to a TV screen with my parents, who were refugees, following Palestine and following these words and watching the traumas and living them, but also on top of that, feeling the sense of guilt that I'm here and not there, that I am living a normal life, that I'm able to. And on top of that, that my tax dollars are funding these images and helping to make that happen.

That is a trauma that Palestinian kids are living through every single day. What are we doing about it? So the first thing that schools can do is give kids the opportunity to bring their whole selves into the classroom, by understanding who we are, by acknowledging that history, by teaching that history, by teaching the silent side of history, that intentional erasure that we've seen happen with native Americans, that we've seen happen with black history.

And instead of just teaching that single story to get to the other side of it, this is not two-sided. If we have an oppressor and the oppressed, we cannot teach a balanced curriculum anymore. We need to teach it as what it is. Again, I'm calling a spade a spade. This is an aggression. These kids have been aggressed upon. Many of them have come to the United States.

Of course, I love my American identity. People have asked me, if you had an option to go back to Palestine ... It's not an either or. Both Palestine and America are a huge part of who I am as a person. They're intersections. It's like saying, do you want to be Arab or Muslim? Do you want to be a woman? Or do you want to be ... These are parts of who I am. They all have equal importance and equal place in who I am as a person on the whole.

But at the end of the day, I think that it's really important to acknowledge that when people are pushed out of their homes, when they're forcefully expelled out of their homes, they hold on a bit tighter to those cultural identities and people who choose to come here, or who choose to leave their home to go anywhere else.

So a lot of Palestinian kids grow up in very Palestinian homes in the United States. And again, that failed citizenship, that lack of acceptance of that other identity also keeps them feeling like they don't belong anywhere. And so when I'm sitting in a classroom and I'm learning that Palestinian people are the aggressors, or my daughter in choir last week was practicing the Israeli national anthem in an American school.

Do we have a shortage of songs in America that we're practicing the Israeli national anthem? What are we trying to normalize? When my son and his high school classroom has a teacher who says Israeli people are living in fear because Palestinians are stabbing them left and right in public. Where did you get this information from? Why does my son have to sit in a classroom and listen to this? And then what is this doing to everybody in the classroom who's not Palestinian?

What image is it creating to all these other kids who don't know Palestine, but this is all that they're hearing from their teachers who are experts about their content in the classroom. What is in the history books? So when we're thinking about all the layers of how this is presented, it's bad enough we already know the media is not going to represent that other side.

And like I've told you in the past when we've talked, Sheldon, my biggest thing is if there's going to be a disruption of inequity and injustice, it's not going to happen at the policy state level. It's going to happen in the classrooms. And when these kids are old enough to vote and they understand the importance of their civic engagement and for them to use their voice, the critical race theory, really to change the status quo, using their voice and through self advocacy. It's only then that we're going to see policy and government change.

Because then the constituents are insisting on that change. Until that happens, it's got to happen at the school level. And until we get our educators to be open to A, making themselves uncomfortable, to do the learning that's required. And that really requires them to undo so much of their own learning as students in the classroom, because we all learn through the same systems. We all learn the same one-sided stories.

And then making sure that they're uncomfortable enough to rock the boat in many of these communities that don't want their kids to learn these things and know that that's what's necessary in order for us to disrupt the inequities. The system that's happening in Palestine that's being used to oppress Palestinians is the same system that we use here to marginalize black communities, to marginalize LatinX communities, to marginalize oppressed groups here in the United States.

It's the same system. We understand it. So when we have, when we're struggling to determine whether we want to speak up or against what's happening in Palestine, we have to ask ourselves, how has the systems of oppressions worked on me? Whether I'm black or white, how have they worked to silence me or blind me to the truth, or how have they worked to oppress me?

And once we answer that question, we realize that it's those same systems that we need to dismantle across the board. It's the same question I'll ask every person who does equity work. If you are silent on Palestine, silent on Palestine today, who's next? Who knows who's next? And then when the world is silent, and if it's you, you want your allies to stand up and speak up. If we spoke up against black marginalization and slavery 400 years ago, we would not be talking about Palestine today.

There is an interconnectedness between oppression and marginalization that we need to see. And I will say it again and again and again and again, every person of color, groups of color functioning in silos, is the design of the oppressor. It's a way of keeping us divided and a way of them continuously conquering us. We need to dismantle those barriers, and we really need to ally with each other.

And this is where I'm really struggling, I guess, this time around, because I feel like I've built some really strong connections with other like-minded educators when it comes to equity work. And I waited for the first couple of days for someone to say something, even ask a question, post a tweet, share my tweet if you don't know better, say something. But there was just silence and I'm on Twitter and I'm thinking to myself, this silence says so much about where we are when it comes to advocating for our Arab and Muslim kids and our Palestinian kids in the classroom.

And it's unacceptable. I am here to say today, this is unacceptable and I am calling those educators out who have not done the work. If you don't know, there are plenty of tools to know. I'm happy to share things with you so that you can learn. There are things out there for us to learn. If you don't know it's because you choose not to know. And if you do know, and you're not speaking up out of fear, that fear is where oppression thrives. And that's what it's feeding off of. And as long as we're afraid, then we have to accept the status quo for everybody.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Sawsan, you know how I feel. You speak the truth, and I'm glad that you're the thing that you're saying. I would say this. If I'm a person, including myself, if I'm trying to learn more or if I'm trying to be a better advocate in supporting other communities outside of my own community that I identify with, what type of resources would you recommend to further educate ourselves and further be able to support our communities, our Palestinian communities? What type of resources would you recommend?

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

There's tons, there's so many out there. You can read Angela Davis's book from Ferguson to Palestine, and she talks about, and likens it to the Black Lives Matter movement here and shows the correlation between Black Lives Matter and Palestine. You can read Rashid Khalidi's A Hundred Year War. You can read ... Jimmy Carter has a book. I can't remember the title off the top of my head that I can recall.

Marc Lamont Hill recently, who got fired from CNN for speaking his truth about Palestine, also wrote a book and likening it to America and talking about America's role in Palestine and Palestinian oppression. I'll share resources with you that if you can, Sheldon, you can post them on links.

You can follow Noura Erakat. She's amazing, and she posts stuff all the time about what's happening on the ground now. The truth is there. And I feel like the difference between this aggression and the 2014 aggression and the difference between my generation and your generation, Sheldon, and our kids is that there's so much social media feed coming in from the ground, that people can't hide behind what the media tells them anymore, because the images that are coming from the ground are telling a different story.

And I feel like people who choose not to be active, this is like the selected activism that really gets under my skin. I'm going to support this cause, but I'm not going to support this cause, and you're not an activist. You're not an anti-racist. You are not just ... You are complicit.

Already the international community has been complicit with our silence on Palestine. Again, and that has not been the history with other countries that we have that have broken international law. And I feel like as an educator in a classroom, that just becomes so much more damaging because kids come into our classroom like sponges. And they're looking at you like the expert, and they're going to take everything that you feed them.

And so that is our opportunity to really give them an opportunity to develop those skills, for them to find their own truths first of all, but also for them to really critically question things that, and for us as educators, to critically question things that we were taught that have kept us in the dark for such a long time. And then we continuously re-teach the same things and we don't disrupt these systems, knowing that they hurt people in the past and they continue to hurt.

And so it's like, where do you draw the line? What is it going to take? And I look at my own kids now, and I'm like, why doesn't my child have the right to sit in a classroom and hear the same things, the truth about himself, or at least read an accurate representation of himself?

Why does he have to feel like he's an outsider, he's responsible for something he's not responsible for? Why does he have to feel so uncomfortable, because he knows that what his teacher is regurgitating, which is Fox Five News, is not something that actually happened. It's just not right. And I don't know what it's going to take for people to stop blindly supporting Israel the way they do without seeing it for what it really is.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Sawsan, you know me, I definitely consider you as providing a voice in leading equity. What is one final word of advice that you can provide to our listeners?

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Find your truth. I think that's the last time you asked him the same question. It applies. Whenever you're talking about inequity and oppression, there's so much out there. And I think that we have to really understand, we cannot decide that Black Lives Matter and really do the digging to find the truth there and then turn a blind eye to the oppression that's happening somewhere else.

It's just not right. We have to understand that once we turn a blind eye somewhere, it's going to happen somewhere else and it's going to keep coming back. And if you're going to be in education, you need to decide whether your [inaudible 00:32:35] You're going to be a anti-racist, or you're going to be complicit in letting these things happen.

And I feel like the time is so far gone, that we really need to start working towards dismantling these oppressions and marginalization, if nothing else, looking at things from the humanitarian perspective and understanding that we have a role and responsibility to vote people in who are going to do what's best for us here. We have a role and responsibility when we decide to be educators to expose our students and our children to the truth. We have a role of responsibility to learn the truth first and then to do right by what we learn and what we know.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

We have some folks that want to reach out to you. What's the best way to connect with you online?

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

@SJEducate on Twitter, I think is the best way. That's where I feel like I'm most active. That's where I'm posting the most and that's where I'm responding quickest.

Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins:

Okay. Sawsan, it's always a pleasure. Thank you so much for your time.

Dr. Sawsan Jaber:

Thank you, Sheldon, for always using your platform to do what's best for kids. I appreciate it.

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LE 193: Are We Complicit? The Palestinian Narrative and Untold Story with Dr. Sawsan Jaber Transcript

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Dr. Sheldon L. Eakins: Welcome, advocates, to another episode of the Leading Equity Podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their school. Listen, I have someone who is fired up. I have someone who is a BFF, a best friend forever, a good friend of mine.

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Sponsored by Fearless Schools and Google's Applied Digital Skills

One November morning in 2015, Sawsan Jaber was in her suburban Illinois classroom preparing for a day of teaching. As an Palestinian-American teacher in a district with an overwhelmingly white teaching staff, Jaber already felt out of place among her colleagues; that feeling was underscored by what happened next. An ISIS bombing had just struck Paris the day before, which prompted another teacher to stop by Jaber's room that morning to ask, "How do you feel about what your people did in France yesterday?"

That moment-the insensitivity and ignorance of that question-changed the direction of Jaber's career. Although she was planning to pursue a Ph.D. in English, she could no longer ignore the urge to use her own experiences to look more deeply into whether Arab-American students feel a sense of belonging in schools. Her district had seen a massive growth in its population of Arab students, but had taken no deliberate steps to learn about what unique needs they might have or how to meet them. Those students became the focus of her dissertation.

Every student deserves to go to a school where they feel seen and included, where their academic and emotional needs are met, and where they can proudly share and be accepted for their whole selves. Because this is not the reality in most schools, equity work is still urgently needed. Here on this site we have turned our attention many times to issues of equity and social justice in education, but none of that attention has been given to struggles that are specific to Arab-American students.

While most of the approaches we've explored for making our classrooms more inclusive for all students would by default improve the climate for Arab-American students as well, there are some ways that this population gets excluded in U.S. schools that are unique to them. How this exclusion manifests itself might not be readily observable to most teachers, unless they know what to look for and have a sense for what is going on in the minds and hearts of these students.

If they did know what to look for, they'd see what Dr. Jaber found in her Ph.D. studies, a dynamic in our schools that ranges from outright discrimination of Arab-American students to a more subtle but equally powerful form of marginalization, one that causes students to hide parts of their identities in order to fit in, that makes them feel invisible and conspicuous at the same time, and that conceals their failure to thrive, even when they look like they're navigating school successfully.

Sawsan Jaber, Ph.D.

Whether you teach in a school with only a few Arab students or a substantial Arab student population, there are things you can do to make things better for these students.

This was the focus of my conversation with Dr. Jaber on the podcast, which you can listen to in its entirety above, or read the transcript, also linked above. What follows is a summary of the main takeaways from our conversation.

What do we mean by "Arab-American?"

The first step in creating a foundation of support is identification, knowing which students are experiencing this particular kind of marginalization. Is it only students from countries where Arabic is spoken? Muslim students? Both?

The answer lies largely in how students are perceived by their peers.

"The experiences of Arab students and Muslim students are often very, very similar in American public schools." Jaber explains. "So although there are two different populations and sometimes there are intersections, it's not always the case. Arab Americans are Arabs who come from 26 different Arab-speaking countries. Islam is a faith, so you have Arabs who follow all different types of faiths. If you look at Palestine, for example, there's a huge Christian population that is also considered Arab. But you can also be Muslim and be from anywhere; you have Muslims from all over the world and in all colors and who come from all different backgrounds. So you can be an Arab Muslim."

Attempting to narrow down a definition highlights one root of the problem: Many people in the U.S. have limited knowledge about the different cultures that make up the Arab world, so their view is oversimplified. Whether a student is from an Arabic-speaking country or one that is mistaken as such, like Afghanistan, the experience for that student in a U.S. school can be very similar, especially in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks of 2001.

"All Muslims are put under the umbrella of this extremist, rigid, violent faith," Jaber says, "and that's not Islamic at all....this monolithic version of Arabs and Muslims (has) been created through the media and through current events that have been distorted."

What is the climate like for these students in U.S. schools?

In order to thrive academically, students need to feel a secure sense of belonging at school (St-Amand et al, 2017). Educators can determine if this is happening through four markers: positive emotions, positive relationships with peers and teachers, willingness to get involved in group activities, and harmonization, where students adapt to situations and people around them in order to fit in.

At first, Jaber saw all of these markers in the students she observed. "Some of them are top tier, doing excellent, straight A's, involved in extracurricular activities. They seem to have some type of social circle. They have great relationships with their teachers. Teachers aren't complaining that these kids are difficult or unmanageable. So they check all of these boxes."

When she interviewed the students, however, a different picture emerged. "The things they revealed were very, very contrary to what you would see on the outside. Their stories show that they didn't feel included at all."

She found that students fit into one of three categories:

They assimilate to fit in. These students bring a change of clothes to school, give themselves more American-sounding nicknames, or deny cultural markers, like sitting at the regular lunch table while fasting for Ramadan, rather than at a designated table for students who were fasting. These choices create a lot of dissonance between students and their parents, who want them to stay aligned with their religion and maintain a sense of pride in their cultural identity.

They immerse themselves in extracurriculars and sports. Finding a common hobby is a way for some students to develop camaraderie with other, non-Arab students. But the friendships are largely superficial. "These kids were very intentional to only share what they had in common, which was the sport. Once they got deeper into identities and shared experiences, they had nothing in common." When Jaber asked students if the relationships continued past the end of the activity, the end of the season, "The answer was almost always no."

They silo themselves. In a process Banks (2017) calls failed citizenship, these students retreat from the larger population and keep to themselves, focusing on schoolwork and making no attempt to integrate themselves into the culture. In her interviews with these students, Jaber says "a lot of things I heard were like They're never going to accept us, and I'm not willing to compromise who I am."

"All three of those scenarios are obviously really unhealthy and go against what we believe to be best practice and kind of a healthy culture for students, whether it's a classroom or an entire school," Jaber says.

When working with Palestinian students, Jaber noticed an especially acute sense of disconnection. "They are considered by default anti-Semitic and anti-American by claiming their Palestinian identity," she says. "And one of the biggest traumas for Palestinian students who live generational trauma through their parents' experiences already is the idea that I can't claim this part of myself. When I look at the map, I don't see that part of myself. When I'm reading books in global studies classes or in literature classes, I'm always being portrayed as a terrorist, or I'm always being portrayed as somebody who cannot coexist with other people."

Imagining Something Better

So what would it look like if a school environment was a nurturing place where Arab-American students experienced a more authentic sense of belonging?

"I would imagine it would look the same for any student who comes from any type of marginalized background," Jaber begins, "-or even not necessarily from a marginalized background. If I have a handful of white students in a primarily Black school, for example, what would it look like for those white students to feel like they belong in that environment as well?"

Some of the features we'd notice in a school that made these students feel included are:

Ease in using first language. "If they have a first language," Jaber says, "they're embracing that first language in writing."

Willingness to share cultural identifiers. "They share things about themselves that we wouldn't know otherwise," Jaber says. "And they're offering to do that. It's not best practice to go to a student and say, 'Hey, why don't you tell us about Ramadan,' for example. But it's great when you have a kid who's writing an assignment and they're willing to share about Ramadan, because it's something that they decide is important enough for them to share, and they feel safe enough to share it."

Representation in materials. "The school is creating what Rudine Sims Bishop calls mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. So intentionally in activities, in classrooms, in curriculum, (these students) see themselves represented accurately."

Representation in personnel. "They see a representation of themselves in school-whether it's administration or teachers-people who understand them and look like them that can be role models and safe spaces."

The thread that runs through all of these features is that a student's cultural identity is a built-in, organic part of the school experience, creating an environment in which the student is no longer an "other."

"It's about kids feeling that your teacher thinks that who you are is important enough for them to be doing the work to really immerse themselves in getting to know who you are," Jaber says.

Steps Teachers Can Take Toward a More Inclusive Climate

Before we get into action steps, it's important to note that although our examples are provided through the lens of supporting Arab-American students, they apply to all students and their cultural backgrounds.

They will also benefit all students, regardless of their identities.

"Whether (your school has) one student, 10 students or even if you have no Arab students, having these conversations is really important," Jaber explains. "Because eventually these kids are going to move out into the real world and interact with all different types of people. They're going to be (part of) decision-making bodies. They're going to be in political positions. They're going to be doctors who are going to have Arab patients. They're going to have interactions with people who might be from this background and other backgrounds. And so one of the things that we have to do for all students is really arm them with the tools to be able to recognize, interrogate, appreciate people from other backgrounds, whatever that looks like."

Know Your Students and Their Families

Getting to know students as individuals and learning about their unique, specific cultures will go a long way toward making them feel seen and included. "It's really important if you're teaching populations of Arab students or teaching about Arab students to consider the fact that the Arab countries are so different," Jaber says. "Anybody who immerses themselves in the Arab culture will realize how beautiful and how rich and how diverse, and how much it has to offer."

From the very start of the school year, instead of focusing primarily on establishing protocols, prioritize relationships. "Our first two weeks of school in my classroom," Jaber says, "we always start with really interrogating positionality, sharing how we identify, sharing real stories that really impact who we are, like childhood stories of-here are some things that happened to me that really shape how I view the world. I ask the students, How do you see yourself? How does the world see you? And how do those things impact how you view and see the world?"

This process can happen through class discussions, through journals, or in one-on-one conversations. It's essential, Jaber says, for teachers to set the tone by sharing their own stories with students. When she does this, "I am teaching somebody who has never heard about Palestine or Palestinians or refugees or understood refugee experiences by counter-storytelling. Telling your story, and not having somebody else tell your story the way they see it, can change minds and hearts by itself."

Getting to know your students well should also include building relationships with their families. Making this happen requires intentionality and creativity; just putting out a broad invitation to all parents to participate in events or serve on advisory committees will likely not be enough.

"Even when there's an all-call, very few parents of color will often come to the table because you have not done a good enough job to make the kids who you interact with on a daily basis feel safe. So the parents definitely aren't going to come running to the table either. It has to be intentional, and part of the way to do that is to offer parents the tools, classes, universities, workshops, and opportunities like translating things, offering things in the evenings so that parents who have jobs and have to work or have younger kids and can't afford babysitting come to the table and participate in a lot of ways. If you're not getting that representation, really interrogating your culture and your environment and asking why."

Enrich Your Curriculum

In an effort to be culturally responsive, some schools bring in texts that they think are reflective of Arab students' culture, but that ultimately miss the mark. This happens frequently with Khaled Hosseini's book, The Kite Runner.

"Hosseini is Afghanistani," Jaber explains. "So it's not even anything that any of these kids, whether Arab or Muslim, can really relate to because it's an extremist form of Islam. I'm not taking away from his experience and his story, but it definitely is a unique experience and a unique story that many Muslims around the world can't relate to."

Instead of adding one or two single-story texts to your curriculum, strive to broaden your existing collection to include a wide variety of stories from many countries. "There's so many Arab poets that you can bring into the classroom and highlight and have the kids feel that pride in their own language and in their own history, and then feel more comfortable sharing it because they feel like you value it as a teacher."

This also applies outside the English classroom. "Offer Arabic as a second language," Jaber suggests. "There's Arab contributions in science. There's Arab and Muslim contributions in history in America way before the violent representations in World War II and definitely before 9/11, right? Which is usually where Arab and Muslim history and current events starts and ends. There's so much more to who we are and our contributions as Americans in this country."

When it comes to Palestinian students, Jaber says, "I'm not going to get into the complexities of Palestine and Israel and tell anybody what they should think about that in general, but I really think it's important -because I know we're not there yet as a country to represent one or the other-to represent, at least represent both. At least bring in the Palestinian perspective. Validate your students' identities. Let them see themselves and their experiences and their histories represented accurately as well in what you're teaching in the classroom."

If you teach history in grades 11 or 12, one excellent resource is the University of Pennsylvania's Teaching Beyond September 11th curriculum, which Jaber had a hand in creating. The curriculum looks at the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath through a critical and social justice lens.

Ask Students (and Former Students)

One of the best ways to learn how to improve the climate for the Arab students in your specific school is to ask them. A believer in the Street Data approach, Jaber suggests that teachers assemble focus groups of students, parents, and former students, who can be an especially rich source of insight.

"Bring the kids who graduated from the school and their parents and ask them, What didn't work for you? Let's fix it. You have a resource. Kids are often, when they're not a part of the system anymore, much more vocal about what didn't work for them when they were a part of that system."

When running these focus sessions, invite students who represent different groups. "The kids who were academically doing well and the kids who didn't do so well academically, the kids who were in the dean's office every week or every day. Talk to them and ask them what motivated them to act the way they did during school."

Build Staff Representation

"Just like any other group of students, (Arab-American students) benefit from seeing Arab teachers and administrators in districts where there is a number of Arab students," Jaber says. Schools with a deep desire to help a diverse student body feel a sense of belonging will take intentional steps to build a faculty that reflects that same diversity.

"You have the power."

When asked if she had any final thoughts, Jaber wanted to end on a note of optimism and empowerment for teachers.

"We have so much that we can really impact and shape for these kids," she says. "Sometimes there's kids who the only reason they come to school is because they need to see you. Teachers sometimes don't acknowledge or name the power and the impact that they have on shaping students' lives. Sometimes you're the hope that they have in a world that just feels so hopeless. Take that power and do something great with it."

References

Banks, J. A. (2017). Failed citizenship and transformative civic education. Educational Researcher, 46(7). https://doi.org/10.3102%2F0013189X17726741 [PDF]

St-Amand, J., Girard, S., & Smith, J. (2017). Sense of belonging at school: Defining attributes, determinants, and sustaining strategies. IAFOR Journal of Education, 5(2). https://doi.org/10.22492/ije.5.2.05 [PDF]

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How Teachers Can Support Arab-American Students

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Sponsored by Fearless Schools and Google's Applied Digital Skills One November morning in 2015, Sawsan Jaber was in her suburban Illinois classroom preparing for a day of teaching. As an Palestinian-American teacher in a district with an overwhelmingly white teaching staff, Jaber already felt out of place among her colleagues; that feeling was underscored by what happened next.

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Soon the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks from 2001 will be commemorated again both in and out of schools. Year after year, the tragedy of 9/11 is taught in schools across America on that day. Although children in school today were not alive to witness this tragedy, they are immersed in conversations that often demonize all Arabs and Muslims. Thus, Arab and Muslim children are still feeling the deep-rooted impacts of 9/11 in all spaces, including schools. It is essential to address how 9/11's impacts exacerbated anti-Arab and anti-Islamic sentiments in the United States, creating pathways to reinforce and advance Muslim stereotypes as well as anti-Islamic sentiments in societies and schools. In collaboration, politicians, reporters, and educators through school curricula have created a direct link between the 9/11 attacks and Islam, heightening anti-Islamic sentiments as a part of the ethos of our country (Ahmad & Szpara, 2003). The result is the birth of hostile environments for Arabs, Muslims, and those perceived to be so (Ahmad & Szpara, 2003; Bajaj et al., 2016).

Muslim, Arab, and Brown youth have become normalized targets of bullying since 9/11, magnifying the need for adults and educators to actively work to reverse these impacts (Bajaj et al., 2016). President Trump's issuance of Executive Order No. 13769 in January 2017 banned seven countries with majority Muslim populations from entering the United States. Arab Muslims have been a target in the United States for decades, and the President's support of anti-Islamic sentiment amplified negative stereotypes. This, along with other post-9/11 laws that were passed, such as the Patriot Act, worked to alienate Arab and Muslim populations, siloing them and creating a perception that their identities are in direct conflict with their American intersections (Whitehead et al., 2019). Banks (2017) refers to Arabs as "perpetual foreigners" in the United States despite how many generations of their family existed in America. How does this translate into the classroom? One of the most common comments reiterated to Arabs and Muslims, especially hijabi women and girls, is "go back to your country." I always found that to be jarring since I hold no other citizenship besides my American passport. Born and raised in Brooklyn, could I be any more American?

Many educators who have not had authentic interactions with Arab and Muslim communities but have been immersed in a singular narrative hold many of these similar beliefs. After all, even educators were immersed in the same single narratives and have not done the work to deconstruct the falsehoods in order to reconstruct new understandings. The impacts of anti-Islamic sentiments on Muslim and Arab students play a significant role in public schools (Ahmad & Szpara, 2003). According to interviews conducted by Ahmad and Szpara (2003), Muslim students believed that negative stereotypes about Islamic values are pervasive in public schools, and feel the direct impacts of them through the promotion of hostile environments directly affecting their academic performance and feelings of inclusion and belonging (Jaber, 2022; Whitehead et al. 2019). For many students this has translated into a need for them to assimilate, giving up any of their cultural and religious identity markers in order to survive their contexts (Jaber, 2022; Schlein & Chan, 2010).

Given the exponential growth of Arab and Muslim communities in the United States in the last twenty years, it is integral to understand the invisibility of these subgroups, the impacts of their misrepresented identities, and how that causes them to become hypervisible when they are bullied (Pew Research Center, 2020). This is especially worthy of conversation since the Arab identity and subgroup is often missing from conversations in spaces priding themselves on equity work, a misstep often attributed to the fact that they are considered white on the census, deeming them invisible when it comes to conversations about meeting their particular needs, ESSA ratings, and special funding, among other things (Jaber, 2022).

In the midst of another 9/11 commemoration, I am writing this blog post as a call to action for teachers across the country. Do not fall into the trope of commemorating a tragedy for all Americans by perpetuating harm on your Arab and Muslim students. September 11 was a tragedy for our communities, too. If we are not teaching it as a single story, it becomes imperative for teachers to also talk about how 9/11 was used to normalize aggression against Arab and Muslim bodies both in the United States and abroad, desensitizing people under the banner of anti-terrorist action or the need to keep America safe. I say this as the mother of a young sophomore who was asked by her English teacher to apologize to the class for 9/11, in a school where over forty percent of the students look like her. In schools across the country, Arab and Muslim students are made to feel smaller through this conversation and others like it when curriculum is constantly misrepresenting their identities (Jaber, 2022). The birth of the Patriot Act and the acceptance of the general American people of the violation of our constitutional rights should be taught alongside the impacts of 9/11 if we are not teaching it as a single story. The representation of the extremist act of violence as a religious war against America, Muslims against everyone else, must also be taught. The deep-rooted impact felt by my daughter and innumerable other Arab and Muslim students in schools across the country, and how this has impacted their identities, birthing a sense of duality to survive schools and feign inclusiveness, must also be discussed. (Jaber, 2019).
Intentions are not equity
Currently, cultural responsiveness has become a weaponized term in schools across the country, where approximately 36 states have enacted anti-CRT bans disabling teachers from doing equity work in transformative ways. Historically, teachers attempting to be culturally responsive to Arab and Muslim students have used The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini to create mirrors for Arab and Muslim students, and windows for others to understand the Arab and Muslim lived experiences. However, this representation-or misrepresentation, rather-is damaging for a variety of reasons.

Many educators conflate Arabs and Muslims as being synonymous. Although they can overlap, they are not, in fact, the same. Muslims follow the faith of Islam and can come from anywhere; it is an identity of faith, not a geographical place. Arabs are people who originate from 22 Arab-speaking countries and are followers of multiple faiths. Many Arabs are Muslim, but not all Muslims are Arab, just like not all Arabs are Muslim. Afghanistan is not an Arab country; therefore, The Kite Runner is not a mirror for Arab students, nor a window or sliding door for other students to learn about the Islamic faith nor the Arab culture and experiences. The experience of the protagonist in the novel is fueled by an extremist Muslim regime and not by the beautiful faith of Islam in its true form. Islam in the novel is misrepresented, modeling much of the representation in mainstream media. Therefore, the novel is not a mirror for Muslim students either.

The Kite Runner is problematic because it is representative of a single story perpetuated by Western media that is meant to amplify fear of Arab and Muslim identities, normalizing aggression against them in spaces and institutions like schools. Research indicates that one in three Arab students and students with Arab-like physical identifiers were bullied by a teacher (Bajaj et al., 2016). This number is alarming since it is not taking into account the bullying students face by their peers as well as the fact that teachers are the ones responsible for creating inclusive spaces for all students.
What else can be done?
What we fail to see as we weaponize equity work is that the interest of all Americans converges when equity work is done with fidelity and transformatively. Would we have to worry about shootings in schools or other public places if every student in our schools felt included and seen? What if every student appreciated and understood the lived experiences of diverse people they shared space with? Would we have to watch the murder of another Black man if critical conversations to dismantle these stereotypes were happening in classrooms across our country, facilitated by teachers who believed in the transformative power of American classrooms?

Providing brave spaces for all students is integral to make all students feel included and to build self-advocacy and civic-engagement skills. We cannot claim to be inclusive or equitable if we are not meeting the needs of all students, including our Arab American students.
Resources
I had the privilege of working with a group of scholars and university and curriculum experts on a curriculum that helps teachers understand and teach 9/11 more holistically. This project was led by Penn Graduate School of Education and is rich with resources: Teaching beyond September 11 .
References
Durrani, M., & Jaber, S. (2021). Module 15: Muslim Youth and Resistance (2015).

Jaber, S. (2019). Perceptions of Inclusion and Belonging of Arab American Students: A Case Study in a Midwestern Suburban School (Doctoral dissertation, Concordia University Chicago).

Jaber, S. (2022). Invisibility and hypervisibility of Arab American female students in times of heightened Anti-Arab and Anti-Islamic sentiment. In K. Monkman, A. Frkovich, & A. Proweller (Eds.), Navigating precarity in educational contexts: Reflection, pedagogy, and activism for change (pp. 34-49). Routledge.
It is the policy of NCTE in all publications, including the Literacy & NCTE blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. Dr. Sawsan Jaber is a global educator, presenter, equity strategist, and keynote speaker of 20+ years. She has held a variety of leadership positions both in the US and abroad. Jaber is currently a high school English teacher at East Leyden High School in Franklin Park, IL. In that role she also serves on the district's Equity and Leadership Committee. Jaber founded Education Unfiltered Consulting and works with schools both nationally and internationally. She focuses on curriculum mapping, strategic planning, custom tailoring a social justice curriculum for schools, and anti-bias training. She completed her PhD with a focus on inclusion and belonging of students from marginalized communities. Jaber is a Board Director of Our Voice Alliance (OVA), charged with amplifying the voices of teachers of color to create more equity for students of color. Additionally, she is one of the founders of the Arab American Education Network (AAEN). She is a member of the International Society for Technology in Education professional learning network (ISTE PLN). Jaber is a National Board Certified teacher and focuses most of her research on engaging students in equity work and advocating for Arab and Muslim students. Among other projects, she is currently working on national and international equity-centered projects with Google and the National Board Association. Jaber has been featured in several conferences and podcasts, and written several blog, journal, and newsletter publications with the hopes to continue working with educators to empower students to work toward global equity and justice. She is excited to be in the process of publishing her first co-written book, Teaching in Precarious School Contexts. She can be reached via email or on Twitter.

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The Miseducation of Americans on Arab and Muslim Identities

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Soon the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks from 2001 will be commemorated again both in and out of schools. Year after year, the tragedy of 9/11 is taught in schools across America on that day.

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Equity, Education, & Storytelling featuring Sawsan Jaber

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Equity, Education, & Storytelling featuring Sawsan Jaber

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how do i say sawsan jabar - Google Search

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Dr. Sawsan Jaber, NBCT. @SJEducate. Education Unfiltered Consultant, Cook County TOY, IDEA Illinois TOY, OVA board member, HS Eng teacher, scholar activist,…

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April 5, 2023 Arab American Heritage Month

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USA Cover UK Cover Available Now A stand-alone novel.

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A classroom teacher for fifteen years, Jeffrey D. Wilhelm is currently Professor of English Education at Boise State University. He works in local schools as part of a Virtual Professional Development Site Network sponsored by the Boise State Writing Project, and regularly teaches middle and high school students. Jeff is the founding director of the Maine Writing Project and the Boise State Writing Project.

Michael W. Smith, a professor in Temple University's College of Education, joined the ranks of college teachers after eleven years of teaching high school English. His research focuses on understanding both how adolescents and adults engage with texts outside school and how teachers can use those understandings to devise more motivating and effective instruction inside schools.

Hugh Kesson trained as a high school teacher in London and has since worked in a variety of educational roles and settings in the UK, US, and Australia. He earned his Ph D at Temple University's College of Education where his doctoral work investigated the influences of digital technologies on reading and reading instruction. Hugh's writing has appeared in English Teaching: Practice & Critique.

Deborah Appleman is Professor of Educational Studies and Director of the Summer Writing Program at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Her primary interests include adolescent response to literature, multicultural literature, and the teaching of literary theory to high school students. A high school English teacher for nine years, Deborah works weekly in urban and suburban high schools.

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Fighting Fake News: Teaching Students to Identify and Interrogate Information Pollution|Paperback

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Critical thinking and online reading need to go hand in hand-but they often don’t. Students click, swipe, and believe because they don’t know how to do otherwise. At times, so do we. And that’s a problem. Fighting Fake News combats this challenge by helping you model how...

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Learn about a million things about essay writing here...

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Learn about a million things about essay writing here...

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Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2022
Algonquin / Hardback ($27.00) / Number of pages 256 / Publication date October 25, 2022 / ISBN 9781643753041

From the publisher: In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prize-winning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships. Throughout Inciting Joy, he explores how we can practice recognizing that connection, and also, crucially, how we expand it. In "We Kin" he thinks about the garden (especially around August, when the zucchini and tomatoes come on) as a laboratory of mutual aid; in "Share Your Bucket" he explores skateboarding's reclamation of public space; he considers the costs of masculinity in "Grief Suite"; and in "Through My Tears I Saw," he recognizes what was healed in caring for his father as he was dying. In an era when divisive voices take up so much air space, Inciting Joy offers a vital alternative: What might be possible if we turn our attention to what brings us together, to what we love? Full of energy, curiosity, and compassion, Inciting Joy is essential reading from one of our most brilliant writers.

Praise

"Inciting Joy is a book that will break your heart. Ross Gay will break your heart. He will break it and advocate for breaking it over and over. Why? So we can choose our life, our survival, our full humanity. Inciting Joy is brilliant because it's not just a book; it's proof that the way we carve out room for joy is by acknowledging our constant teacher: sorrow."
- Ada Limón, U.S. Poet Laureate
"This is instantly one of my favorite books ever. A wondering-aloud to which I will be returning often, and a brilliant manifesto making a case for joy as a thing which is as complex and rigorous as it is lovely and free. In that sneaky way Ross Gay has of lovingly disarming you before getting you to dwell in rooms of your heart you'd left vacant, Inciting Joy uses its titular emotion as a window into sorrow and rage, into gifts and loss, into the tricky business of being alive."
- Eve L. Ewing, author of Ghosts in The Schoolyard, Electric Arches, and Marvel Comic's Ironheart series
"In essays that are lyrical, pensive, and surprising, poet Gay sheds light on all the places joy can lurk [...] Gay's a remarkable writer, and the collection makes for a spellbinding meditation on the ways joy deepens and grows in the company of grief, fear, and loss."
- Publishers Weekly, best book of 2022: nonfiction
"Ross Gay is as insightful and lyrical as an essayist as he is as a poet. His essays are as trenchant as they are moving, finding in the minutiae of life the grand themes of human existence."
- Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of War is Force that Gives Us Meaning and America: The Farewell Tour
"Written over the course of the pandemic, Gay ponders joy, defining it less as the absence of sorrow and rather as our response to it."
- CNN.com
"The award-winning poet considers joy - how we incite it, how we can expand it and most importantly, how we experience it by caring for others - in this timely collection that defies divisiveness."
- USA Today
"A gift that's meant to be shared [...] inspires us to look beyond the miseries of our era to envision a more welcoming future, Gay...offer[s] a concept of joy akin to what Audre Lorde conceptualized in her essay 'Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.' Get yourself a copy of Inciting Joy, then gift yourself the great pleasure of giving it away."
- The Washington Post
"A raucous affair, with dancing, fabulous covers of all your favorite songs, tons of food, a backyard full of folks [...] and all their sorrows, too [...] these essays are arguments embedded in stories that stretch like rubber bands around the topics of laughter, basketball, skateboarding, gardening, time, dying, music, gratitude, and dancing. It's impossible to read them without feeling a shift in your awareness of joy and its unexpected possibilities."
- The Boston Globe
"Each [essay] is a mini-revelation and an absolute joy itself. This is a book that should live on your nightstand."
-San Francisco Chronicle
"Lyrical and insightful."
-AARP.com
"What Gay delivers is no small gift."

-Indianapolis Monthly

"Exuberant."

-Washington Independent Review of Books

"Ross Gay follows The Book of Delights with another dazzling collection of lyric essays."

-Salon.com

"Another thoughtful, compassionate, and timely essay collection that focuses on the deeper meaning of joy. It's a tender and reflective collection that is sure to sit with you long after you finish."
- BuzzFeed
"He is many things-an award-winning essayist and poet, but also a community gardener and former basketball coach-and these roles are the details that till the soil of what blooms in his writing. Gay exudes a generosity of spirit. It's true in person and on the page, evidenced in his newest collection of essays, Inciting Joy."
- The Rumpus, November book club selection
"Stunning...Gay's curiosity is present on every page and his precise yet playful prose sparkles...This resonant, vivid meditation shouldn't be missed."
- Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Ross Gay's work throws off so much light, I've often wondered if it was powered by a superior energy source. He has done something new and beautiful with Inciting Joy. He has sunk a bioluminescent depth-charge into our time, one which peers into the whole sea of experience around us: revealing it full of connection, mystery and a longing for relief."
- John Freeman, founder of Freeman's literary magazine and editor of The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story
"In this masterful, raw, and stirring collection of essays, Ross Gay has once again coaxed his readers to awaken to our full humanity. There is no way to dance through these vivid and skillful recollections of life's truest moments-planting a community orchard, witnessing a loved one pass away, eating your first fresh fig-without emerging misty eyed at the hallowed beauty of what it is to be alive. Ross Gay helps us to understand that our joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with each other, and when we can invite sorrow close to share a proverbial cup of tea, that is when our deepest joy is incited. In caring for one another, in paying attention to what we mourn and love in common, in emulating the generosity of the garden, in inhabiting our sacred and unpayable debt to the earth-therein lies our kinship and the possibility of collective joy and liberation. Inciting Joy will make you gasp in wonderment as your truest truths are laid bare, and you will go back and reread the lines over and over, whispering, 'This, yes, this!'"
- Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm and author of Farming While Black
"Powerful. Perhaps the highest praise I can offer for Inciting Joy is that...it sparked a delightful conversation about the wealth of stories, characters, memories and subjects the book undertakes, building upon one another to create such a rich biodiversity on the page that I often found myself reading passages multiple times just to make sure I'd absorbed every detail."
- BookPage
"Gay's poetically influenced prose is nothing short of joyful. Blending the serious and the playful, this essay collection incites joy with writings about a wide range of actions and places . . . his essays have a through line of offering the deeply personal and speaking truth to power . . . Gay's pedagogy, explained in detail, disrupts the systems that are baseline incongruent with joy, as does his writing, in every sentence."

"[Inciting Joy] offers a rigorous and candid examination, or "Incitements," of what it means to pay attention and study what brings us joy, even as we understand and accept its entanglement of sorrows. It's a manifesto, a movement - a magnificent showcase of Ross's descriptive and digressive powers - and at its thrumming, galloping core, it's "a practice of survival."
- Poets & Writers, cover feature
"In a series of essays on such disparate themes as skateboarding, grief, pickup basketball, cover songs, orchards, death, and school, Gay expounds on his thesis, beautifully stated in the book's introduction: joy, emerging from our shared human experience of sorrow, can provoke new solidarities, leading to love, to survival, to change that looks like shared flourishing."
- Ploughshares
"Gay is a treasure, and his latest offering will delight his fans as well as those new to his work."
- Library Journal Weekly
"Warm, candid ... breezy and soulful... A pleasingly digressive and intimate memoir in essays."
- Kirkus Reviews
"Ross Gay has a single-minded focus: making the world a better place. ...energetic... full-length essays that showcase the breadth of his interests and the vibrancy of his prose. ... a consistently uplifting book. This lively set of 14 essays from a talented poet considers how to bring more joy to our lives."
- Shelf Awareness
"With language that skips along like a game of hopscotch, Inciting Joy promises to deliver heart-swelling insights into life, death and the joyful necessity of interdependence."
- BookPage, Most Anticipated Books of the Fall
"Ross Gay has become a sort of pied piper for joy. He studies it in his own life, and beautifully writes both of its complexity-how one must welcome sorrow to truly feel joy's expansive width-and of its simplicity..."
- BOMB Magazine
"Gay profoundly demonstrates that not only could he write about joy, perhaps we all should be thinking about it, pursuing it, creating it, inciting it in our lives. These essays are intellectually rigorous... His prose is constantly engaging..."
- BookReporter.com
"Gorgeously written and timely pieces... Full of energy, curiosity, and compassion, Inciting Joy is essential reading from one of our most brilliant writers. Pick this up to feel lighter and more gracious all around."
- Book Riot
"These essays...clearly evidence his love of language, wordplay, and rhythm. [They] offer a new, thought-provoking way to view our society and future."
- San Francisco Book Review
"These beautiful, insightful essays explore racism, death, the joy of being in a community and interacting with the natural world."
- JewishBoston.com
"Each piece reinforces the theme that when we look out for one another, the outcome is joy."
- TheRoot.com

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Publisher's Weekly Best Books of 2022 Algonquin / Hardback ($27.00) / Number of pages 256 / Publication date October 25, 2022 / ISBN 9781643753041 From the publisher: In these gorgeously written and timely pieces, prize-winning poet and author Ross Gay considers the joy we incite when we care for each other, especially during life's inevitable hardships.

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Reading is a complex cognitive task. How is it that our minds are able to read? Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and acclaimed author, tackles that question in his book The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. He builds a cognitive model of reading to explain how people understand letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, and full texts. He discusses the critical role of motivation to read in gaining skill in reading. By concluding each chapter with bullet point summaries, implications, and discussion questions, The Reading Mind is easy-to-read. It provides good fodder for teachers, parents, education practioners, and policy-makers interested in thinking deeply about how we read and how we support people in reading more and with greater understanding.

Reading is important for individuals and societies because by writing ideas down we create permanent records of information and help ourselves expand what we are able to remember. While the advantages of reading and writing may be obvious, the process by which we read is less so. First, we must understand that letters correspond to speech sounds called phonemes. Being able to distinguish different sounds of speech is associated with success in reading. Unfortunately, distinguishing these sounds is difficult because people pronounce sounds differently, and the sounds can change depending on the other sounds that occur before or after. English has poor matching between letters and sounds. This slows down the process of learning to read English compared to languages with better matching.

Together letters make words. We do not typically read words letter-by-letter. Rather, we read words in letter clumps. Nearly every word has an associated sound, spelling, and meaning, each of which affects how we read. For example: (1) we read tongue twisters silently to ourselves more slowly than equivalent phrases with dissimilar sounding words; (2) instruction in spelling improves reading abilities; and (3) we are more ready to read words with meanings associate with the words we just read than words that are typically not related. Because students encounter about 85,000 unique words in school texts, vocabulary size matters for reading comprehension. Additionally, understanding deeply how words relate to one another and how to use them flexibly is valuable for developing skill in reading.

Willingham explains that an understanding of sentences requires an understanding of how one sentence relates to the next. As we read sentences we build a web of ideas. If readers cannot connect the ideas in sentences, then it is difficult to build such a web. Reading and understanding sentences is also aided by a rich understanding of knowledge about the world. A knowledgeable reader can fill in details a writer omits. Indeed, reading comprehension is much better the more background knowledge a reader has about the topic of the written material.

Beyond being able to read, Willingham argues that having the emotional motivation to do so is important. There is a virtuous cycle in which the more a person reads the better a reader he becomes. The better a reader he becomes the more he enjoys reading. The more he enjoys reading the more he reads. An individual's past experiences in reading, her sense of herself as a reader, how valuable (e.g., enjoyable, informative) she expects reading to be, and the value of reading relative to other possible activities all impact the likelihood that an individual will read. Making reading materials easily accessible can help people read more. Although many well-meaning teachers and parents try to incentivize reading with rewards, Willingham warns that when the reward is removed the student may actually read even less than before the reward was introduced.

Willingham concludes with a timely discussion of the relationship between technology and the reading mind. He argues that more research is needed to parse out the particular feature of technological interventions that have the power to improve reading. Although there is much concern about technology making youth more distractible, Willingham argues that this concern is not well-supported. It may be the case, however, that students are less willing to tolerate boredom. While teens' time spent with new technologies has not displaced time spent reading, Willingham still recommends limiting the amount of time youth spend on screens. Doing so may help make spending time reading a more appealing option.

As Willingham notes, it is difficult to translate science research about reading into recommendations for policy or practice. While being careful not to over-interpret research findings, The Reading Mind offers useful suggestions for how policy-makers and practioners can use cognitive psychological literature to inform their work. For additional insightful work by Willingham, see our review of his book Raising Kids Who Read.

Willingham, D.T. (2017). The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads by Daniel Willingham

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Reading is a complex cognitive task. How is it that our minds are able to read? Daniel T. Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia and acclaimed author, tackles that question in his book The Reading Mind: A Cognitive Approach to Understanding How the Mind Reads.

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In 2003 about one-third of American babies between six months and two years old had watched a video from the Baby Einstein series, which promised exposure to culture, poetry, music, and foreign languages. A 2007 study reported that babies who watched the videos performed "10 percent lower on language skills" than babies who didn't. Soon afterward, Disney spent about $100 million offering refunds to anyone who bought the videos between 2004 and 2009.

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In 2003 about one-third of American babies between six months and two years old had watched a video from the Baby Einstein series, which promised exposure to culture, poetry, music, and foreign languages. A 2007 study reported that babies who watched the videos performed "10 percent lower on language skills" than babies who didn't.

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Expanding on the popular podcast of the same name from On Being Studios, Poetry Unbound offers immersive reflections on fifty powerful poems., Poetry Unbound, 50 Poems to Open Your World, Pádraig Ó Tuama, 9781324035473

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Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Unhurried, contemplative and energizing. New episodes on Monday and Friday, about 15 minutes each. Two seasons per year, with occasional special offerings. Anchor your life with poetry.

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Listen to Poetry Unbound on Spotify. Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Unhurried, contemplative and energizing. New episodes on Monday and Friday, about 15 minutes each. Two seasons per year, with occasional special offerings. Anchor your life with poetry.

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The Gift by Li-Young Lee | Poetry Foundation

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our notes to help us read it as a two-voice poem

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our notes to help us read it as a two-voice poem

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Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

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Tom Vander Ark is an advocate for innovations in learning. As CEO of Getting Smart, he advises schools, districts, networks, foundations and learning organizations on the path forward. A prolific writer and speaker, Tom is author of Getting Smart, Smart Cities That Work for Everyone, Smart Parents, Better Together and The Power of Place. He has published thousands of articles, co-authored and contributed to more than 50 books and white papers. He writes regularly on GettingSmart.com, LinkedIn, and contributes to Forbes.

Previously, Tom served as the first Executive Director of Education for the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation. He also served as a public school superintendent in Washington state and has extensive private sector experience. Tom is a board member for Education Board Partners, Director for 4.0 Schools, Digital Learning Institute, Latinx Education Collaborative, and eduInnovation and an advisor for schools around the world.

Tom has presented at a variety of national conferences, including SXSWEdu, Aurora Institute Symposium, ASU+GSV Summit, ISTE, ASCD, National Charter Schools Conference and AACN Annual Meeting. He has also presented at international conferences including The World Bank, The Digital Education Show Middle East, and Bett Show.

Tom received the Distinguished Achievement Medal and graduated from the Colorado School of Mines. He earned an M.B.A. in finance from the University of Denver, and continues his education online.

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Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach

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Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach [Sam M. Intrator, Megan Scribner, Parker J. Palmer, Tom Vander Ark] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Teaching with Fire: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Teach

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The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (Paperback)

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Description

Following the success and momentum of his anthology How to Love the World (93,000 copies in print), James Crews's new collection, The Path to Kindness, offers more than 100 deeply felt and relatable poems from a diverse range of voices including well-known writers Julia Alvarez, Marie Howe, Ellen Bass, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alberto Ríos, Ross Gay, and Ada Limón, as well as new and emerging voices. Featured Black poets include January Gill O'Neil, Tracy K. Smith, and Cornelius Eady. Native American poets include Kimberly Blaeser, Joy Harjo (current U.S. Poet Laureate), and Linda Hogan. The collection also features international voices, including Canadian poets Lorna Crozier and Susan Musgrave. Presented in the same perfect-in-the-hand format as How to Love the World, the collection includes prompts for journaling and exploration of selected poems, a book group guide, bios of all the contributing poets, and stunning cover art by award-winning artist Dinara Mirtalipova. A foreword by Danusha Laméris, along with her popular poem "Small Kindnesses," is also included.

About the Author

James Crews is the editor of the best-selling anthology, How to Love the World, which has been featured on NPR's Morning Edition, in the Boston Globe, and the Washington Post, and is the author of four prize-winning collections of poetry: The Book of What Stays, Telling My Father, Bluebird, and Every Waking Moment. His poems have been reprinted in the New York Times Magazine, Ploughshares, The New Republic, and The Christian Century, and in former US poet laureate Ted Kooser's weekly newspaper column, "American Life in Poetry," and featured on Tracy K. Smith's podcast, The Slowdown. He worked with Ted Kooser on "American Life in Poetry," which reaches millions of readers across the world. Crews holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a PhD in writing and literature from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He teaches poetry at the University at Albany and lives with his husband in Shaftsbury, Vermont.

Danusha Laméris is the author of two books: The Moons of August (Autumn House, 2014), which was chosen by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize, and Bonfire Opera (University of Pittsburgh, 2020), which won the Northern California Book Award. Winner of the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award, she teaches in the Pacific University low-residency MFA Program and co-hosts with James Crews the Poetry of Resilience online seminars. She lives in Santa Cruz County, California.

Praise For...

"Our world desperately needs poems that help us come home to loving presence. You have in your hands an anthology with poems that directly nourish the spirit." - Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance

"This collection of poetry is soul food worthy of savoring. Each poem is a feast unto itself, delivering nourishment for the heart's greatest tenacity and generosity - so needed in our individual and collective lives. It is a banquet of blessings to which I will return often. Thank you." - Kristi Nelson, Executive Director of A Network for Grateful Living and author of Wake Up Grateful

" The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy is the book we all need right now to help guide us during this crazy time in living our lives with more kindness, compassion and joy." - Georgia Heard, author of A Field Guide to the Heart: Poems of Love, Comfort, and Hope

" The Path to Kindness is an anthology I've been seeking since I learned to read. To enter its pages is to enter a refuge, a sanctuary where the religion is tenderness and every voice encountered wears its heart on its sleeve. James Crews has curated these poems with exquisite care: the delicate threads linking each to the next weave the whole into a multivoiced spell that leaves the reader both broken open and deeply healed at once.
This is a return of poetry to it's sacred place as a song of prayer to the best in us, a song of grief for the lost in us, a song to awaken the possible in us. And ultimately, The Path to Kindness is a song that carries us beyond ourselves into the ways we touch each other's lives, nameable only in poems such as these." - Kim Rosen, author of Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words

"Is kindness a quaint, ineffectual virtue? For poet and editor James Crews, the answer is a resounding no. As he demonstrates throughout "The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy," a follow-up collection to his bestselling anthology "How to Love the World," kindness can be life-altering. It may also help people find a way forward during the most difficult days." - Christian Science Monitor

Product Details

ISBN: 9781635865332
ISBN-10: 1635865336
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication Date: April 12th, 2022
Pages: 224
Language: English

Categories

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The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy (Paperback) | Herringbone Books

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Back to top Usually Ships in 1-5 Days Following the success and momentum of his anthology How to Love the World (93,000 copies in print), James Crews's new collection, The Path to Kindness, offers more than 100 deeply felt and relatable poems from a diverse range of voices including well-known writers Julia Alvarez, Marie Howe, Ellen Bass, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alberto Ríos, Ross Gay, and Ada Limón, as well as new and emerging voices.

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Save Cover Preview for The Moons of August

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Danusha Lameris

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The Moons of August

Danusha Lameris

Winner of the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Contest, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye. This stunning debut collection explores family culture, motherhood, and memory.

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96 pages | 5.5 x 8.5

Poetry

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Awards

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Reviews

“These poems are sensuous and lyrical; the poet is passionately present in the fleeting moment ‘listening carefully with the body’s rapt attention’. . . . And they are also elegiac, haunted by impermanence and past sorrow, always aware that ‘the gods do not like to dole out too much honey.’”

San Bernardino Sun

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Winner of the 2013 Autumn House Press Poetry Contest, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye. This stunning debut collection explores family culture, motherhood, and memory.

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Poems

Bonfire Opera, Danusha Lameris' ravishing second collection of poems, lives up to its title and then some. In melodic and sumptuous lines, she considers desire, sorrow, beauty and death.This is a collection you will want to keep close, 'a reminder to begin, again, by listening carefully with the body's rapt attention.'

Ellen Bass

Sometimes the most compelling landscapes are the ones where worlds collide: where a desert meets the sea, a civilization, no-man's land. Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden. Coyotes cry out on the hill, and lovers find themselves kissing, "bee-stung, drunk" in the middle of road. Here, the dust is holy, as is the dark, unknown. These are poems that praise the impossible, wild world, finding beauty in its wake.

Excerpt from "Bonfire Opera"
In those days, there was a woman in our circle
who was known, not only for her beauty,
but also for taking off all her clothes and singing opera.
And sure enough, as the night wore on and the stars
emerged to stare at their reflections on the sea,
and everyone had drunk a little wine,
she began to disrobe, loose her great bosom
and the tender belly, pale in the moonlight,
the Viking hips, and to let her torn raiment
fall to the sand as we looked up from the flames.

about the author

Danusha Laméris is the author of The Moons of August, selected by Naomi Shihab Nye as the winner of the Autumn House Press poetry prize and was a finalist for the Milt Kessler Book Award. Some of her poems have been published in: The Best American Poetry, The New York Times, The American Poetry Review, Tin House, The Gettysburg Review, and Ploughshares. She teaches poetry independently, and is the current Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.

learn more

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Bonfire Opera - University of Pittsburgh Press

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9780822966050|Poems| Sometimes the most compelling landscapes are the ones where worlds collide: where a desert meets the sea, a civilization, no-man's land. Here in Bonfire Opera, grief and Eros grapple in the same domain. A bullet-hole through the heart, a house full of ripe persimmons, a ghost in a garden.

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Books are offered at exclusively low prices and shipped to the classroom for free. Plus each order gives back to the class in FREE Books and resources.

Parent: To place an order, you must be connected to a teacher via the Class Code, or search for the teacher to get connected. If you already have an account, just SIGN IN.

Share your Class Code with friends and extended family for ordering online.

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Girl meets girl in this warm and inviting novel in verse about opposites who attract...and find a way to see each other as they really are!

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Reading poetry to survive the unimaginable tragedies this month.

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Reading poetry to survive the unimaginable tragedies this month.

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0:00 / 18:24•Watch full video

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Section One: Planning Decisions

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section Two: Teaching Essential Discourses

1. Narrative

2. Informational

3. Argument

4. Multigenre Research Projects

This book is divided into two sections. Section 1, "Planning Decisions," takes you through the process we used-and you might consider-to plan a year of teaching. The section includes five chapters:

1. Start with Beliefs

2. Establish Daily Practices

3. Map a Year of Reading

4. Map a Year of Writing

5. Balance Feedback and Evaluation

Section 2, "Teaching Essential Discourses," begins with an introduction that explains the general framework for planning a unit of study in a specific writing discourse. Then, in the four chapters that follow, we detail the decisions we made in four discourse studies: narrative, informational, argument, and multigenre. Our hope is that by reading about the decisions we made as we planned together, you will be inspired to reimagine the beautiful possibilities for your teaching.
- Introduction

This book is a brilliant work of architecture-the making of an English course. How do you shape the movement of the 180 days, balancing open space and structure, individuality and assessment, breadth and depth (not to mention managing the damn thing). Two of our country's most innovative teachers, Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher take on this challenge in a cross-country collaboration, exploring the art of the possible. This book-and its amazing video accompaniment-illustrates not so much the fixed course everyone should teach (even they don't totally agree on that), but how to think through the making, and the principles that should be its foundation.-Thomas Newkirk

Spending 180 days on the job and in the world with Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher is like apprenticing yourself to a year in the kitchen with two master chefs who speak honestly and passionately about the challenges we face and the choices we must make every day in our own classrooms. I learned something new on every page, verbally annotating just about every suggestion with a mental "Yes!" or "Try this!" At every turn, they acknowledge and address the constraints, especially of time, we all face in our classes-then show us how they manage to teach their students so much and so well despite those constraints.-Jim Burke, author of The English Teacher's Companion

"This book is everything. I mean this whole-heartedly and without exaggeration - this book is everything. It is everything I needed when I began teaching, and it is exactly what I need now to reflect on my practices, my curriculum, and my kids. The depth of knowledge and experience here, living alongside the breadth of thinking across the time and space of a school year, takes my breath away. Thank you, Penny and Kelly. May my children have teachers who have read and used this book."--Kate Roberts, author of A Novel Idea

Who among us hasn't wished to be a fly on the wall of Penny's and Kelly's classrooms? In 180 Days, we aren't just flies-we are invited into their brains, their plan books, and their friendship as they answer the question that plagues every teacher: how to do it all in one year? This book is not about how to find time where time doesn't exist. It's not about turning 180 days into 200 days so you can fit everything in. This book is about making decisions about what really matters enough and how to make the most of the time we are given with our students. It honors teachers as decision-makers and reminds us of the power of professional collaboration to change not only our students' learning but also our own professional lives.-Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell, coauthors of Writing With Mentors and Beyond Literary Analysis

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180 Days represents the collaboration of two master teachers-Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle-over an entire school year: planning, teaching, and reflecting

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Analyzing a 9th grade writing conference together

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Analyzing a 9th grade writing conference together

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Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside

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Where the Deer and the Antelope Play: The Pastoral Observations of One Ignorant American Who Loves to Walk Outside - Kindle edition by Offerman, Nick. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Wh…

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#1 New York Times Bestseller "Funny and smart as hell" (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh's Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations.

FROM THE PUBLISHER:
Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, "The God of Cake," "Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving," and her astonishing, "Adventures in Depression," and "Depression Part Two," which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written.

Brosh's debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to.

FROM THE AUTHOR:
This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative-like maybe someone who isn't me wrote it-but I soon discovered that I'm not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book:

Pictures
Words
Stories about things that happened to me
Stories about things that happened to other people because of me
Eight billion dollars*
Stories about dogs
The secret to eternal happiness*

*These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!

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Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

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Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened [Allie Brosh] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

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Prepare yourself for something unlike anything: A smash-up of art and text for teens that viscerally captures what it is to be Black. In America. Right Now. Written by #1 New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Jason Reynolds. REALLY breathe,

Jason Reynolds and his best bud, Jason Griffin had a mind-meld. And they decided to tackle it, in one fell swoop, in about ten sentences, and 300 pages of art, this piece, this contemplation-manifesto-fierce-vulnerable-gorgeous-terrifying-WhatIsWrongWithHumans-hope-filled-hopeful-searing-Eye-Poppingly-Illustrated-tender-heartbreaking-how-The-HECK-did-They-Come-UP-with-This project about oxygen. And all of the symbolism attached to that word, especially NOW.

And so for anyone who didn't really know what it means to not be able to breathe, for generation s , now you know. And those who already do, you'll be nodding yep yep, that is exactly how it is.

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Ain't Burned All the Bright: Reynolds, Jason, Griffin, Jason: 9781534439467: Books - Amazon

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A National Indie Bestseller
An NPR Best Book of the Year
A New York Times Best Book of the Year

"A patchwork story is the shame of the refugee," Nayeri writes early in the novel. In an Oklahoman middle school, Khosrou (whom everyone calls Daniel) stands in front of a skeptical audience of classmates, telling the tales of his family's history, stretching back years, decades, and centuries. At the core is Daniel's story of how they became refugees-starting with his mother's vocal embrace of Christianity in a country that made such a thing a capital offense, and continuing through their midnight flight from the secret police, bribing their way onto a plane-to-anywhere. Anywhere becomes the sad, cement refugee camps of Italy, and then finally asylum in the U.S. Implementing a distinct literary style and challenging western narrative structures, Nayeri deftly weaves through stories of the long and beautiful history of his family in Iran, adding a richness of ancient tales and Persian folklore.

Like Scheherazade of One Thousand and One Nights in a hostile classroom, Daniel spins a tale to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. EVERYTHING SAD IS UNTRUE (a true story) is a tale of heartbreak and resilience and urges readers to speak their truth and be heard.
An Amazon Best Book of the Year
A Booklist Editors' Choice
A BookPage Best Book of the Year
A NECBA Windows & Mirrors Selection
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year
A Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year
A Today.com Best of the Year

PRAISE

"A modern masterpiece." -The New York Times Book Review

"Supple, sparkling and original." -The Wall Street Journal

"Mesmerizing." -TODAY.com

"This book could change the world." -BookPage

"Like nothing else you've read or ever will read." -Linda Sue Park

"It hooks you right from the opening line." -NPR

SEVEN STARRED REVIEWS

★ "A modern epic." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

★ "A rare treasure of a book." -Publishers Weekly, starred review

★ "A story that soars." -The Bulletin, starred review

★ "At once beautiful and painful." -School Library Journal, starred review

★ "Raises the literary bar in children's lit." -Booklist, starred review

★ "Poignant and powerful." -Foreword Reviews, starred review

★ "One of the most extraordinary books of the year." -BookPage, starred review

A sprawling, evocative, and groundbreaking autobiographical novel told in the unforgettable and hilarious voice of a young Iranian refugee. It is a powerfully layered novel that poses the questions: Who owns the truth? Who speaks it? Who believes it?

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Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story)

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Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story) - Kindle edition by Nayeri, Daniel. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Everything Sad Is Untrue: (a true story).

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Moving writing from quick writing to something longer...

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Moving writing from quick writing to something longer...