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Gallery | Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

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Gallery | Scholastic Art and Writing Awards

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Dweck's Response to Growth Mindset Criticism

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Dweck's Response to Growth Mindset Criticism

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Growth mindset interventions are becoming increasingly popular in schools. Lightspring/www.shutterstock.com

A growth mindset is the belief that intellectual abilities are not fixed, but can be developed. Do students who are taught a growth mindset earn higher grades and test scores?

Brooke Macnamara and her colleagues, who conducted a meta-analysis of growth mindset interventions, found that when students were taught a growth mindset, they showed significantly higher achievement. But Macnamara believes that the effects of these programs or interventions, while statistically significant, are too small to be practically meaningful.

My colleagues and I, along with educational evaluation experts, economists and the World Bank, disagree.

You're probably thinking that of course I would say the effects of growth mindset intervention are meaningful since my research is what led to their creation.

Yet our disagreement with Macnamara rests on exactly what one considers to be a meaningful effect size for an educational intervention. An effect size is a way to standardize treatment benefits across very different outcomes, like test scores and grade point averages.

Macnamara states that the average or typical effect size for an educational intervention is .57. In the case of grade point averages, this would mean that students in a typical intervention group would have grades that are about .57 points higher than a control group on a 4.0 scale.

Effects on grades

Looking closely at this literature, however, we found that most of the studies that yielded this .57 effect size did not examine effects on actual grades and standardized test scores at all. They often looked at performance on a quiz given minutes after students were taught something.

The right comparisons for the growth mindset interventions are educational interventions that looked at effects on actual grades and major test scores. As the examples below show, an effect size of .20 for grades or test scores within a school year is about the best you can expect. This is true of even the most costly and comprehensive programs - and especially for adolescents, the age group for which most growth mindset interventions take place.

For example, smaller class sizes for all the elementary schools in a state had an effect size of .20. In fact, a whole year of school learning from grade 9 to grade 10 yields an effect size of about .20 across subjects, as measured by standardized tests. A whole year with a good teacher, as opposed to an average teacher, usually yields an effect size of about .20.

Based on a search of the What Works Clearinghouse, a government site that reviews high-quality research on educational interventions, there are almost no rigorously evaluated interventions with significant effects on high school students' achievement. One of the most highly regarded of the few successful programs for high school students is a literacy program for at-risk 9th grade readers, with an effect size of .06 and a cost of almost US$2,000 per student.

Sue Dynarski, a leading educational economist, says that in real-world settings, an effect size of .20 is "a large effect."

The effect size that Macnamara reports for growth mindset interventions is .19 for students at risk for low achievement - that is, for the students most in need of an academic boost. When you include students who are not at risk or are already high achievers, the effect size is .08 overall. These effects don't look so small when you use the right comparisons. But there's more.

Inexpensive and efficient

Many growth mindset interventions last about an hour and cost less than $1 per student. They are delivered directly to students and do not change anything about the teacher, classroom or school. And yet they provide a reasonable chunk of the effects delivered by more extensive and costly interventions, even many of the best-in-class school reforms - such as smaller classes or better teachers.

Direct-to-student interventions are just one way to address students' mindsets. Colleagues at the University of Washington and Indiana University are now building a curriculum to help teachers implement growth mindset practices in their classrooms. This will take us closer to understanding the true potential of growth mindsets to enhance students' learning.

Our interventions for students are available to educators at no cost. The teacher curriculum, when fully developed and fully tested, will be as well. It should be noted that I have no financial relationship with any entity that sells mindset-related products.

Approaches to cultivating a growth mindset are in their infancy. Much remains to be learned. In pursuit of this knowledge, my colleagues and I have just completed a nationwide study of mindset interventions, examining where they work best and how they can be made better. We believe the most exciting part of our scientific journey is just beginning.

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Growth mindset interventions yield impressive results

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Growth mindset interventions work as well as many educational programs, at a fraction of the cost. And they are just in their infancy, says the Stanford researcher who developed mindset theory.

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A Powerful Way to End the School Year | Edutopia

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A Powerful Way to End the School Year | Edutopia

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Several elements of this strategy make it a powerful way to end the school year with a positive experience, often much needed after testing is over and as a busy year comes to an end. With prompted recall, each student can remember learning events that mean the most to them. Year-end mapping utilizes the power of positive teacher-student relationships as well as personalized learning, summarizing, group learning, and organizing information graphically.

Creating the Presentations

The following steps can be used to create a visual representation of key content studied over the year, which can become a catalyst for celebrating learning successes:

1. As the end of the year approaches, tell your students they'll be using graphic organizers to create a large map of what they've learned about the content you've taught.

2. Guide students in groups of four to work on specific parts of the curriculum, using prompted recall to help them remember important learning events, knowledge, and skills learned during the year.

3. Assemble a giant map-a collection of the group maps-ideally on a large wall space of the classroom.

4. Ask each student in turn to present one part of the map. These short presentations could include materials that helped them learn, such as books, drawings, pictures, notes, articles, or other meaningful artifacts.

5. Rehearse the presentations.

6. Invite groups of students who may be in your class next year to come to the presentations and be taught by your current class.

What Students-and Teachers-Get From Year Maps

The year mapping strategy gives teachers a way to relate to individual students around their successful learning-and to revisit some of their own favorite lessons and interactions with students over the past year. It gives students a chance to create fascinating graphic organizers that help them arrange evidence of their year of learning with visual appeal.

The strategy also provides motivation for students to summarize key experiences and knowledge learned throughout the year. Summarizing is a useful learning strategy, as it requires more than retelling. When students summarize, they analyze knowledge, determine key elements, and translate a lot of information into a brief and coherent presentation. For ideas on how to help students to summarize key elements of their year of learning, check out this valuable resource.

Working in groups often provides an emotional hook that makes the learning experience more meaningful and memorable for students. Group work makes it possible for all students to play a part in making the year-end maps, as individual memories may vary dramatically from student to student. Working together, students can rely on others to remember aspects of the year that may not have been so memorable for them. They in turn remember elements of the curriculum that others may have forgotten.

Questions you can ask your students who are moving up to the next grade include: What were some key things you learned this year? How does this activity make you feel as we pull our giant map together and reflect on what we've learned?

At the end of the presentation to students who will be moving up to the grade level you teach, a good question might be: What are you most excited about learning next year?

This strategy can be adapted in a variety of ways. For example, it can be extended to more classrooms across participating grade levels. Some schools have used this strategy to celebrate learning school-wide. Year-end mapping can be successfully paired with other tools we have developed, such as success files -repeatedly updated collections that provide evidence to help students internalize and remember their learning successes.

The power of year mapping is in how it helps both students and teachers internalize learning and celebrate it. Feel free to change the way you use our approach so that it works best for you and your students at this special time of the year.

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A Powerful Way to End the School Year | Edutopia

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Several elements of this strategy make it a powerful way to end the school year with a positive experience, often much needed after testing is over and as a busy year comes to an end. With prompted recall, each student can remember learning events that mean the most to them.

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Building an Online Presence as an Educator | Language Arts Classroom

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Building an Online Presence as an Educator | Language Arts Classroom

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Teachers collaborate on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and with blogs. What you post as an educator and what you post on a personal page are probably different ideas. This blog post covers ideas for professional pages, although clearly, we are always educators even on personal accounts. For this post, I'm referencing our interactions as professional teachers.

I love that teachers can respond to my ideas and boom! I have a new way to look at what I've done. I began on Twitter... six years ago? (Edit: Twitter tells you on your profile. Eight years!) I began blogging in 2009. Lots change on social media, but some facts remain the same.

You can learn about your craft while building an online presence as an educator. If you are an educator looking to collaborate with other teachers online, here are some time-tested ideas.

1. Check blogs for interesting, useful reads.

I find posts that I benefit from - that help me reflect. Reading about another teacher's perspective allows me to tweak my own teaching methods. How do I find these blogs? I simply search! Whatever idea I'm currently pondering, I enter in a browser, and I normally find a blog post. After some time, you will find go-to blogs about your topics. If you don't find your topic, you could start a blog for free.

Other bloggers work hours to create content. Share it! Start a conversation on a Facebook page or on Twitter.

2. Be aware of what you post.

Some might say that America is not supportive or favorable to education.

I argue that our culture is hostile to education. Parents and teachers might tell students that education is important, but other aspects of their lives tell students it is not. However! I feel a shift is occurring. We educators can be part of this shift.

Sometimes, educators post images or complaints that are unprofessional. It adds to negativity surrounding education and even though it is not fair, it reflects poorly on all of us.

Imagine these scenarios: A nurse hops on Facebook and jokes about a child who came to the emergency room with ibuprofen stuck up her nose. A lawyer tweets about a ridiculous client who wanted to copyright a certain way to fold a piece of paper. A website developer rants about a client who redid his coding work.

We would think the nurse, lawyer, and website developer were jerks or at the very least, we would think they were unprofessional people bordering on confidentiality rules. Many people would call them out for blasting these no-named people on social media.

Teachers need to be careful of this. I see many teachers who share "funny" moments, such as a student answering a question wrong or a class that struggles with following directions. Listen - teaching is frustrating. Still, don't blast your students on social media. That action borders on "shaming." It is unethical and reflects poorly on the education field.

3. Don't spread yourself too thin. A bazzilion (exactly that many) social media platforms exist. I tried Snapchat and disliked it. I deleted the app. Social media should be engaging and something that helps you. If you are overwhelmed, step back. Ask yourself if you enjoy a platform. If the answer is 'no,' move on.

4. Join Facebook groups and like pages. Not only will you build honest relationships, you'll learn more and find strong content. A Facebook page exists for almost every subsection of education. High school American literature teachers? Check. Yearbook teachers? Check. Technology in the ELA classroom? Check.

Search for these groups and join. Contributing ideas will help you write your lesson plans.

5. Produce quality information. At first, I rambled and tweeted all the time. Twitter was new, but still, I did not put forth only a professional image. I didn't consider that administrators and future professors would interact with me. I probably grumbled about changing diapers and making dinner. Not bad topics, but certainly not how I wanted others to see me as an educator.

The great thing about online personas is that you can develop one. That is also the tricky aspect too. As you spend time online, other educators will learn what to expect from you. For me? I want people to think I produce quality information. I am careful with my shares and retweets.

Collaboration is where it is at - in education and on social media. Building an online presence as an educator has helped me develop professionally. I love what I learn from my online groups, and I hope you do too!

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Building an Online Presence as an Educator | Language Arts Classroom

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Building an online presence as an educator? Great, welcome! Teachers collaborate on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and with blogs. What you post as an educator and what you post on a personal page are probably different ideas. This blog post covers ideas for professional pages, although clearly, we are always educators even on personal accounts.

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Let's Stop Talking About The '30 Million Word Gap' : NPR Ed : NPR

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Let's Stop Talking About The '30 Million Word Gap' : NPR Ed : NPR

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Let’s Stop Talking About The ’30 Million Word Gap’

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It’s one of the most famous studies ever done on kids. It’s often cited as a reason children from poor families struggle in school. But it may be neither 30 million words, nor exactly a gap.

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What Happened When I Committed to Loving My Students Unconditionally - Education Week Teacher

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What Happened When I Committed to Loving My Students Unconditionally - Education Week Teacher

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Many teachers talk about loving their students. In fact, I have made bold announcements to everyone-from my colleagues to my friends and family-about loving my students every year that I have taught. But did I really love them? All of them? Every single student? Not really.

This school year, I tried another kind of love. I wanted my love for my students to be super-resilient and a little bit blind-similar to the kind of love I give to my own children. I wanted a love that could embrace unappealing characteristics and behaviors with humor, tranquility, and curiosity. It would not be transactional or affected by my students' daily or cumulative decisions. It would accept that they would all disappoint me at various times, some more than others. My disappointment would simply inform my work, not soil it.

The idea came out of new learning about trauma-informed teaching-a method that can help teachers bring more empathy and understanding to students affected by trauma and adverse childhood experiences. My husband, a film director, had recently completed two documentaries that covered the subject: "Resilience" and "Paper Tigers." Trauma-informed teaching is a challenging shift, but it seemed worthy of trying with my own students, regardless of whether they had known trauma in their histories or not.

Students Ask for Love in 'Unloving Ways'

It is often said that the students who need love the most ask for it in the most unloving ways. Every teacher is familiar with that dynamic. I don't think I am alone in admitting that giving love when students are being openly uncooperative has always been hard for me.

In the past, my love for students was a diffuse kind of love-the kind one feels for teaching in general or the class as a whole. I was committed to being fair and forgiving, but that is not necessarily the same thing as unconditional love. While my most defiant, disruptive, or unproductive students received the lion's share of my energy and thought, I was focused on managing them rather than loving them.

Using compassionate curiosity to identify learning and attention issues in students, on the other hand, has always come easily to me. I am a big believer in trying to determine what is behind a student's struggle to meet academic expectations, pay attention in class, or produce assigned work.

This new "love plan" held onto that process, with the added aim of embracing the kids with personalities and behaviors that had the capacity to trigger my "I wish he or she was not in my class" response. This year, I decided to go toward the most difficult students with additional compassion, rather than retreating in frustration when my initial attempts to change them failed.

A 'Love Plan' for Teaching

The only person I told about my love plan was my husband. I told him because I thought it would be a good idea to have someone hold me accountable for this shift and let me know if I were getting off track. After all, he is the one who hears when I start to lose enthusiasm for any of my students. Would loving each one of my students unconditionally make a difference? Would it change their experience? Would it noticeably improve their learning?

The changes in my teaching were subtle yet concrete. I had always taken students aside when they made poor decisions. But my new plan asked questions that were less canned, free of scolding or shame, and more gentle and genuine. Are you feeling all right? Is something bothering you? What was last night like? Did you get enough sleep? Do you want to talk? These questions rarely led to any big "ah ha" moments, but I treated each repeated conversation with patience.

Additionally, I paused before I defaulted to my typical consequences for poor behavior. When it was necessary to dole out consequences to students, I made very clear that I still believed in them. I even told students when I took them aside that I loved them-something I had never done before.

It was immediately apparent that they had never heard those words from a teacher.

When I asked them to repeat back to me what they had heard in our conversation, they would always say, "You care about me." They didn't use the word love, but that was OK. They heard me, and it showed.

As the year went on, my conversations with students about their bad choices became increasingly relaxed and honest-and less frequent. Sometimes, students would even preemptively tell me about their bad decisions. Our relationship became more of a partnership and less of a power struggle.

A Win-Win Situation for Students and Teachers

Although my love plan was designed to improve my students' school experience, it radically improved mine as well. It worked magic on my relationships with students and energized me for the school day. My difficult students represented puzzles to solve and relationships to improve, not dreaded obstacles that threatened to drain my teacher joy. By letting go of the assumption that their behaviors were conscious choices, I was able to avoid feelings of resentment when my students blew it. Overall, I felt more peaceful and less angry.

Loving my students also got easier as the year progressed. I had initially worried that my approach wasn't sustainable. But the opposite was true. Love begot love.

Even as I write this, I wonder if this school year was a special class. I worry that the love plan won't translate to a new set of students. I also worry that the word "love" will be a turnoff for other teachers (because in San Francisco, where I'm from, the word probably rolls of the tongue a little easier than in other parts of the country).

Whatever you choose to call it, this loving mindset has transformative potential. Relinquishing our teacher obsession with control and embracing our disruptors has a powerful effect on students' experiences as well as our own. Less than one year into this new teaching approach, I am hardly an expert, but I am an evangelist. I share my story to show what the power of unconditional love can do in the classroom.

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What Happened When I Committed to Loving My Students Unconditionally (Opinion)

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For one school year, teacher Kyle Redford created a plan to love her students without strings attached. Here's what she took away.

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“Bursty” Communication Can Help Remote Teams Thrive - Behavioral Scientist

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“Bursty” Communication Can Help Remote Teams Thrive - Behavioral Scientist

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Working from home is becoming more mainstream, but large employers are starting to wonder whether remote work actually stifles innovation and productivity. Can remote teams achieve the productivity of the office and still allow the convenience of working at home?

The general thinking seems to be swinging toward "no." Many tech companies like IBM, Apple, Facebook, and Google rely heavily on remote teams, but some of them have started to discourage the practice. To compensate for the lost convenience, companies try luring people to linger at work with free food and laundry services. The rationale for this move is that remote workers do not meet by chance at the proverbial watercooler, encounters that, the thinking goes, will lead to better innovation.

This backlash against remote work may be wrongheaded. In recent research published in the journal Academy of Management Discoveries ( original article and open access pre-print), we show that remote teams who communicate in bursts-exchanging messages quickly during periods of high activity-perform much better than remote teams whose conversations involve long lag time between responses and are spread across multiple topic threads. In other words, it might not be distance per se that limits remote teams.

Can remote teams achieve the productivity of the office and still allow the convenience of working at home?

In our randomized controlled trial, we studied 260 software workers spanning 50 different countries, separating them into 52 teams of five and charging them with the same task: develop an algorithm that can recommend the ideal contents of a medical kit on a space flight.

We offered about half the teams cash prizes, the equivalent of those Silicon Valley perks like gourmet food trucks and on-site gym and laundry services. It might surprise some employers to learn that while the incentives did spur some activity and effort, incentives ultimately did nothing to improve the quality of the work.

What did lead to better outcomes was having a "bursty" communication style, where ideas were communicated and responded to quickly. By contrast, in environments where communication and feedback were delayed or dispersed across multiple threads, teams suffered, and the quality of their work suffered.

These findings suggest a new outlook on team performance. Traditionally, performance has been attributed largely to the abilities of the individual members (e.g., general cognitive ability). Thus, many of the models of team effectiveness have highlighted team composition and, over the last few decades, an extensive focus on team diversity.

People often think that constant communication is most effective, but actually, we find that bursts of rapid communication, followed by longer periods of silence, are telltale signs of successful teams.

Our study, which randomly assigned individuals to teams and thus controls for skill, counters this traditional view and extends the ongoing debate concerning the relative contribution of member ability versus emergent collaboration. Aided by advances in statistical tools and machine learning, our research leverages digital trace data left by the computer-mediated communication of our remote teams to show strong positive effects (a one standard deviation increase in burstiness lead to a 24 percent performance increase) of emergent collaboration processes on team performance, even when inputs such as incentives and member skills are controlled.

People often think that constant communication is most effective, but actually, we find that bursts of rapid communication, followed by longer periods of silence, are telltale signs of successful teams.

Employers might read the results of our research and think they can more easily foster the right communication style if everyone comes to the office. But there are good reasons to reconsider that strategy. Remote teams that stagnate do so not because their members aren't hanging out at the watercooler; rather, it's their communication style that's to blame. If they switch to a style that is more aligned with the normal patterns of in-person conversations, remote teams can be just as successful-and creative-as those who are spending long hours at their desk, noshing sushi on the company dime.

Why might burstiness succeed? One reason is that burstiness is a signal that team members attend to and align their activities with one another. During a rapid-fire burst of communication, team members can get input necessary for their work and develop ideas. Conversely, during longer periods of silence everyone is presumably hard at work acting upon the ideas that were exchanged in the communication burst.

In contrast, teams that don't communicate in bursts miss out on the benefits of both energetic collaboration and truly focused work time. Presumably, these team members are constantly toggling between modes.

By designing systems that facilitate bursts of communication and collaboration among team members, employers can achieve higher quality collaboration in their teams, all while balancing employees' desire to work remotely.

Our research suggests that rather than treating email communication as a purely asynchronous means of communication where everyone can engage with others if and when they feel like it, teams can achieve higher performance if they use email more synchronously. This requires appropriate prioritization. If a team member asks for input and is waiting for a response before she can continue her work, there could be benefits for the team if such requests are answered quickly. Quick input creates rapid bursts of back-and-forth exchange, in which ideas are discussed and blocks to productivity are removed.

Generating bursts of activity through appropriate prioritization may be particularly important if team members are distributed across different time zones. If a response to a question comes in only after several hours, it may be too late in the day for the recipient to do anything with it.

By designing systems that facilitate bursts of communication and collaboration among team members, employers can achieve higher quality collaboration in their teams, all while balancing employees' desire to work remotely. And that creates innovation, no matter where the office-or the watercooler-is located.

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"Bursty" Communication Can Help Remote Teams Thrive - Behavioral Scientist

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Working from home is becoming more mainstream, but large employers are starting to wonder whether remote work actually stifles innovation and productivity. Can remote teams achieve the productivity of the office and still allow the convenience of working at home? The general thinking seems to be swinging toward "no."

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LeBron James and the Narrative About Bad Teachers – Jose Vilson – Medium

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LeBron James and the Narrative About Bad Teachers – Jose Vilson – Medium

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LeBron James is, again, the talk of the Internet. After tying up a crucial Game 3 against the Cavaliers, the Toronto Raptors had to watch as the legend skated right to his left and drilled a bank shot seemingly one-handed to win at the buzzer. He's had the Canadian basketball team's number for years, and, with the latest buzzer beater, he once again dialed it to put the Cavs on the precipice of another Eastern Conference Finals.

Basketball is a sport in which one dominant player can sway the direction of a game in a way that no other sport allows.

Which brought me back to April 20th, 2018 when the Cavs lost to the Indiana Pacers and this exchange between James and a reporter happened:

In the video, the reporter asks an awkward question about making players "play above their pay grade." Such a question looks ridiculous for James to answer because, while it might spark a controversial answer from James, it also puts the whole team under the precarious position of discussing the relationship between pay and performance, as if these two elements are perfectly correlated. To his credit, James answers masterfully, dissuading the press from focusing on his teammates and more on his own mistakes throughout the game. Luckily, the Cavs end up winning the highly contested series against the Pacers and LeBron keeps LeBronning.

This is great for James and co. In the education context, such a question would be met with applause from self-proclaimed education reformers and James' response would be met with suspicion.

While the majority of Americans react positively to teachers as a whole, there's always a bit of angst when discussing a particular set of educators. They're dubbed "bad teachers," and the bad teacher is education's boogieperson: stories upon stories permeate the conversation yet our society has done little to create a collective understanding of what "bad" means. Lots of people have tried to tackle it either through complicated frameworks, unstable equations, imperfect policy, or clunky implementation.

There are those who believe a "bad" teacher is an academically ineffective teacher. Generally, people believe these are the teachers who aren't actually teaching students. The range of "bad" includes, but isn't limited to: not actually making an effort to provide lessons and giving opportunities for students to learn, giving students multiple worksheets to finish sans context, lecturing at students for longer than their attention spans allow, or any number of things that people deem out of bounds. However, we can't keep defining the provisions of "bad" pedagogy by a tangential set of experiences. Too many of these experiences are often the reflection of the person instead of a collective understanding of what's required.

Observations fall into this category, too. What we think we've observed about a person's teaching may also be a product of our own biases about the teacher, the students, and the school. I believe observers can get better over time and with lots of conversations and experiences with observations, but these visits often need more than a rubric to get the full grasp of what's happening in the classroom.

We also see a similar dynamic when we speak of accountability measures. There are those who say a teacher is "bad" if their results look awful. They may look at any number of data, though they usually concentrate on standardized test scores (this includes tests like the NAEP / PISA / etc.). Yet, in striving to seem fair, the equations that determine effectiveness under these tests fail to provide stable information. With high margins of error and environmental factors, effectiveness measures aren't reliable enough to make solid decisions on effectiveness. Our culture has already moved so far into testing culture that we've simply willed the junk science into reliability because "we can't go back" to whatever system of accountability we had before. It also means we have schools where students feel like they're learning and their scores don't reflect their testimony and schools churn out excellent results but their students fight off daily traumas and depression.

None of this is good.

There's also a dynamic of teachers with overt and covert biases. I do not seek to be on a team with teachers who dehumanize my students. Racism deserves regular callouts, more so than this education culture of faux-niceness allows. I want my colleagues to treat my students as humans and also as students. For too many of us, it doesn't matter if the teacher's classroom is Instagram-ready, if they've received a million accolades from organizations and governments, or if they prepare students to achieve on an exam. As long as the teacher does all of these things while treating our children as less than (never mind voting in that regard), that's a "bad" teacher for us as well.

Surely, we can have policies and pedagogies that can help our schools get culturally responsive teachers with learning and achievement in mind and action. Yet, we also need to work on the consciousness and subconsciousness of our society that still hasn't developed a strong unanimity on what we consider "bad" or "good." Or if that's even the appropriate vocabulary for approaching systems-based edifices like schools.

Until then, it's hard for me to comment too strongly on another colleague's approach to the work unless it's an extreme. And even then. It's not a wall of silence. It's not even having a union or an association. It's not about a public image, a brand, or a reputation. It's about knowing that this profession has serious flaws. At times, I've had to work against my better judgment because of school and city mandates. Other times, I've bucked the trends to adjust to students only to get interrogated for my pedagogical choices. I got National Board certified during one of my best teaching years, but my patience was tested a million times over the year after I got it.

For students, having that one "bad" teacher throughout the year can make the whole year feel awful. In a game that's not as clearly defined, I'm always hoping to have more effective days than not before the season's over.

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LeBron James and the Narrative About Bad Teachers - Jose Vilson - Medium

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LeBron James is, again, the talk of the Internet. After tying up a crucial Game 3 against the Cavaliers, the Toronto Raptors had to watch as the legend skated right to his left and drilled a bank shot seemingly one-handed to win at the buzzer.

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Copyright © 2018 Chris Abani. Used with permission of the author.

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Countee Cullen - Poet | Academy of American Poets

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Countee Cullen - Poet | Academy of American Poets

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Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York City and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. When he was fifteen, he was unofficially adopted by F. A. Cullen, the minister of a Methodist church in Harlem.

Cullen entered New York University after high school. Around the same time, his poems were published in The Crisis, under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity, a magazine published by the National Urban League. Cullen was soon after published in Harper's, the Century Magazine, and Poetry. He won several awards for his poem, "Ballad of the Brown Girl," and graduated from New York University in 1925. That same year, he published his first volume of verse, Color (Harper & Bros., 1925), and was admitted to Harvard University, where he completed an MA in English.

Cullen went on to publish several more poetry collections, including On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen (Harper & Bros., 1947); The Black Christ and Other Poems (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1929); Copper Sun (Harper & Bros., 1927), and the seminal anthology Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the Twenties (Harper & Brothers, 1927). An imaginative lyric poet, Cullen wrote in the Romantic tradition of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley and was resistant to the new poetic techniques of the Modernists; his work demonstrates the range of subjects and aesthetic interests that poets of the Harlem Renaissance addressed.

The poet Major Jackson writes, "Cullen was celebrated as the golden exemplar of a campaign by Black political and cultural leaders who sought to engineer a new image of Black people in America. Yet he was also targeted as an aesthete, and his expressed desire to be read as 'a poet and not a Negro poet' was increasingly condemned as representative of black aristocratic self-hatred, and worse, a veiled longing 'to be white.'"

Cullen taught in New York City public schools for twelve years beginning in 1934. He died on January 9, 1946.

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Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York City and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. When he was fifteen, he was unofficially adopted by F. A.

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The El Capitan of freshman English: Memorize a — gasp! — poem

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The El Capitan of freshman English: Memorize a — gasp! — poem

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The task is the El Capitan of freshman English. Find a poem you like. Study it. Memorize it. Recite it to your classmates. You have two weeks to scale the poem's wall.

I've given this assignment for 20 years. It always elicits the same reaction when the students grasp the weight of what's being asked. The questions begin.

Me: "Yes, everyone has to do it."

Student: "Can I get my friend to read mine for me, Mr. Curnett?"

Student: "Can I have notes?" (Forty-four eyes stare into my soul.)

Me: "No." (A collective gasp. I'm fairly certain that one kid mouths an expletive but I can't be sure.)

Student: "Can I choose a poem my friend wrote? It's really good. It's about love."

So we begin the search for the right poem. We comb through poetry websites as if we are sweeping metal detectors along a beach, listening for beeps that might reveal treasure. Eventually, each student finds a title. I have no idea how it happens. It just does.

For me, the student and the poet become entwined. Jimmy's got Whitman. Alexa's is Dickinson. Faisal's giving Countee Cullen a whirl. Tamara has inexplicably chosen Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." Jasmine has found Linda Pastan.

The student who is more intelligent than I will ever be recites Langston Hughes with a clarity and depth that few human beings could muster.

As week one turns into week two, the questions become more contextual, less fatalistic. I'm holding conferences, a mafia boss at his restaurant table. The students are so earnest in what they want to know. They think I have all of the answers.

Student: "Mr. Curnett, how do you pronounce this word?"

Me: "In-VICK-tuss. Nice choice. Have you heard of Nelson Mandela before? No? Let me tell you about this poem ...."

Student: "Mr. Curnett, I don't understand this line. Can you help me?"

Me: "The speaker means that he's lying on his couch and reflecting on the daffodils he's seen. This is what people did before phones. They often had moods that were vacant and pensive. Can you imagine? Nothing to do but lie there and think of flowers as a way to relax. Have you ever done that? No? Try it. Talk to me about it tomorrow."

Student: "Mr. Curnett, that thing you were teaching us - should I do it here?"

Me: "Yes, that's a good place for emphasizing the line's enjambment. Roll on through it. Use the punctuation to guide your voice."

Student: "Mr. Curnett, do you have a favorite poem?"

Me: "Too many to count. But you can't go wrong with 'Autumn Begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio.' I've been reading that poem for 30 years, since I was about your age. Everything in that poem makes me feel something inside. It gets worse as I get older."

Student: "Mr. Curnett, my grandmother died yesterday. I don't think I can memorize my poem. Is that OK?"

Me: "Yes, of course that is OK. I am so sorry to hear about your grandmother. I really am. Maybe you can sit and listen to the students recite their poems, and you can think about her."

Student: "Mr. Curnett, can I go to the bathroom but still finish this conference?"

Me: "Sure. Myra will just have to wait."

Recital day finally arrives. It is one of the reasons I teach - to see this annual migration of ninth-graders across the desert of pop culture to the oasis that is literature.

The student with dyslexia shines with "The Tyger," William Blake's rhythm reaching through 225 years to find a fearful symmetry in her voice. Students thrum their hands to the cadence. There's applause when she finishes.

The student who is more intelligent than I will ever be recites Langston Hughes with a clarity and depth that few human beings could muster. When he finishes, the class bursts into applause again.

The quiet boy who had always seemed so aloof delivers 40 lines of Homer without a hitch. 40 lines! The students look at each other, dumbfounded, then trade expressions of approval. More applause.

On and on it goes, all day long. More than 60 poems, each performance style unique. I am proud of all the students for their efforts and abilities, even the ones who botched it.

Art is greater than we are: It's the realization of this idea that makes the assignment so compelling. Something as weightless as a poem can have the power to make us laugh or weep or guffaw or go silent with feeling - or cause a ninth-grade classroom to erupt with applause on a Tuesday morning in April, as centuries-old words reverberate off the walls.

Joshua Curnett is a high school English teacher, currently in Singapore.

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The El Capitan of freshman English: Memorize a - gasp! - poem

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The task is the El Capitan of freshman English. Find a poem you like. Study it. Memorize it. Recite it to your classmates. You have two weeks to scale the poem's wall. I've given this assignment for 20 years. It always elicits the same reaction when the students grasp the weight of what's being asked.

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Countee Cullen - Poet | Academy of American Poets

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Countee Cullen - Poet | Academy of American Poets

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Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York City and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. When he was fifteen, he was unofficially adopted by F. A. Cullen, the minister of a Methodist church in Harlem.

Cullen entered New York University after high school. Around the same time, his poems were published in The Crisis, under the leadership of W. E. B. Du Bois, and Opportunity, a magazine published by the National Urban League. Cullen was soon after published in Harper's, the Century Magazine, and Poetry. He won several awards for his poem, "Ballad of the Brown Girl," and graduated from New York University in 1925. That same year, he published his first volume of verse, Color (Harper & Bros., 1925), and was admitted to Harvard University, where he completed an MA in English.

Cullen went on to publish several more poetry collections, including On These I Stand: An Anthology of the Best Poems of Countee Cullen (Harper & Bros., 1947); The Black Christ and Other Poems (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1929); Copper Sun (Harper & Bros., 1927), and the seminal anthology Caroling Dusk: An Anthology of Verse by Black Poets of the Twenties (Harper & Brothers, 1927). An imaginative lyric poet, Cullen wrote in the Romantic tradition of John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelley and was resistant to the new poetic techniques of the Modernists; his work demonstrates the range of subjects and aesthetic interests that poets of the Harlem Renaissance addressed.

The poet Major Jackson writes, "Cullen was celebrated as the golden exemplar of a campaign by Black political and cultural leaders who sought to engineer a new image of Black people in America. Yet he was also targeted as an aesthete, and his expressed desire to be read as 'a poet and not a Negro poet' was increasingly condemned as representative of black aristocratic self-hatred, and worse, a veiled longing 'to be white.'"

Cullen taught in New York City public schools for twelve years beginning in 1934. He died on January 9, 1946.

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Countee Cullen was born Countee LeRoy Porter on May 30, 1903, likely in Louisville, Kentucky. He attended De Witt Clinton High School in New York City and began writing poetry at the age of fourteen. When he was fifteen, he was unofficially adopted by F. A.

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BBC - Culture - Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots

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BBC - Culture - Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots

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"My prettiest contribution to the culture" was how the novelist Kurt Vonnegut described his old master's thesis in anthropology, "which was rejected because it was so simple and looked like too much fun". The thesis sank without a trace, but Vonnegut continued throughout his life to promote the big idea behind it, which was: "stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper".

In a 1995 lecture, Vonnegut chalked out various story arcs on a blackboard, plotting how the protagonist's fortunes change over the course of the narrative on an axis stretching from 'good' to 'ill'. The arcs include 'man in hole', in which the main character gets into trouble then gets out again ("people love that story, they never get sick of it!") and 'boy gets girl', in which the protagonist finds something wonderful, loses it, then gets it back again at the end. "There is no reason why the simple shapes of stories can't be fed into computers", he remarked. "They are beautiful shapes."

"Thanks to new text-mining techniques, this has now been done. Professor Matthew Jockers at the University of Nebraska, and later researchers at the University of Vermont's Computational Story Lab, analysed data from thousands of novels to reveal six basic story types - you could call them archetypes - that form the building blocks for more complex stories. The Vermont researchers describe the six story shapes behind more than 1700 English novels as:

1. Rags to riches - a steady rise from bad to good fortune

2. Riches to rags - a fall from good to bad, a tragedy

3. Icarus - a rise then a fall in fortune

4. Oedipus - a fall, a rise then a fall again

5. Cinderella - rise, fall, rise

6. Man in a hole - fall, rise

The researchers used sentiment analysis to get the data - a statistical technique often used by marketeers to analyse social media posts in which each word is allocated a particular 'sentiment score', based on crowdsourced data. Depending on the lexicon chosen, a word can be categorised as positive (happy) or negative (sad), or it can be associated with one or more of eight more subtle emotions, including fear, joy, surprise and anticipation. For example, the word 'happy' is positive, and associated with joy, trust and anticipation. The word 'abolish' is negative and associated with anger.

Do sentiment analysis on all the words in a novel, poem or play and plot the results against time, and it's possible to see how the mood changes over the course of the text, revealing a kind of emotional narrative. While not a perfect tool - it looks at words in isolation, ignoring context - it can be surprisingly insightful when applied to larger chunks of text, as this blog post on Jane Austen novels from data scientist Julia Silge shows. The tools to do sentiment analysis are freely available, and much out-of-copyright literature can be downloaded from online repository Project Gutenberg. We looked at some of the best-loved tales from BBC Culture's 100 stories that shaped the world poll to try and find the six story types.
The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri, 1308-1320)
Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Story type: Rags to riches
Dante's tightly structured, exquisitely symmetrical epic poem traces his imaginary journey down into hell in the Inferno, accompanied by - who else? - the poet Virgil. Sure enough, things start off badly in the Divine Comedy with a low sentiment score that sinks further as the duo descend through the circles of hell. (There is a trace of 'man in a hole' here, which in this case is as literally true as things could be in such an allegorical text.) Having miraculously survived hell, they next climb the Mountain of Purgatory where the souls of the excommunicated, slothful and lustful reside, and Beatrice - Dante's ideal woman - eventually replaces Virgil as his companion. The pair's ascent into heaven in the Paradiso is marked by growing joy as the poet comprehends the true nature of virtue and his soul becomes one with "the Love which moves the sun and the other stars".
Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert, 1856)
Translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
Story type: Riches to rags
There's a moment in Flaubert's tale of a bored and faithless housewife where our protagonist Emma Bovary muses that, since her life so far has been so bad, the part still to be lived must surely be better.

Not so. Emma embarks on failed, desperate love affairs that offer only brief respite from the grinding tedium of being an imaginative woman married to the world's dullest man, mounts up catastrophic debts and finally, kills herself by drinking arsenic. Her grieving husband, after discovering her multiple infidelities, then dies too, and their now-orphaned daughter is sent to live with her grandmother, who also dies. The little girl goes to live with a poor aunt, who sends her to work in a cotton mill. It's a textbook tragedy, driven with relentless focus towards the end goal of total downfall, and an utterly satisfying story.
Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare, 1597) Story type: Icarus
Romeo and Juliet is naturally considered to be a tragedy in line with Shakespeare's own description, but when you analyse its sentiment the story appears closer to the Icarus shape: a rise, then a fall. After all, the boy must find the girl and fall in love with her before they both lose each other. The romantic peak happens around a quarter of the way through the play, in the famous balcony scene in which they declare their undying love for one another.

It's all downhill from there. Romeo kills Tybalt and flees, the Friar's plan to smuggle Juliet out to join him provides a small bump of false hope to the drama, but once Juliet has drunk the potion nothing can prevent the final, still-searing tragedy.
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen, 1813) Story type: Man in a hole or Cinderella
The first half of Austen's sparkling novel is a fiesta of balls and high jinks (albeit restrained ones), witticisms and unserious marriage proposals from the likes of comical vicar Mr Collins. Things take a darker turn as Bingley leaves and Elizabeth starts to develop a dislike for Darcy (based on a misunderstanding, naturally). The novel's sentiment pivots into decisively negative territory after his disastrous proposal, reaching its nadir as Lydia elopes with the untrustworthy Wickham. This, of course, is also Darcy's opportunity to prove himself, which he does with dignity and aplomb, winning Elizabeth's heart and ensuring a measured happy ending, in which everyone is slightly wiser than they were before.
Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818) Story type: Oedipus
Shelley's seminal novel tells the woeful tale of Victor Frankenstein's Creature in Victor's own words, as related by Captain Walton in a series of letters to his sister. At one point, the Creature gets to take over the narrative, making the novel a story within a story within a story. This is in fact a moment of respite in what is overall a downward trajectory from the happy description of his early life with which Victor opens his narrative, to the appalling ending. At a pivotal moment two thirds of the way through the novel, the Creature offers Victor a way out - make him a female companion. But Victor refuses. From this point on, his fate is sealed. "Remember, I shall be with you on your wedding-night", threatens the Creature. And so it proves.
The Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen, 1843)
Translated by HP Paull
Story type: Complex
The shortest story of them all, Hans Christian Andersen's famous fairy tale also has the most complex structure, incorporating two man in a hole (or duck in a hole) sentiment arcs within an overall rags to riches narrative framework. That is, things get generally better for the duckling over the course of the story, but there are flashes of light and dark along the way: he hatches (yay!) but is bullied for being different (boo). He discovers he can swim better than the other ducks and experiences a premonition of affinity as a group of swans fly over (yay!), but then nearly dies in the winter cold (boo). He does become a swan eventually, in a way entirely foretold from the beginning. That's the point, of course: "To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg." The story ends on the highest of notes, with the swan-all-along crying that he "never dreamed of such happiness as this".
BBC Culture's Stories that Shaped the World series looks at epic poems, plays and novels from around the globe that have influenced history and changed mindsets. The poll of writers and critics, 100 Stories that Shaped the World, will be discussed at in May and later broadcast on BBC World News. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our page or message us on .

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Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots

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"My prettiest contribution to the culture" was how the novelist Kurt Vonnegut described his old master's thesis in anthropology, "which was rejected because it was so simple and looked like too much fun". The thesis sank without a trace, but Vonnegut continued throughout his life to promote the big idea behind it, which was: "stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper".

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Salwa Bakr on ‘Women and Arabic Literature’ – ArabLit

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Salwa Bakr on ‘Women and Arabic Literature’ – ArabLit

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Novelist Salwa Bakr spoke to CASA students this past week about women and Arabic literature, beginning with the 1980s, when, "Every day you would open the window and find a female author writing a new book": By Elisabeth Jaquette
"When I first started to write, people would ask me - 'Who wrote this for you?'"

Salwa Bakr, prominent Egyptian author and critic, explored the challenges facing women writers in a lecture at CASA (the Center for Arabic Study Abroad) at the American University in Cairo on Monday, November 12th. "A question like this reflects the kind of writing that society expects women to be able to produce," she said.

Salwa Bakr is acclaimed for her portrayal of women's personal lives and Egypt's poorer social classes. Her first collection of short stories, Zinat at the President's Funeral, was published in 1985, and she has since published six additional short story collections, seven novels and a play.

Four of her books have been translated into English, including The Wiles of Men and Other Stories, Such a Beautiful Voice, The Golden Chariot, and The Man from Bashmour, which was listed as one of the 105 best Arabic novels by the Arab Writers Union.

Bakr is a passionate speaker, committed to the power of literature to address and change social inequalities. She began by highlighting the discrepancy between women's political and social gains over the past century and the limited roles still reserved for them in literature. She celebrated the broad participation of women in the 2011 revolution, emphasizing that whether recognized or not, women have participated in every stage of Egypt's history.

The dilemma, however "is the old idea that women create life and men create the world: women have all the roles related to pregnancy, childbirth, and the family, but it is men who create history." There is a gap between women's position in society and society's expectations of them, Bakr said: even though today, women are active in politics and work in more professions fields than ever, it socially unacceptable to portray them in any role other than mother, sister, wife or daughter.

The responsibility for this contradiction lies across the political spectrum: "It's not just the Salafis, or the Islamic political current, or the Muslim Brotherhood responsible for the deterioration of the situation of women in the Arab world. Secular, liberal parties are equally unable to offer new, more advanced or radical steps for improving women's situation in society."

Bakr suggested that the lack of political support explains the surge of women seeking to express these contradictions through literature, especially in recent decades.

The wave of women writers that emerged in Egypt and the Arab world during the 1980s marked the beginning of this trend: "Every day you would open the window and find a female author writing a new book." These initial attempts were trials at self-expression; women writers were often from elite social classes, unconcerned with giving voice to problems facing the vast majority of women. Yet the movement laid the groundwork for those who began to reconsider systemic barriers against women and express their desires to achieve things in society as citizens.

For Bakr, writing is ultimately an act of social justice. "I consider women's writings a way to express the dilemmas of women," she said, "especially during the days of the women's political movement, and especially to express the concerns of women living in poverty in poor countries like Egypt."

Yet the critical and societal reception of women's writing has remained a challenge. Most critics remain unable to differentiate between the woman as a person and the woman as a writer. Some presume Bakr's stories are autobiographical, and that a woman author would only be able to write about her own experiences. Many consider women's writing to be overstepping the boundaries of decency, criticizing them for talking openly about their personal or sexual concerns. Society's politics and its position on women define the borders of freedom of expression, which in turn leads to self-censorship, especially with regards to religion, politics, and sex.

Bakr also critiqued the representation of women in literature, criticizing both men and women authors for failing to write good female characters. "In most cases, women continue to write from a man's point of view on the world, because the foundational literary references are those written by men. For example, when a female author describes a woman, she writes as a man would, saying 'She was like an apple, or a flower.' As a woman, I don't notice these things in other women. I would say that a character is clever, or heroic, because I don't see a woman through the eyes of a man, I see her through my own eyes. I don't see her physical features alone, or see her as an object, the way a man sees her. This isn't just a problem in Arab literature, but in world literature throughout its history."

By contrast, Bakr strives to present a woman's perspective in her own writing. "I think a woman has her own point of view, different from a man, and that's natural, due to the context of the environment, her upbringing, and the role of society. I try to present small details that may seem trivial to some, with the idea that a woman's perspective is different."

For those seeking literature that succeeds in presenting good female characters, Bakr recommended The Chrysalis (al-Sharnaka) by Soliman Fayyad, Little Songs in the Shade of Tamara (Taraneem fi Zil Tamara) by Mohammad Afify, and Beginning and End (Bedaya we Nehaya) by Naguib Mahfouz. Little Songs in the Shade of Tamara and Beginning and End are both available in English translation.

Bakr ended her lecture with thoughts on what defines good writing and what it means to be a good person in the world today. "Good writing is writing that changes you, where you can't return to how you were before you interacted with it; writing that takes you from where you began to someplace entirely new. The role of literature now, in this complex moment in human history, is an extremely important one with regards to knowledge. It's a question related to good and evil. In this world, good and evil have become very complex. What is good, and what is evil? Literature enables us - as readers and as recipients - to address these human complexities and answer difficult, complicated questions like these. Is this enough to be a good person in this world, today? Is it enough? It isn't. We need more knowledge, and for that we need literature, which at its core deals with humans and their world. We need literature that can lead us to other regions of knowledge, from one world to another."
Elisabeth Jaquette is a MA student in Anthropology at Columbia University and a CASA fellow at the American University in Cairo. She has lived in Cairo since 2007, where she runs an Arabic-English book club and tweets at @lissiejaquette.

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Salwa Bakr on 'Women and Arabic Literature'

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Novelist Salwa Bakr spoke to CASA students this past week about women and Arabic literature, beginning with the 1980s, when, "Every day you would open the window and find a female author writing a new book": By Elisabeth Jaquette "When I first started to write, people would ask me - 'Who wrote this for you?'" Salwa Bakr, prominent Egyptian author and critic, explored the challenges facing women writers in a lecture at CASA (the Center for Arabic Study Abroad) at the American University in Cairo on Monday, November 12th.

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Rejecting Growth Mindset and Grit at Three Levels | radical eyes for equity

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Rejecting Growth Mindset and Grit at Three Levels | radical eyes for equity

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Rejecting Growth Mindset and Grit at Three Levels

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As the academic year began at my university, I was confronted with how the very worst of K-12 public education reform continues to creep upward, engulfing higher education. In this case, growth mindset was central to the faculty keynote address, prompting me to resist an outburst in front of my colleagues.

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today - The New York Times

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today - The New York Times

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Winners

Zoe Georgulas, 17, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " Thought Control, Trump-Style "

Is it really possible to control how people think? Today we are inundated with media from the moment we wake up: images, text messages, news stories. In school, students read articles, novels, and textbooks. If we took all of these stimulants away, would we still be able to think for ourselves, or would we lose the motivation to do so?

This theme is one at the forefront of Ray Bradbury's novel, "Fahrenheit 451," which I recently read for my Literature class. The story examines a dystopian society where books have been banned completely. The average people in this story seem to lack emotional complexity; they have no desire to read because they have been taught that books made people upset. In the novel, there are a few people who question the status quo, but the majority of people live in a state of blissful ignorance.

Though the novel is meant to depict a contemporary society that Bradbury could not have predicted, there are elements of its narrative that are uncannily similar to our world. Specifically, the mindset of our leaders. Following the mandate from the president disallowing the use of seven scientific words by the CDC in budget documents, I read an article in the New York Times called "Thought Control, Trump-Style" published on December 18, 2017. The Trump administration has almost completely erased any trace of the LGBT+ community on government websites and banned the phrase "climate change" from use by the Department of Agriculture. This virus has infected so many establishments that its ban on seven words in budget documents pales in comparison.

Why are our leaders seeking to control the media we consume? Even the controversy of "fake news" is an attempt to restrict the press we see to only one side of the story. Our government has become a Mind Flayer of sorts: it sees itself as a superior race of thinkers and feels a need to dominate other beings to the point of mind control. This evil and fantastical government is what Ray Bradbury was trying to warn against in his novel. Complacency only breeds complacency. Congress will surely be more effective in passing legislation that Republicans are in favor of if the only news consumed by the American public leans to the far right, but what good does it do us as a society to all agree?

American democracy is predicated on freedom of speech and the desire to seek knowledge. The very idea of precluding this information is a threat to our republic. It is scary to think that Bradbury saw signs of today's society almost seventy years ago. Perhaps even scarier is how many people in today's society have failed to become Guy Montags. It would be difficult to find someone who does not agree with the dangers presented in this book, but, unfortunately, it is not hard to find someone who agrees with the thought control of America's own Mind Flayer.

If complacency breeds complacency, will deliberate minds produce deliberate actions?

Samantha Jones, 16, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Walden" and " Dropping Out of College Into Life "

It is fairly well known that Henry David Thoreau ventured off into Walden Woods to live in solidarity for two years. The purpose of this endeavor was not only to rid himself of society's frivolities but to see what the woods could teach him. Thoreau's philosophy on education was a central theme to his books, and details that learning through experience is far more beneficial than in a classroom. This belief parallels in Rainesford Stauffer's "Dropping Out of College Into Life," which accounts for her decision to leave college and why it was crucial to her education. In the article Stauffer explains school does not prepare students for failure, and instead teaches them to avoid it at all costs. From this, students develop a complex fear of failure early on in their academic careers.

Stauffer's story begins her freshman year of college, when she remembers this paralyzing fear. She recalls going from a confident student; optimistic about the year, to a terrified, voiceless wreck. Her high school education had prepared her for the coursework but not the reality her actions impacted her future, and could possibly mean failure. Stauffer became so petrified that she stopped eating and participating in classes, dropped courses, lost weight, and eventually dropped out of college altogether. She'd failed, and her worst fear had become a reality.

Yet, somehow this wasn't as crushing as she thought it would be. Stauffer moved home, and inadvertently started seeking out education the same way Thoreau did: through experience. She found that the hands on experience of ballet and yoga studios and a nonprofit organization furthered her education more than any college course ever could. Eventually Stauffer found a way to finish her degree at the New School, a collection of universities that offered credit for real-life experience instead of academic courses. She went from the lowest point in her life to one of the highest, and all she had to do was fail.

The moral is clear: there are gaps in our education system, and because of these gaps students aren't adequately prepared for their own futures. In his book Walden, Thoreau elaborates on the ideas Stauffer touches on in her article. As stated before, he believed learning through experience was exponentially better than a in classroom. When a rigid curriculum with expectations is set in place, students aren't given the same hands on learning as they would be without one. Just as Stauffer embraced this learning style in the New School, Thoreau did so in Walden Woods. For that is all Walden really is; Thoreau learning from nature by immersing himself in it, instead of seeing it on the pages of a book. A quote from Walden most fitting is as follows, "We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe" (Walden 10/15/1859.)

Lily Langrind, 17, Concord Carlisle High School: "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh and " Checking My Male Privilege "

Most of the literature I have explored in my English classes have been novels and plays with sophisticated language and complex storylines, but this semester we read an eye-opening essay about racism- "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh-which finally made me realize that what my teachers say is true: the things we read and discuss do apply to the real world.

I read Charles Blow's editorials regularly. The effect of his words is sharp and impactful. When I came across "Checking My Male Privilege" after the deluge of sexual harassment accusations came out in Hollywood and Washington, the connection was obvious.In "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," McIntosh emphasizes how in our society, white privilege is so lethal because its beneficiaries are "carefully taught not to recognize [it]." How can racism be eradicated if the people with advantages don't even know they have them? Unless white people recognize all the ways our quality of life can be so much higher simply because of the color of our skin, we will forever have this invisible pack full of assets and protections secured tightly on our backs.

If we apply the same logic McIntosh uses in her essay to our discussions about sexual harassment in America, it's easy to see that most men are also conditioned to evade any blame whatsoever for the injustices so many women face. Just like the white people who attribute their success to their own merit and turn a blind eye to their privileges, the men who focus on the "good guys" who don't grope or whistle or slap are choosing to overlook the privilege of physical dominance. It seems simple, but men can enjoy the luxury of knowing that a vast majority of the time, women don't have the physical superiority to victimize or overpower men for unwanted sexual behavior.

In cases of both sexism and racism, privileges hurt both those without and with the privileges. White people might not condone racism, but their blindness to privilege leads them to believe that racism may not be as bad as the underprivileged make it seem. As Blow writes, it's extremely difficult to understand how bad something is if you never experience it firsthand, and so listening to people with fewer privileges is one of the best tools we can use to evaluate the state of discrimination black people and women are immersed in.

Alicia Li, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Beneath the shimmery surface of American ideals, from John Winthrop's iconic imagery of the country as a "city upon a hill" to the twentieth century metaphor of a "melting pot" accepting all cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities, recent events reveal the underlying racism of a nation claiming to be "post-racial." In George Yancy's "Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare?" the professor illustrates how Trump's offensive and racist statements pertaining to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations highlight America's deceptive façade as a beacon for civil liberty. A classic piece of American literature, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the flaws of high society during the Roaring Twenties, a period of both economic prosperity and unrivaled income inequality, through the narration of Nick Carraway. Reflecting current news, "The Great Gatsby" showcases how harsh reality is often hidden under a superficial exterior.

After moving to Long Island, Carraway optimistically believes in the American dream of working hard to be rewarded and achieve upward mobility. However, his encounters reveal the faults of the rich whose lifestyles and wealth are so widely admired. Tom Buchanan, a Yale graduate from a prominent family, has more than enough wealth to transport his polo ponies across the country while owning an elaborate mansion framed by French windows and half an acre of fresh roses. Despite Buchanan's dignified appearance and prestige, Carraway uncovers the truth of his racism, domestic violence, and immorality. At his own dinner party, Buchanan recommends a book claiming the importance of the dominance of the white race. That same night, a woman reveals his infidelity and the fact that everyone in town is aware of it. Not only is the man unabashedly unfaithful, but he frequently leaves bruises on his wife and breaks his mistress's nose during a disagreement. Meanwhile, the vanity of his wife and mistress is undeniable since Buchanan's exuberant wealth was the subject of their attraction. The sole genuinely magnanimous rich character, Jay Gatsby, is delusional and dependent on illegal means to maintain his lavish lifestyle.

Although written nearly a century later, Yancy's op-ed examines the same theme of reality contradicting American ideals. Ever since the Declaration of Independence affirmed equality for all men and the United States emerged as the land of liberty, the nation claimed to be a republic of moral justice and equality. Yet on January 11, President Donald J. Trump revealed the contradictory truth when he made a racist and derogatory statement condemning immigrants from several nonwhite countries. The representative of the United States allegedly using "shithole" to describe the homelands of foreign immigrants is contemptuous and clearly inconsistent with America's image of acceptance and tolerance.

In "The Great Gatsby," Fitzgerald warns readers against accepting society at face value, a lesson that Yancy emphasizes as well. To learn from the misplaced optimism of Nick Carraway, Americans today must remain unaffected by the country's idealistic rhetoric of freedom and equality to speak out against our president's bigotry, rather than silently accepting the unjust reality of racism.

Katherine LoBue, 16, Mamaroneck High School: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and " The Other Inconvenient Truth "

Mark Twain was friends with abolitionist Frederick Douglass, yet he permitted grotesque drawings of escaped slave Jim in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Twain was a benefactor for African American students, yet he depicted Jim as helpless and inferior in the "anti-slavery" satire. Twain clearly had conflicting views regarding African Americans. In his New York Times op-ed, "The Other Inconvenient Truth," author Charles Blow states, "Just because one abhors violence and cruelty doesn't mean that one truly believes that all people are equal... Entertaining the notion of imbalance-that white people are inherently better than others in any way- is also white supremacy." Blow invents the term "soft white supremacy" to describe these beliefs. This concept offered me a way to navigate Twain's puzzling attitudes towards African Americans in Huck Finn.

When reading Twain's classic with my AP English class, I was confused as to why the text wasn't resolutely anti-slavery. In the novel, protagonist Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi to escape their lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri. It takes over 300 pages for Huck to realize Jim is a human being, and even then Huck infantilizes Jim by offering the grown man "help." In the book's last ten controversial chapters, Jim becomes subservient to Huck and Tom, refusing to stand up for himself even when made to complete ridiculous tasks. Jim's behavior in these chapters led me to suspect Twain believed slaves were too unintelligent and submissive to stand up to adolescents. Although Twain depicted Jim as a true human being, giving this book its "anti-slavery" reputation, subtleties in Huck's and Jim's attitudes make me wonder if Twain "entertained notions of imbalance" even though he didn't openly show it.

Most importantly, Blow showed me that "soft white supremacy" still plagues our current times, most notably in the executive branch of our government. In 2011, Trump said President Obama needed to show his birth certificate to prove he was American-born. When announcing his Presidential candidacy, Trump stated Mexicans were drug dealers, criminals, and rapists. Trump said of the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville that violence had taken place "on many sides." No, he didn't openly support the supremacists, but yes, he didn't really condemn them either. Recently, Trump called Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas," actively belittling her and Native Americans simultaneously.

I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Blow speak on January 7th and his words continued to enlighten my understanding of white supremacy. Passive white supremacy, he said, is more deadly than open white supremacy because these feelings can increase exponentially when sparked. Those who turn a blind eye to hateful events are the ones who allow extremism to grow.

I was disappointed that in the end of Twain's novel, Huck knows his Southern society has the wrong views about slavery yet he decides to turn his own blind eye. Huck's choice to escape to the West and ignore these issues on the final page is symbolic of the actions many in our country take today.

Ayden Nichol, 17, Concord-Carlisle Regional High School: "The Merchant of Venice" and " Louisiana's Big Step on Justice Reform "

It can be a terrifying thing to see decades of the pent-up rage of an oppressed person finally let out against their oppressor. This is the case in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," when the Jewish moneylender Shylock brings his nemesis and lifelong tormentor, the Christian merchant Antonio, to court over an unpaid loan. The punishment, as agreed upon between the two men as a condition of the deal, is that Shylock may remove a pound of Antonio's flesh. But before Shylock exacts this cruel retribution, a friend of Antonio's makes a fascinating appeal in his favor. Portia claims that the true sign of strength is not the ability to take revenge, but to show mercy. Mercy, she says, "blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ... 'tis mightiest in the mightiest" (Shakespeare IV.i.183-84). In June of 2017, half a millennium after Shakespeare's fictional court case, the Louisiana state legislature seemed to realize the same thing as Portia when they passed a series of unexpected but widespread criminal justice reform laws which aim to dramatically reduce the prison population and lower recidivism rates. Both instances show that the ability to have mercy gives the person in power an unparalleled opportunity to do good, and ultimately, to benefit themselves.

At its surface, the Louisiana reform package could appear purely as an act of mercy: an attempt to help those who have fallen victim to the state's brutal justice system. On some level, this is all it is; surely there were legislators for whom this was their sole motivation. But whether intended or not, Louisiana stands to receive enormous gains from this package - it truly is "twice blest." As well as expanded parole and prison alternatives, which aim to help those convicted, the state expects to see an improvement in public safety and save over $180 million. The monetary benefits from this merciful outreach will help the state in ways that would never be thought of as connected to improving an inmate's life.

However, conservative politicians, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, fail to see this link. They maintain that the best way to keep law and order among their constituents is to wield their power like a sword, striking down any who violate that peace. But Portia reminds us that mercy is what makes a ruler truly powerful; she calls it "an attribute to God himself" (Shakespeare IV.i.190). Sessions and others must reject this easy show of power by way of force and cruelty in the justice system, choosing instead a path that will benefit disadvantaged citizens and show the people that they are worthy of the power we grant them. In this time of political distrust, the American people could use an indication that our politicians are capable of the "awe and majesty" that Portia speaks of (Shakespeare IV.i.186). I am certain that if they chose to show mercy, we would know beyond a doubt that they are worthy of leading us.

Isabella Picillo, 17, Oceanside High School: "The Scarlet Letter" and " Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees "

I stumble upon a New York Times article, "Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees," that makes me wonder if Hawthorne, the literary genius, is wrong.

The article explains a recent case in which a judge, James Robart, lifted a Trump administration ban after hearing a compelling argument that Muslim refugees struggle to reunite with family members who have already legally settled in the U.S. due to discriminatory policies of the U.S. refugee program. Governmental lawyers counter-argued that the ban was necessary because it was in interests of national security.

I sit at the breakfast table wondering if xenophobia was always that pronounced in the United States. It appears to me that xenophobia underlined the governmental lawyers' arguments; an attorney called the ban "reasonable and appropriate." I do not understand how a ban that targets certain groups, specifically Muslims, can be "reasonable." I ask my father, who grew up in an Italian immigrant household if he recalls facing immense oppression. He says no. I often hear people casually declaring that Muslims should not be allowed in the U.S. because they will bomb our cities. When did Muslim refugees become synonymous with terrorism? The answer: recently. How may you ask? The death of our shadows.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" explores the concept of the shadow-self. The character Pearl is praised because she possesses no shadow. Hawthorne suggested that our world would be a better place if we did not have shadows, meaning our dark parts would be exposed to society. We live in Hawthorne's world, and it is not one of sublime beauty, rather it is one of chaos and disgust.

With recent changes in administration, more people have become comfortable vocalizing xenophobic, along with homophobic, racist, and sexist, thoughts. It has become more common to witness politicians share their dark, most discriminatory, comments to gain support. Those thoughts are normalized, causing the death of our shadows.

Shadows barricade impertinent comments and prevent xenophobia from manifesting itself into discriminatory policies like the ban seen in the New York Times article. Although Judge James Robart partially lifted the ban, part of it still exists, along with other similar policies. He's combating xenophobia, while others do little to eradicate discriminatory policies. By doing nothing, a shadow-less world exists. Perhaps if we had shadows, a ban would not exist to prevent Muslim families from reuniting. A Muslim father can watch his daughter blow out the candles on her birthday cake, and a Muslim mother can applaud when her son receives his high school diploma. But they can't.

Hawthorne is wrong. His envisioned world has its perils. It allows xenophobia to persist, causing the unjust discrimination of certain groups like the Muslim refugees mentioned in the article "Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees." We can live again in Hawthorne's imperfect world, where shadows exist, even finding it to be not so imperfect. A shadow can only exist with light; there is no light in a shadow-less world.

Sayali Shelke, 19, Texas A&M University: Stereotype threat and " Careers for Women in Technology Companies Are a Global Challenge "

In the New York Times article, "Careers for Women in Technology Companies Are A Global Challenge," writer Alina Tugend discusses the similarities and differences for women around the world working in the tech field. Tech companies in the United States suffer from a male-dominated, "bro" culture that gives a cold shoulder to female coworkers. In other places, such as the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, the problem lies with class differences, leading to the alienation of middle-class and poor women. The article sums that, while the execution of these issues vary around the world, the underlying effect is still the same: women have a much harder time entering and remaining in the tech field.

The lack of female representation in STEM is not new. While there are many factors that lead to this problem, the one with the deepest consequence is negative stereotypes planted at a young age.

In psychology, we learned about the idea of stereotype threat: a phenomenon in which people are reminded of negative stereotypes of a group they belong to and hence perform on given tasks conforming to those stereotypes. In 1997, researcher Steven Spencer applied this idea to classrooms and discovered that equally intelligent women performed worse on a math exam than their male counterparts after being told that the test showed gender differences. This characterization evoked the negative stereotype of women's lack of math skills and led them to under-perform on the exam. In contrast, he found that if, before the test, participants were led to believe that both parties performed equally, women's scores were similar to the men's. Additional research post Spencer's experiment has further supported this idea, proving that negative stereotypes in gender as well as race and ethnicity reduces the performance of individuals.

This institutionalized idea that women are not as capable of performing mathematical or technical tasks as well as men is deeply rooted in our culture, starting in elementary schools all the way to professional work settings. Learning about stereotype threat was eye-opening because it allowed me to see the deeper effects of the way we teach children about careers and how it differs in males and females. Dr. Spencer's experiment involved one math exam; however, the negative stereotypes about women's lack of technical skills are prevalent universally. The most corrosive part of this narrative is that men are lead to believe these same ideas, so in the future they are equally as unwelcoming of women, a disheartening reality reflected in our companies today.

It is vital that we start debasing these myths and start encouraging women from young ages to be open about any career. Most importantly, we need to teach both men and women such values, so that men can also live in a world where the idea of women being empowered to work in any field is a standard, a world in which creativity and innovation need no gender classification.

Runners-Up

Update, Feb. 27: Several readers have asked to learn more about the connections students made, so w e've added a short excerpt from the work of each runner-up.
Andrea B., 17, St. Ignatius College Prep: "Beowulf" and "'Wonder Woman' Could Be the Superhero Women in Hollywood Need"

Whether heroes take the form of a mighty Anglo-Saxon warrior or a fierce Amazonian princess, the people who rise up to lead us out of the shadows of death are cultivated by the trials they face and the hope for a brighter future that we project upon them which are often rooted in the injustices we experience.

Sofie Brutsaert, 15, Jamesville-DeWitt High School: The Stanford Prison Experiment and " ESPN Fires Donovan McNabb and Eric Davis After Lawsuit "

A lot can be learned from the prisoners in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Despite the fact that they were innocent, not actual prisoners deserving of punishment, as the simulation progressed they increasingly accepted their abuse without protest. Of course while there are many factors contributing to the silence of sexual assault victims (social pressure, and the fear of losing their jobs among them), it is also true that many of these factors stem from the victim's powerless role, which is similar to the silence of the prisoners in Zimbardo's experiment. While the issue of sexual misconduct is complex and it is impossible to pinpoint any one cause, the findings of the SPE shed a startling light on the effect power has on both the victims and perpetrators of such a widespread epidemic.

Sharanya Datta, 14, Biotechnology High School: "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller and " 'Fake News': Wide Reach but Little Impact, Study Suggests "

In the world we live in, fake news is becoming a threat to credibility. With the assistance of the Internet, no one can be completely sure what they are reading is accurate...During the Salem Witch trials in which The Crucible took place, news of witchcraft had spread like ivy. Accusations against Goody Proctor and Rebecca Nurse were the talk of the town not only in Salem, but also in neighboring towns. However, in the 1600's, people were not very educated and did not have much sense of the world; the majority of the townspeople of Salem and the neighboring towns believed everything they heard about witchcraft.

Ian Derushia, 15, Hoggard High School: Genghis Khan and " What Experts Know About Men Who Rape "

Over the course of recent weeks, my AP World class has been conducting a mock trial to try Genghis Khan for being an uncivilized tyrant... As I did more research, not only for the trial but for a more personal understanding, I came across a New York Times article titled "What Experts Know About Men Who Rape" which went on to describe a study that took place to understand the science and psychology behind men that raped...Much like Genghis Khan, these men wanted power, especially if their sexual offenses were violent or aggressive. I believe that Genghis Khan was on a power trip and violated these poor innocent women to demean their societies and to show that he had enough power to do so.

Kendall Dunn, 18, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " My Year of No Shopping "

In the day and age of wealth, where consumerism is ubiquitous, it's become acceptable to compulsively fill desires through material gains, such as new clothes or electronics. After all, if we have the capability to harmlessly buy whatever we desire, then what's wrong with instant satisfaction?The problem is that we constantly reward ourselves, which in turn causes us to feel less grateful for items we receive. Just like the inhabitants of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we seek products to provide short bursts of satisfaction and often ignore more wholesome alternatives. Similar to the imaginary civilians in Brave New World, we are surrounded by consumables that are marketed for being quick: Amazon Prime, faster internet, minute-microwave rice, etc. Even subpar TV dinner can seem more attractive than a home cooked meal because of its immediate nature. However, better things come to those who wait.

Jackson Edwards, Wesley Gow, Jack Trent, Jaya Krishnan, 17, St. John's School: "Invisible Man" and " A Rebel, a Warrior and a Race Fiend "

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's bildungsroman centered around an unnamed black protagonist (written to be symbolic of any black man), should not be relevant today. Ideally, Invisible Man should serve as a dated reminder of America's dark racial history; unfortunately, its underlying themes remain just as prevalent in today's world as they were when Ellison first released the novel 66 years ago. Charles M. Blow's Op-Ed "A Rebel, a Warrior and a Race Fiend" particularly highlights the similarities between the nameless protagonist's struggles and the deeply-embedded racism that still plagues modern America. Blow uses the racially-charged language of President Donald Trump towards black professional athletes to make a broader point about the "racial inequities fused to the DNA of power in this country." The similarities drawn between Ellison's work, written in an overtly racist America, and Blow's contemporary opinion piece convey a depressing message regarding the glacial rate of social progress.

Sera Eviner, 16, Oceanside High School: Newton's Laws and " The #MeToo Moment: No Longer Complicit "

Why is this [#MeToo] happening now? Why are all of these women all of a sudden sharing their stories? These questions seem to puzzle many, yet there is a simple answer: Newton's first two laws of motion can easily explain the growth of the #MeToo movement. Newton's first law states that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force...While the initial force is debatable - whether it be President Trump's locker room talk, the growing women's rights movement, or simply women banding together against Harvey Weinstein - it is evident that a strong force had pushed this moment into action. The once silenced women now gained courage and support to speak up; this cause which was once at rest, is now in motion and will remain in motion.

Shane George, 15, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Harvey Weinstein Expelled From Television Academy Over Abuse Claims "

The unequal power dynamic that can exist between the oftentime male offender and female victim in these situations has been a pattern that has existed for generations, going as far back as Shakespearean times. This discussion of male power exerted over women plays out in Othello as we watch high-ranking, socially-influential men manipulate this power dynamic in their favor. As we see the mistakes of Venetian society, we remember our own as well.

Jeong-In Ha, 16, Bergen County Academies: "Troilus and Cressida" by William Shakespeare and " Japan Balks at Calls for New Apology to South Korea Over 'Comfort Women '"

My junior year lit class focused on Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and the explicit objectification of women present throughout the play. The romance between idealistic Troilus and rational Cressida abruptly ends when Cressida is sold off forcefully to the enemy troop. In the fourth act however, the Greek soldiers welcome Cressida to the camp by doting her with compliments and kisses. The soldiers refer to her as "my fair lady" and "sweet lady", neglecting the fact that they had ripped her out of her home and relationship against her will. This polite diction makes readers believe that Cressida is enjoying her time at the Greek camp, and we oversee the emotional torture she was forced to endure.

Similar to Shakespeare's play, the reference to the sex slaves as "comfort women" and "halmonies" impose a positive connotation on a subject that dare not be taken lightly, as we sometimes come to disregard the injustices these women endured.

Betsy Jenifer, 18, Women's Christian College: "Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe and " You'll Never Be Famous - And That's O.K. "

Considering that this play was written in the sixteenth century, during the Renaissance period, it is surprising and even baffling, that it is more relevant now than ever before. Today, everybody wants to be famous. Everyone wants to be noticed, loved and desired by everyone else. They want to raise eyebrows and swivel heads the moment they walk into a room and be important enough to make people stop chewing their food at the mention of their name.

In Christopher Marlowe's play, Faustus' unbridled ambitions tragically lead to his downfall. After twenty-four years of enjoying all worldly pleasures, Lucifer along with his armada of devils drag Faustus into Hell for eternity as he cries out gut-wrenchingly.

Victoria Li, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial "

Sinking into pillows with a pair of fuzzy socks hugging my feet and the delicious aroma of cacao permeating the air, I lost myself in the world of "The Great Gatsby." Beyond the ball gowns and fancy cars, a sense of déjà vu washed over me, and it wasn't due to the fact that I spent most of winter break in a similar position: curled up in bed, sipping hot chocolate. The real explanation was much less pleasant, as I realized that the same issues F. Scott Fitzgerald was commenting on in 1925 still exist today. We live in a society suffering from a severe lack of authenticity. There is no substance beneath our shiny exterior of purported principles. Maybe some of our historical documents provide a gilded barrier between what we say we represent and what we actually are. The article "The Heartbeat of Racism is Denial" addresses this disparity between our stated beliefs and the reality of our condition.

Zoe Maisel, 17, South Forsyth High School: "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins and "'To Kill a Mockingbird' Removed From School in Mississippi "

This poem describes a teacher who largely downplays the brutal and gruesome truths within history and even changes some history in order to protect the children's innocence. He describes the Ice Age as "The Chilly Age" (3) and teaches that the "Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" (12-13). This seems harmless and appears to keep the children happy and in a world of white picket fences, but the children in the poem are later on the playground "tormenting the weak and the smart" (15-16). The teacher's simplistic and inaccurate accounts of history is producing adverse effects on the children- information that is necessary for their educational growth and development has been kept from them, thus breeding ignorance, hatred, and violence.

This same phenomenon is happening in current times as books are being banned from schools. This is a robbery of information, as most books that are banned include great lessons for children about the world and themselves.

Emily Pinheiro, 16, Arlington High School: Foreign-language study in school and " Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He's the Only One. "

In Intuto, Peru, Amadeo García García is the last man to speak the language of Taushiro, a language dating back centuries from the jungles of the Amazon. He hasn't had anyone to speak the language with, and it is highly likely that the language and culture will die with him. The last person Amadeo has spoken with in his native language was his brother, Juan, who died, along with his parents and others in his village, due to diseases such as malaria. Now that he is the last one, there is pressure on Amadeo to retain his culture and language.

...Learning a foreign language and learning the culture of another country will always have tremendous benefit, in all aspects of life and careers. We should never force someone to be in the position Amadeo is now in; we should work to maintain cultural diversity in order to benefit society and future generations.

Izi Potter, 18, University of Oregon: "The Blank Page" by Karen Blixen and " My Worst Columns "

At the end of stories with important messages, there is a silence that speaks. Danish writer Karen Blixen's short story, The Blank Page, teaches this profound lesson. An old woman relays the advice her grandmother gave when teaching how to tell stories, "Where the storyteller is loyal...there, in the end, silence will speak." ...While in this tale the reluctance to represent every story comes from a place of shame, there are numerous reasons why some stories don't get told.

These days, with access to thousands of news stories at any given moment, people have a nearly endless choice of what narratives to follow. In Nicholas Kristof's article My Worst Columns he writes about his least "clicked on" pieces for the New York Times website. All of his "worst columns" feature stories of injustice or of situations needing humanitarian attention. These are stories with a silence that speaks, but not that many people have ever read them.

...When Americans avoid reading stories that place, as Kristof puts it, "...a spotlight on injustice or humanitarian need," they never get the silence that speaks, and choose instead brash, superficial noise. This is the narrative of 2017 America which focuses on the distracting, at-home crisis of Trump and disregards issues of worldly injustice.

Andrew Reilly, 18, South Forsyth High School: "Tulip Mania" in 17th century Holland and Bitcoin

Bitcoin's price has risen 2000% in 2017; the newfound attention associated with this rise has brought record traffic levels to many cryptocurrency exchanges, many of them buckling under the pressure of thousands of market orders during highly volatile periods of trading. This meteoric and unsustainable rise has drawn many comparisons to famous speculative bubbles throughout history, but the most commonly referenced is the Tulip Mania experienced in 17th century Holland.

...While the comparison between Tulip Mania and Bitcoin may seem reasonable at first, given the unprecedented rise in bitcoin price combined with the hyper-speculative nature of Bitcoin itself, what sets bitcoin apart from the Tulip Bubble is its utility and widespread distribution. Unlike a Tulip a Bitcoin can be fractionalized, making it accessible to common folk even as the price increases. It can also be traded throughout the globe near-instantaneously using the blockchain, an incorruptible cloud based ledger system that records transactions in real time, all while continuously analyzing itself for errors...The comparison between Bitcoin and Tulip Mania is overblown and irresponsible for the press to be touting as it is a poor comparison to the history behind Tulip Mania.

Julia Swicionis, 16, Saint Ignatius College Prep: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare and " Mueller's Facts and Trump's Make-Believe "

A recent opinion editorial piece titled "Mueller's Facts and Trump's Make-Believe" discusses Donald Trump's contempt for the truth, especially in regards to maintaining his power, and how other political figures are influenced by his words and actions. This piece was written by Roger Cohen, published on December 5, 2017, and gives a general synopsis of the current state of Trump's presidency. However, it conveys the leader of the United States as a delusional, lying, and power driven similar to how Shakespeare conveyed Macbeth in his 17th century drama, Macbeth. The only difference between Cohen's portrayal of Trump and Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth is, Macbeth is a fictional character while Trump is actually the President of the United States.

Abby VanLonkhuyzen, 16, Yarmouth High School: The Chinese Exclusion Act and " Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7 Muslim Countries "

The motivations behind the Chinese Exclusion Act and President Trump's executive order are shockingly similar. Both were designed to limit the immigration of one particular ethnic group so those immigrants did not take jobs from the American population. But unlike the Chinese Exclusion Act, the president's executive order faced harsh criticism and was challenged in court on several occasions. It was repealed and replaced with another, less harsh version based on similar principles, which has again been challenged several times in court, eventually making its way up to the Supreme Court .Despite similarities between the two laws, the American people have learned a lot in the last 136 years. We've learned that immigration doesn't hurt the economy - it might even help it. We've learned that, true to American beliefs, the color of a person's skin or the religion they practice does not matter. In a time when increasing diversity and the equality of all people under the law is considered a good thing, Americans are unafraid to speak out for what they believe in and against what they don't.

Honorable Mentions

Anushka Agarwal, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " Evaluating Sources in a 'Post-Truth' World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning About Fake News "

Troy Barlow, 16, Duxbury High School: "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens and "Teacher Arrested at School Board Meeting After Questioning Superintendent Contract "

Alexis Batista, Jonathan Ricaldy, Lleayem Nazario-Johnson, Oleg Kamen, 18, Classical High School: "1984" by George Orwell and " Iran Bans English in Primary Schools to Block 'Cultural Invasion' "

Robert Biehler, 17, Cosby High School: The Civil War and " F.C.C. Plans Net Neutrality Repeal in a Victory for Telecoms "

Margarita Bogdanova-Shapkina, 15, Oceanside High School: The Industrial Revolution and " Hard-Liners and Reformers Tapped Iranians' Ire. Now, Both Are Protest Targets "

Bronwyn, Jack, Landon, 16, Greenwood College School: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " To Make Prisons 'Safer,' Some Are Banning ... Books "

Elizabeth Buerkle, 14, Oceanside High School: Orchestra class arrangements for modern music and " A Symphony Breathes Life Into 400 Broken School Instruments "

Avery Crumlish and Isabel Benson, 14, St. Michael's Episcopal School: The geology concept of the rock cycle and " The Best Era for Working Women Was 20 Years Ago "

Nathan Davidov, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " 10 Ways to Love Better "

Diego Diaz, 17, Sandra Day O'Connor High School: "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli and " When Elites Get a Taste of Their Own Medicine "

Sawyer Doeg, 13, Asheville Catholic: The Indian Removal Act and " Trump Slashes Size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments "

Odin Doolittle, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: "The Wretched of the Earth" by Franz Fannon and " Rohingya Militants in Myanmar Claim Responsibility for Attack "

Nathanie Doralus, 16, Wekiva High School: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare and " The Warp-Speed Presidency "

Jeric Duro, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Air Force General Addresses Racial Slurs on Campus: 'You Should Be Outraged' "

Isabella Eckler, 16, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and " Iran Bans English in Primary Schools to Block 'Cultural Invasion' "

Britney Ellman, 16, Arlington High School: Women's rights movements in the Antebellum period and " How a Fractious Women's Movement Came to Lead the Left "

Stacy Fernandes, 18, Eunoia Junior College: "Woman in Mind" by Alan Ayckbourn and " When 'Not Guilty' Is a Life Sentence "

Katrina Fisher, 18, New Tech High at Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " In Breakthrough, Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation From Genes in Human Embryos "

Shane George, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Harvey Weinstein Expelled From Television Academy Over Abuse Claims "

Jenny Huang, 16, North Carolina School of Science and Math: "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and " The Reckoning: Women and Power in the Workplace "

Marcel Johnican, 17, CICS Ralph Ellison: "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston and this photograph

Morgan Lafont, 16, Garden City High School: "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley and " How Evil Is Tech? "

Laura Liao, 14, West Windsor Plainsboro High School North: "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë and " At the Golden Globes, Stars and Their Activist Guests Talk About Why They Fight "

Sarah Lyons, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and " Seeing Danger in a Face "

Emme Magliato, 16, Arlington High School: Injustice to Native Americans and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and " Trump Is Vandalizing Our Wild Heritage "

Vidhisha Mahesh, 16, Folsom High School: "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare and " How the Myth of the Artistic Genius Excuses the Abuse of Women "

Colin Mangan, 16, Oceanside High School: Election and presidency of Andrew Jackson and " The Glory of Democracy "

Caitlin McCarthy, 17, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and " The World Celebrates New Year's Eve "

Sofia Olivares, 15: Climate change and " No One Is Coming to Save Us From Trump's Racism "

Sarina Patel, 14, C. Leon King High School: The French Revolution and " Open Letter From Time's Up "

Katie Remaklus, 16, The Seven Hills School: "Beowulf" and " Trump's Twitter Threats Put American Credibility on the Line "

Olivia Rockrohr, 17, Arlington High School: The California gold rush and " Google's War Over the Sexes "

Dylan Rosenthal, 16, North Broward Preparatory School: "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare and " With Manicures and Makeup, Japan's 'Genderless' Blur Line Between Pink and Blue "

Santhosh Saravanan, 17, South Forsyth High School: "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri and " Finding Myself Through My College Major "

Ardi Saunders, 17, New Tech High School @ Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " Free Speech, Personified "

Caitlin Terpstra, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and " After the Pain, a Chance to Meet and Forgive "

Sophie Tully, 16, Cosby High School: The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and " Amber Tamblyn: Redefining the Red Carpet "

Crystella Wagner, 16, Sandra Day O'Connor High School: "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli and " Stalin, Hitler and the Temptations of Totalitarianism "

Anne-Kinsey Wash and Claire McCann, 13, St. Michael's Episcopal School: The 1885-1908 rubber craze in Congo and " Apple Report Expects New iPhones to Jump-Start Growth "

Emma Wigington, 17, South Forsyth High School: "Southern Cop" by Sterling Brown and " When Will Black Lives Matter in St. Louis? "

Sydney Yan, 15, Biotechnology High School: The Chandrasekhar Limit (the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star) and " American Dreamers "

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Related Lessons and Webinars
Thank you, as always, to the teachers and students who took the time to participate. Teachers, if you're interested, please let us know how you used the challenge in your class by writing to LNFeedback@nytimes.com Thank you also to our judges, who included Learning Network staff Shannon Doyne, Caroline Gilpin, Michael Gonchar and Natalie Proulx, as well as teacher-contributors to our site, Amanda Christy Brown and Annissa Hambouz.

* The lesson plan that accompanied this challenge: Making It Relevant: Helping Students Connect Their Studies to the World Today

* Our Text to Text series, in which The Learning Network matches often-taught literary, historical and scientific texts with Times articles past and present.

* O ur on-demand webinar, "Ripped From the Headlines and Applied to the Classics: Pairing Often-Taught Literary and History Texts With Times Articles and Multimedia," which explores more ideas for helping students make connections like these.

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today

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Winners Zoe Georgulas, 17, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " Thought Control, Trump-Style " Is it really possible to control how people think? Today we are inundated with media from the moment we wake up: images, text messages, news stories. In school, students read articles, novels, and textbooks.

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The Literary Roots of the Incel Movement – Electric Literature

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The Literary Roots of the Incel Movement – Electric Literature

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Our canon of sad white men's literature reinforces the idea that male sexual deprivation is a public concern

O ne month ago yesterday, Alek Minassian drove through a Toronto shopping district in a rented van, killing ten people and injuring sixteen more. Analysis of Minassian's online activity - where he participated in forums for the involuntarily celibate, or incels - quickly revealed the attack's motivation: he was avenging himself on the women (apparently all of us) who had rejected him. He declared that with his act of terrorism, the " incel rebellion " had begun - although he was not the first self-described incel to use his sexlessness as an excuse for acts of mass violence.

Though the subsequent rash of media analysis might lead you to think otherwise, none of this is new - not even the term "incel," which was first coined in 1993 by a queer Canadian woman when she created a website for people who identified as involuntary celibates to share their thoughts and feelings. The incel community that exists today on reddit, 4chan, and incel.me is an inchoate and ever-evolving group, which seems to change shape with every attempt to characterize it. The genealogy of today's incel grows more complex the more you dig (he is descended from both the aggressively misogynist Pick Up Artist community and the slightly more sympathetic "love-shy" community). What members of all these groups share, of course, is their sense of their own alienation from women and their (almost always deeply misogynistic) conviction that this alienation has negatively affected their lives in myriad profound ways.

The sentiments offered by participants in such forums range from standard misogynist cliche, to violent hatred for women, to deep ambivalence and confusion about all aspects of human sexuality. At best, these communities are desperately sad and at worst - and lately we've been seeing them at their worst - incel and related forums rationalize and even celebrate the rape and murder of women, and advocate state mandated "sexual redistribution of women" (the rationale behind which, amazingly, has been echoed by several prominent right-wing thinkers lately).

I am writing this on May 23rd, the fourth anniversary of Elliot Rodger's Isla Vista spree killing, a set of murders explicitly motivated by the perpetrator's extreme hatred of women and the men he perceived as more sexually successful than he. As of the time of writing, 10:09 am, there are multiple posts on the front page of incel.me celebrating Rodger as a hero (many more will surely show up throughout the day). Posters are discussing what kind of vanilla latte Rodger would have liked ( hot or cold), congratulating each other on the anniversary (which they're calling "The Supreme Gentleman's Day" and "The Day of Retribution"), and making playlists of his favorite songs (they call these '80s pop songs "Elliotcore"). Where did these young men get the idea that male pathos (stereotypically defined by them as sexual frustration) is so pathetic, so worthy of tribute? One possible answer to the question, one we don't discuss very much, is our culture's literary history. The incel isn't just a monstrous birth of our casually cruel and anonymous internet culture. He is also a product of Anglo-American literary culture, which (particularly in the twentieth century) treats the topic of male sexual frustration as if it is of prime importance to us all.

The incel isn't just a monstrous birth of our casually cruel and anonymous internet culture. He is also a product of a literary culture that treats the topic of male sexual frustration as if it is of prime importance to us all.

Think of the literature you read in high school. One source of Hamlet's insanity, those around him find it natural to assume, is his sexual frustration with Ophelia. Multiple characters in the play scheme to bring the two together, hoping that if she puts out he'll calm the fuck down and not kill everyone. The plots of a number of other "classic" novels, from Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities to The Great Gatsby, are driven by a (white) male character's frustrated desire with a remote woman. Holden Caulfield's ramble through New York is punctuated by his obsessive recollections of Jane Gallagher, the girl he respected too much to try to fuck. Tim O'Brien's collection, The Things They Carried, lingers on the story of Jimmy Cross and his obsession with a woman named Martha, whom he knew before he was drafted. Cross is depicted as a genuine figure of pathos: a normal, relatable man caught in a terrible position who uses fantasy as a way to manage the horrors of his war experience. He remembers touching Martha's knee one night, and how she had recoiled. As he recalls this scene, he fantasizes about having "done something brave." "He should've," he thinks, "carried her up the stairs to her room and tied her to the bed and touched that left knee all night long." That his fascination with her takes the form of a rape fantasy is later revealed to be doubly significant. It is not just evidence of his resentment towards her for rejecting him, but also, we later learn, proof that he has somehow intuited the history of sexual trauma that lives behind her veneer of disassociation, her eyes which are always "wide open, not afraid, not a virgin's eyes, just flat and uninvolved."

I choose The Things They Carried to pick on here because it's a favorite of mine. I think it's brilliant, but it offers a prime example of the way our literary culture has long treated rage and aggression as if they are normal features of (white) male sexuality. (The racial component is of course significant here, since the exact opposite has long been true for depictions of black male sexuality, which have been represented as essentially and problematically aggressive.) The literature we choose to teach our children evidences how untroubled we are by this disturbing cliché that rage and a fascination with violation are characteristic features of (again, white) male sexuality. This is of course one of the main points of O'Brien's beautiful book, but it doesn't change the fact that as a teenager I had read many fictional accounts of men's rape fantasies long before I had ever read a literary account from the woman's perspective of rape, or even of consensual sex. I was trained to accept that male sexual frustration was a serious issue because I read hundreds of pages about it before the age of 20, far more than I read about issues of undoubtedly greater social import, like the legacy of slavery, the alienation of women and people of color from public life, or the violence of the settler colonialism on which the United States was founded. Perhaps these novels even coached me into taking male sexual frustration seriously through a kind of frightful education: look what happens, they seemed to say, when men don't get what they want.

The plots of a number of "classic" novels, from Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities to The Great Gatsby, are driven by a (white) male character's frustrated desire with a remote woman.

And these are just the books I read in high school. Don't even get me started on D.H. Lawrence, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, Harold Pinter, Henry Miller, Saul Bellow, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Bret Easton Ellis, or the patron saint of elevating male bullshit: David Foster Wallace. ( Don't @ me; I don't care.) Though many of these authors are justly celebrated, they have all repeatedly treated male sexual frustration as if it deserves pride of place among the great issues of Life. Lolita even succeeds in conjuring sympathy for the desires of a pedophile. (Gregor von Rezzori famously called it "the only convincing love story of our century" in Vanity Fair, a quotation which has long been emblazoned on the cover of the Vintage edition of the novel.) By contrast, novels of women's frustration with society - not sex - like those of Edith Wharton and Kate Chopin, are classed as special interest pieces: feminist fiction, or women's fiction, not Great American Novels.

This all becomes even more ironic when we consider the history - not literary, but real - of identifying women's sexual frustration as the psychological problem of hysteria. For hundreds of years, women were literally committed because of a "disease" that male doctors attributed to a handful of sexual causes: women with hysteria were either not getting fucked enough, had been fucked by the wrong people, had wanted to fuck the wrong people, or had just plain wanted to fuck too much. It's hardly an insight to say that men have been telling women about how they should behave sexually forever, and that usually their instructions are geared to benefit their own pleasure or politics. That today's most visible forms of misogyny, however, reverse the traditional rationale about female sexuality - it's not that we need to get fucked more for our own good, but for the good of a nation plagued by mass shootings perpetrated by lonely men  - just goes to show that this kind of misogyny cuts across political and ideological categories. I think our most celebrated and most taught literature also shows that. After revisiting the books that I was first introduced to as "great novels," I see that many of them rehearse and even promote the idea that male sexual suffering (often represented by deprivation) is a public concern, while female sexual suffering (often represented by trauma) is a private, psychological issue. In literature, time and again, men - both writers and characters - elevate their pathos by revealing it. By contrast, female pathos marks a text as niche, as "confessional," as minor.

The books that I was first introduced to as "great novels" rehearse and even promote the idea that male sexual suffering is a public concern, while female sexual suffering is a private, psychological issue.

This is more extreme version of a broader phenomenon described by Rebecca Solnit (among others): "A book without women is often said to be about humanity but a book with women in the foreground is a woman's book." This is the same logic that allows us to unreflectively give teenagers The Catcher in the Rye instead of The Bell Jar, because Salinger's book seems to have universal appeal, while Plath's is an account of pathology (when in reality, of course, both books tackle the protagonist's mental illness). It is the same logic that meant I wasn't exposed to the novels of Alice Walker, Margaret Atwood, Marilyn Robinson, or Toni Morrison until college. It is the same logic that recently allowed Gay Talese to argue publicly that he had not been influenced by any female writers (as if that's possible). In short, literary culture has long been complicit in upholding the structures by which we imagine men to be more worthy of attention and thus more human.

In both life and literature, we lock up women who are dangerously sexually frustrated for the (supposed) good of themselves and the good of the community, but we ask the community to adapt to and accommodate male sexual suffering. We regularly ask teenage girls to read books in which characters degrade women, expecting them to understand that the book's other merits outweigh its misogyny. To set such an expectation and not consider its effect on young woman is foolish and hypocritical; we rarely expect young men to do the same, and hardy ever expect young white men to read extensively in traditions where their identities aren't represented or are degraded. We need to reflect on the way the literature we celebrate supports the idea that women who are sexually frustrated create problems for themselves, while men in the same situation create problems for the world. Though the links are subtle, our celebration of a canon of sad white boy literature affects the way we think, and how much tolerance we offer to men like Alek Minassian and Elliot Rodger.

Our celebration of a canon of sad white boy literature affects the way we think, and how much tolerance we offer to men like Alek Minassian and Elliot Rodger.

We have been told recently that there is a crisis in masculinity in America, and that we should be worried about it. We have been subjected to ideologues using this "crisis" as impetus to consider radically regressive ideas about sexuality. We can counteract this fearmongering by remembering the misogyny of the canon, which reveals to us that we have always worried about male sexual frustration more than we need to (or at least, more than we worry about more widely devastating social issues). We have always treated the alienation of men as if it deserved thousands of pages of analysis, perhaps because we feared it had the power to endanger us all. (Because, as Margaret Atwood famously put it, "men worry that women will laugh at them, and women worry that men will kill them.") Reassessing the canon allows us to see that one of the reasons why "he was a lonely virgin" sounds like reasonable justification to us for a spree killing is that we have long valorized male isolation. Our literary canon treats such desire as if it is a (if not the) central topic in the lives of white men. It treats the frustration of male desire as if it merits exploration time and again. Maybe people like Jordan Peterson and Ross Douthat (two mainstream writers who have recently entertained the possibility that society would benefit from "sex redistribution") wouldn't think male isolation was a privileged social problem (rather than an individual psychological problem) if our literary culture didn't also support that idea. Maybe Donald Trump wouldn't have won the presidency in a country that didn't worry so much about what white men think all the time.

I'm not saying that we need to divest entirely from the mid-century authors like Pinter, Bellow, Updike, and Roth who have so shaped American literary culture (though I'd personally be cool with letting Hemingway, Ellis, and Wallace drift into obscurity). But I do think it's time to be done with this particular story, which treats white male rage as a ceaseless source of interest. Perhaps we already are done with this story, and instead of representing a generation-wide crisis in masculinity, the incels are just the dudes who haven't gotten over the fact that we've gotten over them. In that case, we might view their terrorism (or even the affront to civil rights represented by Trump's win) not as the beginning of an uprising but as the last gasps of a defeated army.

It's time to be done with this particular story, which treats white male rage as a ceaseless source of interest.

I'm not naive enough to think that we will ever read or write misogyny out of existence, but I hope that more of us (especially men) will start reading more widely, start balancing books like American Psycho with books like Chris Krauss's equally nimble satire of American life, I Love Dick. If I am right that there are subtle but real connections between mainstream literary structural misogyny and violent subcultures like that of the incel, then perhaps our lives actually depend on it.

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The Literary Roots of the Incel Movement - Electric Literature

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Our canon of sad white men's literature reinforces the idea that male sexual deprivation is a public concern O ne month ago yesterday, Alek Minassian drove through a Toronto shopping district in a rented van, killing ten people and injuring sixteen more.

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today - The New York Times

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today - The New York Times

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Winners

Zoe Georgulas, 17, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " Thought Control, Trump-Style "

Is it really possible to control how people think? Today we are inundated with media from the moment we wake up: images, text messages, news stories. In school, students read articles, novels, and textbooks. If we took all of these stimulants away, would we still be able to think for ourselves, or would we lose the motivation to do so?

This theme is one at the forefront of Ray Bradbury's novel, "Fahrenheit 451," which I recently read for my Literature class. The story examines a dystopian society where books have been banned completely. The average people in this story seem to lack emotional complexity; they have no desire to read because they have been taught that books made people upset. In the novel, there are a few people who question the status quo, but the majority of people live in a state of blissful ignorance.

Though the novel is meant to depict a contemporary society that Bradbury could not have predicted, there are elements of its narrative that are uncannily similar to our world. Specifically, the mindset of our leaders. Following the mandate from the president disallowing the use of seven scientific words by the CDC in budget documents, I read an article in the New York Times called "Thought Control, Trump-Style" published on December 18, 2017. The Trump administration has almost completely erased any trace of the LGBT+ community on government websites and banned the phrase "climate change" from use by the Department of Agriculture. This virus has infected so many establishments that its ban on seven words in budget documents pales in comparison.

Why are our leaders seeking to control the media we consume? Even the controversy of "fake news" is an attempt to restrict the press we see to only one side of the story. Our government has become a Mind Flayer of sorts: it sees itself as a superior race of thinkers and feels a need to dominate other beings to the point of mind control. This evil and fantastical government is what Ray Bradbury was trying to warn against in his novel. Complacency only breeds complacency. Congress will surely be more effective in passing legislation that Republicans are in favor of if the only news consumed by the American public leans to the far right, but what good does it do us as a society to all agree?

American democracy is predicated on freedom of speech and the desire to seek knowledge. The very idea of precluding this information is a threat to our republic. It is scary to think that Bradbury saw signs of today's society almost seventy years ago. Perhaps even scarier is how many people in today's society have failed to become Guy Montags. It would be difficult to find someone who does not agree with the dangers presented in this book, but, unfortunately, it is not hard to find someone who agrees with the thought control of America's own Mind Flayer.

If complacency breeds complacency, will deliberate minds produce deliberate actions?

Samantha Jones, 16, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Walden" and " Dropping Out of College Into Life "

It is fairly well known that Henry David Thoreau ventured off into Walden Woods to live in solidarity for two years. The purpose of this endeavor was not only to rid himself of society's frivolities but to see what the woods could teach him. Thoreau's philosophy on education was a central theme to his books, and details that learning through experience is far more beneficial than in a classroom. This belief parallels in Rainesford Stauffer's "Dropping Out of College Into Life," which accounts for her decision to leave college and why it was crucial to her education. In the article Stauffer explains school does not prepare students for failure, and instead teaches them to avoid it at all costs. From this, students develop a complex fear of failure early on in their academic careers.

Stauffer's story begins her freshman year of college, when she remembers this paralyzing fear. She recalls going from a confident student; optimistic about the year, to a terrified, voiceless wreck. Her high school education had prepared her for the coursework but not the reality her actions impacted her future, and could possibly mean failure. Stauffer became so petrified that she stopped eating and participating in classes, dropped courses, lost weight, and eventually dropped out of college altogether. She'd failed, and her worst fear had become a reality.

Yet, somehow this wasn't as crushing as she thought it would be. Stauffer moved home, and inadvertently started seeking out education the same way Thoreau did: through experience. She found that the hands on experience of ballet and yoga studios and a nonprofit organization furthered her education more than any college course ever could. Eventually Stauffer found a way to finish her degree at the New School, a collection of universities that offered credit for real-life experience instead of academic courses. She went from the lowest point in her life to one of the highest, and all she had to do was fail.

The moral is clear: there are gaps in our education system, and because of these gaps students aren't adequately prepared for their own futures. In his book Walden, Thoreau elaborates on the ideas Stauffer touches on in her article. As stated before, he believed learning through experience was exponentially better than a in classroom. When a rigid curriculum with expectations is set in place, students aren't given the same hands on learning as they would be without one. Just as Stauffer embraced this learning style in the New School, Thoreau did so in Walden Woods. For that is all Walden really is; Thoreau learning from nature by immersing himself in it, instead of seeing it on the pages of a book. A quote from Walden most fitting is as follows, "We boast of our system of education, but why stop at schoolmasters and schoolhouses? We are all schoolmasters, and our schoolhouse is the universe" (Walden 10/15/1859.)

Lily Langrind, 17, Concord Carlisle High School: "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh and " Checking My Male Privilege "

Most of the literature I have explored in my English classes have been novels and plays with sophisticated language and complex storylines, but this semester we read an eye-opening essay about racism- "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" by Peggy McIntosh-which finally made me realize that what my teachers say is true: the things we read and discuss do apply to the real world.

I read Charles Blow's editorials regularly. The effect of his words is sharp and impactful. When I came across "Checking My Male Privilege" after the deluge of sexual harassment accusations came out in Hollywood and Washington, the connection was obvious.In "Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack," McIntosh emphasizes how in our society, white privilege is so lethal because its beneficiaries are "carefully taught not to recognize [it]." How can racism be eradicated if the people with advantages don't even know they have them? Unless white people recognize all the ways our quality of life can be so much higher simply because of the color of our skin, we will forever have this invisible pack full of assets and protections secured tightly on our backs.

If we apply the same logic McIntosh uses in her essay to our discussions about sexual harassment in America, it's easy to see that most men are also conditioned to evade any blame whatsoever for the injustices so many women face. Just like the white people who attribute their success to their own merit and turn a blind eye to their privileges, the men who focus on the "good guys" who don't grope or whistle or slap are choosing to overlook the privilege of physical dominance. It seems simple, but men can enjoy the luxury of knowing that a vast majority of the time, women don't have the physical superiority to victimize or overpower men for unwanted sexual behavior.

In cases of both sexism and racism, privileges hurt both those without and with the privileges. White people might not condone racism, but their blindness to privilege leads them to believe that racism may not be as bad as the underprivileged make it seem. As Blow writes, it's extremely difficult to understand how bad something is if you never experience it firsthand, and so listening to people with fewer privileges is one of the best tools we can use to evaluate the state of discrimination black people and women are immersed in.

Alicia Li, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare? "

Beneath the shimmery surface of American ideals, from John Winthrop's iconic imagery of the country as a "city upon a hill" to the twentieth century metaphor of a "melting pot" accepting all cultures, nationalities, and ethnicities, recent events reveal the underlying racism of a nation claiming to be "post-racial." In George Yancy's "Will America Choose King's Dream or Trump's Nightmare?" the professor illustrates how Trump's offensive and racist statements pertaining to Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations highlight America's deceptive façade as a beacon for civil liberty. A classic piece of American literature, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the flaws of high society during the Roaring Twenties, a period of both economic prosperity and unrivaled income inequality, through the narration of Nick Carraway. Reflecting current news, "The Great Gatsby" showcases how harsh reality is often hidden under a superficial exterior.

After moving to Long Island, Carraway optimistically believes in the American dream of working hard to be rewarded and achieve upward mobility. However, his encounters reveal the faults of the rich whose lifestyles and wealth are so widely admired. Tom Buchanan, a Yale graduate from a prominent family, has more than enough wealth to transport his polo ponies across the country while owning an elaborate mansion framed by French windows and half an acre of fresh roses. Despite Buchanan's dignified appearance and prestige, Carraway uncovers the truth of his racism, domestic violence, and immorality. At his own dinner party, Buchanan recommends a book claiming the importance of the dominance of the white race. That same night, a woman reveals his infidelity and the fact that everyone in town is aware of it. Not only is the man unabashedly unfaithful, but he frequently leaves bruises on his wife and breaks his mistress's nose during a disagreement. Meanwhile, the vanity of his wife and mistress is undeniable since Buchanan's exuberant wealth was the subject of their attraction. The sole genuinely magnanimous rich character, Jay Gatsby, is delusional and dependent on illegal means to maintain his lavish lifestyle.

Although written nearly a century later, Yancy's op-ed examines the same theme of reality contradicting American ideals. Ever since the Declaration of Independence affirmed equality for all men and the United States emerged as the land of liberty, the nation claimed to be a republic of moral justice and equality. Yet on January 11, President Donald J. Trump revealed the contradictory truth when he made a racist and derogatory statement condemning immigrants from several nonwhite countries. The representative of the United States allegedly using "shithole" to describe the homelands of foreign immigrants is contemptuous and clearly inconsistent with America's image of acceptance and tolerance.

In "The Great Gatsby," Fitzgerald warns readers against accepting society at face value, a lesson that Yancy emphasizes as well. To learn from the misplaced optimism of Nick Carraway, Americans today must remain unaffected by the country's idealistic rhetoric of freedom and equality to speak out against our president's bigotry, rather than silently accepting the unjust reality of racism.

Katherine LoBue, 16, Mamaroneck High School: "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and " The Other Inconvenient Truth "

Mark Twain was friends with abolitionist Frederick Douglass, yet he permitted grotesque drawings of escaped slave Jim in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Twain was a benefactor for African American students, yet he depicted Jim as helpless and inferior in the "anti-slavery" satire. Twain clearly had conflicting views regarding African Americans. In his New York Times op-ed, "The Other Inconvenient Truth," author Charles Blow states, "Just because one abhors violence and cruelty doesn't mean that one truly believes that all people are equal... Entertaining the notion of imbalance-that white people are inherently better than others in any way- is also white supremacy." Blow invents the term "soft white supremacy" to describe these beliefs. This concept offered me a way to navigate Twain's puzzling attitudes towards African Americans in Huck Finn.

When reading Twain's classic with my AP English class, I was confused as to why the text wasn't resolutely anti-slavery. In the novel, protagonist Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi to escape their lives in St. Petersburg, Missouri. It takes over 300 pages for Huck to realize Jim is a human being, and even then Huck infantilizes Jim by offering the grown man "help." In the book's last ten controversial chapters, Jim becomes subservient to Huck and Tom, refusing to stand up for himself even when made to complete ridiculous tasks. Jim's behavior in these chapters led me to suspect Twain believed slaves were too unintelligent and submissive to stand up to adolescents. Although Twain depicted Jim as a true human being, giving this book its "anti-slavery" reputation, subtleties in Huck's and Jim's attitudes make me wonder if Twain "entertained notions of imbalance" even though he didn't openly show it.

Most importantly, Blow showed me that "soft white supremacy" still plagues our current times, most notably in the executive branch of our government. In 2011, Trump said President Obama needed to show his birth certificate to prove he was American-born. When announcing his Presidential candidacy, Trump stated Mexicans were drug dealers, criminals, and rapists. Trump said of the white supremacist demonstrations in Charlottesville that violence had taken place "on many sides." No, he didn't openly support the supremacists, but yes, he didn't really condemn them either. Recently, Trump called Elizabeth Warren "Pocahontas," actively belittling her and Native Americans simultaneously.

I had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Blow speak on January 7th and his words continued to enlighten my understanding of white supremacy. Passive white supremacy, he said, is more deadly than open white supremacy because these feelings can increase exponentially when sparked. Those who turn a blind eye to hateful events are the ones who allow extremism to grow.

I was disappointed that in the end of Twain's novel, Huck knows his Southern society has the wrong views about slavery yet he decides to turn his own blind eye. Huck's choice to escape to the West and ignore these issues on the final page is symbolic of the actions many in our country take today.

Ayden Nichol, 17, Concord-Carlisle Regional High School: "The Merchant of Venice" and " Louisiana's Big Step on Justice Reform "

It can be a terrifying thing to see decades of the pent-up rage of an oppressed person finally let out against their oppressor. This is the case in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice," when the Jewish moneylender Shylock brings his nemesis and lifelong tormentor, the Christian merchant Antonio, to court over an unpaid loan. The punishment, as agreed upon between the two men as a condition of the deal, is that Shylock may remove a pound of Antonio's flesh. But before Shylock exacts this cruel retribution, a friend of Antonio's makes a fascinating appeal in his favor. Portia claims that the true sign of strength is not the ability to take revenge, but to show mercy. Mercy, she says, "blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ... 'tis mightiest in the mightiest" (Shakespeare IV.i.183-84). In June of 2017, half a millennium after Shakespeare's fictional court case, the Louisiana state legislature seemed to realize the same thing as Portia when they passed a series of unexpected but widespread criminal justice reform laws which aim to dramatically reduce the prison population and lower recidivism rates. Both instances show that the ability to have mercy gives the person in power an unparalleled opportunity to do good, and ultimately, to benefit themselves.

At its surface, the Louisiana reform package could appear purely as an act of mercy: an attempt to help those who have fallen victim to the state's brutal justice system. On some level, this is all it is; surely there were legislators for whom this was their sole motivation. But whether intended or not, Louisiana stands to receive enormous gains from this package - it truly is "twice blest." As well as expanded parole and prison alternatives, which aim to help those convicted, the state expects to see an improvement in public safety and save over $180 million. The monetary benefits from this merciful outreach will help the state in ways that would never be thought of as connected to improving an inmate's life.

However, conservative politicians, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions, fail to see this link. They maintain that the best way to keep law and order among their constituents is to wield their power like a sword, striking down any who violate that peace. But Portia reminds us that mercy is what makes a ruler truly powerful; she calls it "an attribute to God himself" (Shakespeare IV.i.190). Sessions and others must reject this easy show of power by way of force and cruelty in the justice system, choosing instead a path that will benefit disadvantaged citizens and show the people that they are worthy of the power we grant them. In this time of political distrust, the American people could use an indication that our politicians are capable of the "awe and majesty" that Portia speaks of (Shakespeare IV.i.186). I am certain that if they chose to show mercy, we would know beyond a doubt that they are worthy of leading us.

Isabella Picillo, 17, Oceanside High School: "The Scarlet Letter" and " Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees "

I stumble upon a New York Times article, "Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees," that makes me wonder if Hawthorne, the literary genius, is wrong.

The article explains a recent case in which a judge, James Robart, lifted a Trump administration ban after hearing a compelling argument that Muslim refugees struggle to reunite with family members who have already legally settled in the U.S. due to discriminatory policies of the U.S. refugee program. Governmental lawyers counter-argued that the ban was necessary because it was in interests of national security.

I sit at the breakfast table wondering if xenophobia was always that pronounced in the United States. It appears to me that xenophobia underlined the governmental lawyers' arguments; an attorney called the ban "reasonable and appropriate." I do not understand how a ban that targets certain groups, specifically Muslims, can be "reasonable." I ask my father, who grew up in an Italian immigrant household if he recalls facing immense oppression. He says no. I often hear people casually declaring that Muslims should not be allowed in the U.S. because they will bomb our cities. When did Muslim refugees become synonymous with terrorism? The answer: recently. How may you ask? The death of our shadows.

Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" explores the concept of the shadow-self. The character Pearl is praised because she possesses no shadow. Hawthorne suggested that our world would be a better place if we did not have shadows, meaning our dark parts would be exposed to society. We live in Hawthorne's world, and it is not one of sublime beauty, rather it is one of chaos and disgust.

With recent changes in administration, more people have become comfortable vocalizing xenophobic, along with homophobic, racist, and sexist, thoughts. It has become more common to witness politicians share their dark, most discriminatory, comments to gain support. Those thoughts are normalized, causing the death of our shadows.

Shadows barricade impertinent comments and prevent xenophobia from manifesting itself into discriminatory policies like the ban seen in the New York Times article. Although Judge James Robart partially lifted the ban, part of it still exists, along with other similar policies. He's combating xenophobia, while others do little to eradicate discriminatory policies. By doing nothing, a shadow-less world exists. Perhaps if we had shadows, a ban would not exist to prevent Muslim families from reuniting. A Muslim father can watch his daughter blow out the candles on her birthday cake, and a Muslim mother can applaud when her son receives his high school diploma. But they can't.

Hawthorne is wrong. His envisioned world has its perils. It allows xenophobia to persist, causing the unjust discrimination of certain groups like the Muslim refugees mentioned in the article "Judge Partially Lifts Trump Administration Ban on Refugees." We can live again in Hawthorne's imperfect world, where shadows exist, even finding it to be not so imperfect. A shadow can only exist with light; there is no light in a shadow-less world.

Sayali Shelke, 19, Texas A&M University: Stereotype threat and " Careers for Women in Technology Companies Are a Global Challenge "

In the New York Times article, "Careers for Women in Technology Companies Are A Global Challenge," writer Alina Tugend discusses the similarities and differences for women around the world working in the tech field. Tech companies in the United States suffer from a male-dominated, "bro" culture that gives a cold shoulder to female coworkers. In other places, such as the United Kingdom or the Netherlands, the problem lies with class differences, leading to the alienation of middle-class and poor women. The article sums that, while the execution of these issues vary around the world, the underlying effect is still the same: women have a much harder time entering and remaining in the tech field.

The lack of female representation in STEM is not new. While there are many factors that lead to this problem, the one with the deepest consequence is negative stereotypes planted at a young age.

In psychology, we learned about the idea of stereotype threat: a phenomenon in which people are reminded of negative stereotypes of a group they belong to and hence perform on given tasks conforming to those stereotypes. In 1997, researcher Steven Spencer applied this idea to classrooms and discovered that equally intelligent women performed worse on a math exam than their male counterparts after being told that the test showed gender differences. This characterization evoked the negative stereotype of women's lack of math skills and led them to under-perform on the exam. In contrast, he found that if, before the test, participants were led to believe that both parties performed equally, women's scores were similar to the men's. Additional research post Spencer's experiment has further supported this idea, proving that negative stereotypes in gender as well as race and ethnicity reduces the performance of individuals.

This institutionalized idea that women are not as capable of performing mathematical or technical tasks as well as men is deeply rooted in our culture, starting in elementary schools all the way to professional work settings. Learning about stereotype threat was eye-opening because it allowed me to see the deeper effects of the way we teach children about careers and how it differs in males and females. Dr. Spencer's experiment involved one math exam; however, the negative stereotypes about women's lack of technical skills are prevalent universally. The most corrosive part of this narrative is that men are lead to believe these same ideas, so in the future they are equally as unwelcoming of women, a disheartening reality reflected in our companies today.

It is vital that we start debasing these myths and start encouraging women from young ages to be open about any career. Most importantly, we need to teach both men and women such values, so that men can also live in a world where the idea of women being empowered to work in any field is a standard, a world in which creativity and innovation need no gender classification.

Runners-Up

Update, Feb. 27: Several readers have asked to learn more about the connections students made, so w e've added a short excerpt from the work of each runner-up.
Andrea B., 17, St. Ignatius College Prep: "Beowulf" and "'Wonder Woman' Could Be the Superhero Women in Hollywood Need"

Whether heroes take the form of a mighty Anglo-Saxon warrior or a fierce Amazonian princess, the people who rise up to lead us out of the shadows of death are cultivated by the trials they face and the hope for a brighter future that we project upon them which are often rooted in the injustices we experience.

Sofie Brutsaert, 15, Jamesville-DeWitt High School: The Stanford Prison Experiment and " ESPN Fires Donovan McNabb and Eric Davis After Lawsuit "

A lot can be learned from the prisoners in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Despite the fact that they were innocent, not actual prisoners deserving of punishment, as the simulation progressed they increasingly accepted their abuse without protest. Of course while there are many factors contributing to the silence of sexual assault victims (social pressure, and the fear of losing their jobs among them), it is also true that many of these factors stem from the victim's powerless role, which is similar to the silence of the prisoners in Zimbardo's experiment. While the issue of sexual misconduct is complex and it is impossible to pinpoint any one cause, the findings of the SPE shed a startling light on the effect power has on both the victims and perpetrators of such a widespread epidemic.

Sharanya Datta, 14, Biotechnology High School: "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller and " 'Fake News': Wide Reach but Little Impact, Study Suggests "

In the world we live in, fake news is becoming a threat to credibility. With the assistance of the Internet, no one can be completely sure what they are reading is accurate...During the Salem Witch trials in which The Crucible took place, news of witchcraft had spread like ivy. Accusations against Goody Proctor and Rebecca Nurse were the talk of the town not only in Salem, but also in neighboring towns. However, in the 1600's, people were not very educated and did not have much sense of the world; the majority of the townspeople of Salem and the neighboring towns believed everything they heard about witchcraft.

Ian Derushia, 15, Hoggard High School: Genghis Khan and " What Experts Know About Men Who Rape "

Over the course of recent weeks, my AP World class has been conducting a mock trial to try Genghis Khan for being an uncivilized tyrant... As I did more research, not only for the trial but for a more personal understanding, I came across a New York Times article titled "What Experts Know About Men Who Rape" which went on to describe a study that took place to understand the science and psychology behind men that raped...Much like Genghis Khan, these men wanted power, especially if their sexual offenses were violent or aggressive. I believe that Genghis Khan was on a power trip and violated these poor innocent women to demean their societies and to show that he had enough power to do so.

Kendall Dunn, 18, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " My Year of No Shopping "

In the day and age of wealth, where consumerism is ubiquitous, it's become acceptable to compulsively fill desires through material gains, such as new clothes or electronics. After all, if we have the capability to harmlessly buy whatever we desire, then what's wrong with instant satisfaction?The problem is that we constantly reward ourselves, which in turn causes us to feel less grateful for items we receive. Just like the inhabitants of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, we seek products to provide short bursts of satisfaction and often ignore more wholesome alternatives. Similar to the imaginary civilians in Brave New World, we are surrounded by consumables that are marketed for being quick: Amazon Prime, faster internet, minute-microwave rice, etc. Even subpar TV dinner can seem more attractive than a home cooked meal because of its immediate nature. However, better things come to those who wait.

Jackson Edwards, Wesley Gow, Jack Trent, Jaya Krishnan, 17, St. John's School: "Invisible Man" and " A Rebel, a Warrior and a Race Fiend "

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's bildungsroman centered around an unnamed black protagonist (written to be symbolic of any black man), should not be relevant today. Ideally, Invisible Man should serve as a dated reminder of America's dark racial history; unfortunately, its underlying themes remain just as prevalent in today's world as they were when Ellison first released the novel 66 years ago. Charles M. Blow's Op-Ed "A Rebel, a Warrior and a Race Fiend" particularly highlights the similarities between the nameless protagonist's struggles and the deeply-embedded racism that still plagues modern America. Blow uses the racially-charged language of President Donald Trump towards black professional athletes to make a broader point about the "racial inequities fused to the DNA of power in this country." The similarities drawn between Ellison's work, written in an overtly racist America, and Blow's contemporary opinion piece convey a depressing message regarding the glacial rate of social progress.

Sera Eviner, 16, Oceanside High School: Newton's Laws and " The #MeToo Moment: No Longer Complicit "

Why is this [#MeToo] happening now? Why are all of these women all of a sudden sharing their stories? These questions seem to puzzle many, yet there is a simple answer: Newton's first two laws of motion can easily explain the growth of the #MeToo movement. Newton's first law states that an object at rest will remain at rest and an object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force...While the initial force is debatable - whether it be President Trump's locker room talk, the growing women's rights movement, or simply women banding together against Harvey Weinstein - it is evident that a strong force had pushed this moment into action. The once silenced women now gained courage and support to speak up; this cause which was once at rest, is now in motion and will remain in motion.

Shane George, 15, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Harvey Weinstein Expelled From Television Academy Over Abuse Claims "

The unequal power dynamic that can exist between the oftentime male offender and female victim in these situations has been a pattern that has existed for generations, going as far back as Shakespearean times. This discussion of male power exerted over women plays out in Othello as we watch high-ranking, socially-influential men manipulate this power dynamic in their favor. As we see the mistakes of Venetian society, we remember our own as well.

Jeong-In Ha, 16, Bergen County Academies: "Troilus and Cressida" by William Shakespeare and " Japan Balks at Calls for New Apology to South Korea Over 'Comfort Women '"

My junior year lit class focused on Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida and the explicit objectification of women present throughout the play. The romance between idealistic Troilus and rational Cressida abruptly ends when Cressida is sold off forcefully to the enemy troop. In the fourth act however, the Greek soldiers welcome Cressida to the camp by doting her with compliments and kisses. The soldiers refer to her as "my fair lady" and "sweet lady", neglecting the fact that they had ripped her out of her home and relationship against her will. This polite diction makes readers believe that Cressida is enjoying her time at the Greek camp, and we oversee the emotional torture she was forced to endure.

Similar to Shakespeare's play, the reference to the sex slaves as "comfort women" and "halmonies" impose a positive connotation on a subject that dare not be taken lightly, as we sometimes come to disregard the injustices these women endured.

Betsy Jenifer, 18, Women's Christian College: "Doctor Faustus" by Christopher Marlowe and " You'll Never Be Famous - And That's O.K. "

Considering that this play was written in the sixteenth century, during the Renaissance period, it is surprising and even baffling, that it is more relevant now than ever before. Today, everybody wants to be famous. Everyone wants to be noticed, loved and desired by everyone else. They want to raise eyebrows and swivel heads the moment they walk into a room and be important enough to make people stop chewing their food at the mention of their name.

In Christopher Marlowe's play, Faustus' unbridled ambitions tragically lead to his downfall. After twenty-four years of enjoying all worldly pleasures, Lucifer along with his armada of devils drag Faustus into Hell for eternity as he cries out gut-wrenchingly.

Victoria Li, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial "

Sinking into pillows with a pair of fuzzy socks hugging my feet and the delicious aroma of cacao permeating the air, I lost myself in the world of "The Great Gatsby." Beyond the ball gowns and fancy cars, a sense of déjà vu washed over me, and it wasn't due to the fact that I spent most of winter break in a similar position: curled up in bed, sipping hot chocolate. The real explanation was much less pleasant, as I realized that the same issues F. Scott Fitzgerald was commenting on in 1925 still exist today. We live in a society suffering from a severe lack of authenticity. There is no substance beneath our shiny exterior of purported principles. Maybe some of our historical documents provide a gilded barrier between what we say we represent and what we actually are. The article "The Heartbeat of Racism is Denial" addresses this disparity between our stated beliefs and the reality of our condition.

Zoe Maisel, 17, South Forsyth High School: "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins and "'To Kill a Mockingbird' Removed From School in Mississippi "

This poem describes a teacher who largely downplays the brutal and gruesome truths within history and even changes some history in order to protect the children's innocence. He describes the Ice Age as "The Chilly Age" (3) and teaches that the "Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" (12-13). This seems harmless and appears to keep the children happy and in a world of white picket fences, but the children in the poem are later on the playground "tormenting the weak and the smart" (15-16). The teacher's simplistic and inaccurate accounts of history is producing adverse effects on the children- information that is necessary for their educational growth and development has been kept from them, thus breeding ignorance, hatred, and violence.

This same phenomenon is happening in current times as books are being banned from schools. This is a robbery of information, as most books that are banned include great lessons for children about the world and themselves.

Emily Pinheiro, 16, Arlington High School: Foreign-language study in school and " Thousands Once Spoke His Language in the Amazon. Now, He's the Only One. "

In Intuto, Peru, Amadeo García García is the last man to speak the language of Taushiro, a language dating back centuries from the jungles of the Amazon. He hasn't had anyone to speak the language with, and it is highly likely that the language and culture will die with him. The last person Amadeo has spoken with in his native language was his brother, Juan, who died, along with his parents and others in his village, due to diseases such as malaria. Now that he is the last one, there is pressure on Amadeo to retain his culture and language.

...Learning a foreign language and learning the culture of another country will always have tremendous benefit, in all aspects of life and careers. We should never force someone to be in the position Amadeo is now in; we should work to maintain cultural diversity in order to benefit society and future generations.

Izi Potter, 18, University of Oregon: "The Blank Page" by Karen Blixen and " My Worst Columns "

At the end of stories with important messages, there is a silence that speaks. Danish writer Karen Blixen's short story, The Blank Page, teaches this profound lesson. An old woman relays the advice her grandmother gave when teaching how to tell stories, "Where the storyteller is loyal...there, in the end, silence will speak." ...While in this tale the reluctance to represent every story comes from a place of shame, there are numerous reasons why some stories don't get told.

These days, with access to thousands of news stories at any given moment, people have a nearly endless choice of what narratives to follow. In Nicholas Kristof's article My Worst Columns he writes about his least "clicked on" pieces for the New York Times website. All of his "worst columns" feature stories of injustice or of situations needing humanitarian attention. These are stories with a silence that speaks, but not that many people have ever read them.

...When Americans avoid reading stories that place, as Kristof puts it, "...a spotlight on injustice or humanitarian need," they never get the silence that speaks, and choose instead brash, superficial noise. This is the narrative of 2017 America which focuses on the distracting, at-home crisis of Trump and disregards issues of worldly injustice.

Andrew Reilly, 18, South Forsyth High School: "Tulip Mania" in 17th century Holland and Bitcoin

Bitcoin's price has risen 2000% in 2017; the newfound attention associated with this rise has brought record traffic levels to many cryptocurrency exchanges, many of them buckling under the pressure of thousands of market orders during highly volatile periods of trading. This meteoric and unsustainable rise has drawn many comparisons to famous speculative bubbles throughout history, but the most commonly referenced is the Tulip Mania experienced in 17th century Holland.

...While the comparison between Tulip Mania and Bitcoin may seem reasonable at first, given the unprecedented rise in bitcoin price combined with the hyper-speculative nature of Bitcoin itself, what sets bitcoin apart from the Tulip Bubble is its utility and widespread distribution. Unlike a Tulip a Bitcoin can be fractionalized, making it accessible to common folk even as the price increases. It can also be traded throughout the globe near-instantaneously using the blockchain, an incorruptible cloud based ledger system that records transactions in real time, all while continuously analyzing itself for errors...The comparison between Bitcoin and Tulip Mania is overblown and irresponsible for the press to be touting as it is a poor comparison to the history behind Tulip Mania.

Julia Swicionis, 16, Saint Ignatius College Prep: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare and " Mueller's Facts and Trump's Make-Believe "

A recent opinion editorial piece titled "Mueller's Facts and Trump's Make-Believe" discusses Donald Trump's contempt for the truth, especially in regards to maintaining his power, and how other political figures are influenced by his words and actions. This piece was written by Roger Cohen, published on December 5, 2017, and gives a general synopsis of the current state of Trump's presidency. However, it conveys the leader of the United States as a delusional, lying, and power driven similar to how Shakespeare conveyed Macbeth in his 17th century drama, Macbeth. The only difference between Cohen's portrayal of Trump and Shakespeare's portrayal of Macbeth is, Macbeth is a fictional character while Trump is actually the President of the United States.

Abby VanLonkhuyzen, 16, Yarmouth High School: The Chinese Exclusion Act and " Trump Bars Refugees and Citizens of 7 Muslim Countries "

The motivations behind the Chinese Exclusion Act and President Trump's executive order are shockingly similar. Both were designed to limit the immigration of one particular ethnic group so those immigrants did not take jobs from the American population. But unlike the Chinese Exclusion Act, the president's executive order faced harsh criticism and was challenged in court on several occasions. It was repealed and replaced with another, less harsh version based on similar principles, which has again been challenged several times in court, eventually making its way up to the Supreme Court .Despite similarities between the two laws, the American people have learned a lot in the last 136 years. We've learned that immigration doesn't hurt the economy - it might even help it. We've learned that, true to American beliefs, the color of a person's skin or the religion they practice does not matter. In a time when increasing diversity and the equality of all people under the law is considered a good thing, Americans are unafraid to speak out for what they believe in and against what they don't.

Honorable Mentions

Anushka Agarwal, 16, Livingston High School: "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and " Evaluating Sources in a 'Post-Truth' World: Ideas for Teaching and Learning About Fake News "

Troy Barlow, 16, Duxbury High School: "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens and "Teacher Arrested at School Board Meeting After Questioning Superintendent Contract "

Alexis Batista, Jonathan Ricaldy, Lleayem Nazario-Johnson, Oleg Kamen, 18, Classical High School: "1984" by George Orwell and " Iran Bans English in Primary Schools to Block 'Cultural Invasion' "

Robert Biehler, 17, Cosby High School: The Civil War and " F.C.C. Plans Net Neutrality Repeal in a Victory for Telecoms "

Margarita Bogdanova-Shapkina, 15, Oceanside High School: The Industrial Revolution and " Hard-Liners and Reformers Tapped Iranians' Ire. Now, Both Are Protest Targets "

Bronwyn, Jack, Landon, 16, Greenwood College School: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " To Make Prisons 'Safer,' Some Are Banning ... Books "

Elizabeth Buerkle, 14, Oceanside High School: Orchestra class arrangements for modern music and " A Symphony Breathes Life Into 400 Broken School Instruments "

Avery Crumlish and Isabel Benson, 14, St. Michael's Episcopal School: The geology concept of the rock cycle and " The Best Era for Working Women Was 20 Years Ago "

Nathan Davidov, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " 10 Ways to Love Better "

Diego Diaz, 17, Sandra Day O'Connor High School: "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli and " When Elites Get a Taste of Their Own Medicine "

Sawyer Doeg, 13, Asheville Catholic: The Indian Removal Act and " Trump Slashes Size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Monuments "

Odin Doolittle, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: "The Wretched of the Earth" by Franz Fannon and " Rohingya Militants in Myanmar Claim Responsibility for Attack "

Nathanie Doralus, 16, Wekiva High School: "Macbeth" by William Shakespeare and " The Warp-Speed Presidency "

Jeric Duro, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Air Force General Addresses Racial Slurs on Campus: 'You Should Be Outraged' "

Isabella Eckler, 16, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and " Iran Bans English in Primary Schools to Block 'Cultural Invasion' "

Britney Ellman, 16, Arlington High School: Women's rights movements in the Antebellum period and " How a Fractious Women's Movement Came to Lead the Left "

Stacy Fernandes, 18, Eunoia Junior College: "Woman in Mind" by Alan Ayckbourn and " When 'Not Guilty' Is a Life Sentence "

Katrina Fisher, 18, New Tech High at Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " In Breakthrough, Scientists Edit a Dangerous Mutation From Genes in Human Embryos "

Shane George, 17, New Milford High School: "Othello" by William Shakespeare and " Harvey Weinstein Expelled From Television Academy Over Abuse Claims "

Jenny Huang, 16, North Carolina School of Science and Math: "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and " The Reckoning: Women and Power in the Workplace "

Marcel Johnican, 17, CICS Ralph Ellison: "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Neale Hurston and this photograph

Morgan Lafont, 16, Garden City High School: "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley and " How Evil Is Tech? "

Laura Liao, 14, West Windsor Plainsboro High School North: "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë and " At the Golden Globes, Stars and Their Activist Guests Talk About Why They Fight "

Sarah Lyons, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: "The Danger of a Single Story" by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and " Seeing Danger in a Face "

Emme Magliato, 16, Arlington High School: Injustice to Native Americans and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny and " Trump Is Vandalizing Our Wild Heritage "

Vidhisha Mahesh, 16, Folsom High School: "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare and " How the Myth of the Artistic Genius Excuses the Abuse of Women "

Colin Mangan, 16, Oceanside High School: Election and presidency of Andrew Jackson and " The Glory of Democracy "

Caitlin McCarthy, 17, Concord Carlisle Regional High School: "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe and " The World Celebrates New Year's Eve "

Sofia Olivares, 15: Climate change and " No One Is Coming to Save Us From Trump's Racism "

Sarina Patel, 14, C. Leon King High School: The French Revolution and " Open Letter From Time's Up "

Katie Remaklus, 16, The Seven Hills School: "Beowulf" and " Trump's Twitter Threats Put American Credibility on the Line "

Olivia Rockrohr, 17, Arlington High School: The California gold rush and " Google's War Over the Sexes "

Dylan Rosenthal, 16, North Broward Preparatory School: "Twelfth Night" by William Shakespeare and " With Manicures and Makeup, Japan's 'Genderless' Blur Line Between Pink and Blue "

Santhosh Saravanan, 17, South Forsyth High School: "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri and " Finding Myself Through My College Major "

Ardi Saunders, 17, New Tech High School @ Coppell: "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and " Free Speech, Personified "

Caitlin Terpstra, 16, Concord Carlisle High School: South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and " After the Pain, a Chance to Meet and Forgive "

Sophie Tully, 16, Cosby High School: The 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and " Amber Tamblyn: Redefining the Red Carpet "

Crystella Wagner, 16, Sandra Day O'Connor High School: "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli and " Stalin, Hitler and the Temptations of Totalitarianism "

Anne-Kinsey Wash and Claire McCann, 13, St. Michael's Episcopal School: The 1885-1908 rubber craze in Congo and " Apple Report Expects New iPhones to Jump-Start Growth "

Emma Wigington, 17, South Forsyth High School: "Southern Cop" by Sterling Brown and " When Will Black Lives Matter in St. Louis? "

Sydney Yan, 15, Biotechnology High School: The Chandrasekhar Limit (the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star) and " American Dreamers "

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Related Lessons and Webinars
Thank you, as always, to the teachers and students who took the time to participate. Teachers, if you're interested, please let us know how you used the challenge in your class by writing to LNFeedback@nytimes.com Thank you also to our judges, who included Learning Network staff Shannon Doyne, Caroline Gilpin, Michael Gonchar and Natalie Proulx, as well as teacher-contributors to our site, Amanda Christy Brown and Annissa Hambouz.

* The lesson plan that accompanied this challenge: Making It Relevant: Helping Students Connect Their Studies to the World Today

* Our Text to Text series, in which The Learning Network matches often-taught literary, historical and scientific texts with Times articles past and present.

* O ur on-demand webinar, "Ripped From the Headlines and Applied to the Classics: Pairing Often-Taught Literary and History Texts With Times Articles and Multimedia," which explores more ideas for helping students make connections like these.

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Making Connections: 50 Teenagers Suggest Creative Ways to Link Classic Texts to the World Today

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Winners Zoe Georgulas, 17, New Tech High @ Coppell: "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury and " Thought Control, Trump-Style " Is it really possible to control how people think? Today we are inundated with media from the moment we wake up: images, text messages, news stories. In school, students read articles, novels, and textbooks.

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Let’s Stop Pretending To Kill a Mockingbird Is Progressive on Race - NCTE

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Let’s Stop Pretending To Kill a Mockingbird Is Progressive on Race - NCTE

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This post written by member Julia Franks presents another view of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird from both last week's post and from some of the public comments on the Biloxi, Mississippi challenge to the text.

I've been trying to pull To Kill a Mockingbird from the curriculum for decades-and not for the reasons recently discussed in Mississippi or because of its "uncomfortable" language-but because the messages about race and the status quo are so very outdated.

Many people love the book because of its wonderful central metaphor: "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them." But let's examine the biggest metaphor in the book, the title. "It's a sin to kill a mockingbird," the venerable Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout. Miss Maudie repeats it. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us."

Mockingbirds are best known for imitating other birdsongs (or car alarms). In other words, they don't make an original contribution, but they do "make music for us to enjoy" and "sing their hearts out for us." Above all, they're not hurting us.

So, who are the "mockingbirds" in the story? Clearly Boo Radley, the mentally ill recluse, qualifies. Another obvious candidate is Mrs. Dubose, the old lady addicted to opioids. Both characters are gentle, though ineffective in formal society. But, of course, the main "mockingbird" in the story is Tom Robinson, a kind young African American man wrongly accused of rape. Even the publisher of the local paper compares Tom's later death to "the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children."

Songbirds? Really?

Just to recap: When it comes to drug addicts, mentally ill people, and African Americans, don't harass them and don't kill them because they're like songbirds in what they do "for us." That is the title metaphor of the book, people. I cringe when I think about the condescension in it.

Lest you imagine that the title is a one-off, let's look at the major plot points. Atticus Finch makes a valiant and brilliant effort to save Tom Robinson, who doesn't have the resources (financial or intellectual) to help himself. In the end, Tom Robinson proves more hapless still because, instead of waiting for his court appeal, he makes a panicked escape over the prison wall, and gets shot because of it. Not only is Tom Robinson unable to help his own cause, he's an active danger to himself.

In a parallel subplot, Boo Radley, the mentally ill son of a white middle-class family, kills the "white trash" Bob Ewell as part of a valiant rescue to save Scout Finch. In order to keep Boo out of jail, the sheriff and Atticus Finch quietly agree to protect him from the criminal justice system and the limelight. They simply misreport the crime as an "accident." (Yes, at a time when Americans are questioning the inequities in the criminal justice system, this novel extolls the virtuous way that the police force and the well-meaning white establishment can perform "fixes" behind closed doors.)

Over and over again, the message is "be kind," but the novel never ever asks us to question the current social hierarchy, what Isabel Wilkerson calls the American "caste system."

Why, oh why, are we still requiring this book in school? The paternalistic message may have been progressive 55 years ago, but it isn't now. When I ask eighth- and ninth-grade English teachers about the choice, they're shocked at my insensitivity. Sometimes they assure me that they teach the book as a "historical" text, and that they do, in fact, talk about the outdated nature of Atticus's views. I assume what they say is true, but I'm going to guess that what eighth graders remember is the powerful story itself, and not the teachers' explanation of historical context. Most readers see Atticus Finch as a true hero. If they didn't-if they understood Atticus Finch to be paternalistic in a way that was typical for his time period-they wouldn't have been so surprised to find out more about him in Go Set a Watchman.

You know the way schools work. Most require teachers teach a certain number of books together as a class and then discuss them. Those community texts will number between two and eight a year. If the school is a Southern school, at least one of those books will probably be by or about an African American (The percentages are embarrassing.) In many schools, To Kill a Mockingbird is that one book. In other words, it is the race-relations book for the year. There are a limited number of slots in the curriculum, but Mockingbird has proved itself more immovable than many other classics accessible to the same age group, including Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Richard Wright's Black Boy. It also pushes out more recent texts that are excellent both for reading and discussing: Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give, Jacqueline Woodson's Hush, Walter Dean Myers's Monster, Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely's All American Boys, just for starters).

I'm not implying we should ban To Kill a Mockingbird. But make no mistake: its privileged position in the canon is muscling out some other great books-and that's what should make us uncomfortable.

Julia Franks is a former teacher and an award-winning novelist (Over the Plain Houses from Hub City Press). She runs a Web application that helps schools track student reading choices from grade to grade (loosecanon.com).

Note: The following authors will be speaking at the 2017 NCTE Annual Convention: Jacqueline Woodson at the Saturday General Session, Angie Thomas at the CEE Luncheon, and Jason Reynolds at the Children's Book Award Luncheon.

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Let's Stop Pretending To Kill a Mockingbird Is Progressive on Race - NCTE

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This post written by member Julia Franks presents another view of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird from both last week's post and from some of the public comments on the Biloxi, Mississippi challenge to the text.

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Text:

by Nina Lacour

Audience:

9-12 (The narrator, Marin, is a freshman in college, and the book contains some very mild sexual themes.)

Book Talk:

It's not uncommon for teens to feel betrayed by their parents at some point - when they show up at that party and drag you home, or hide how sick your grandmother really is - but Marin encounters a family betrayal so huge it has the power to uproot everything she knows to be true about her life. The 2018 Printz Award winner, this book follows Marin on her journey through grief - not once, but twice. The book is gorgeously written, alternating between past and present, as Marin both avoids and moves through her sadness.

Sentence Study:

It was a summer of trying not to think too deeply. A summer of pretending that the end wasn't coming. A summer when I got lost in time, when I rarely knew what day it was, rarely cared about the hour. A summer so bright and warm it made me believe the heat would linger, that there would always be more days, that blood on handkerchiefs was an exercise in stain removal and not a sign of oblivion.

It was a summer of denial. Of learning what Mabel's body could do for mine, what mine could do for hers. A summer spent in her white bed, her hair fanned over the pillow. A summer spent on my red rug, sunshine on our faces. A summer when love was everything, and we didn't talk about college or geography, and we rode buses and hopped in cars and walked city blocks in our sandals. (Page 152-153)

This passage can help writers...

Write rich summary full of detail

Use repetition for effect

Write effective fragments

Together the class might notice...

The repeating phrase "It was a summer...a summer"

These two paragraphs are summary, but they read like a scene because of the richness of specific details.

The polysyndeton (or "repeating ands", or whatever your students want to call it!) at the end: "...and we rode buses and hopped in cars and walked city blocks in our sandals."

The magic three - many of these sentences are comprised of three parts or phrases - Example: 1) A summer when I got lost in time, 2) when I rarely knew what day it was, 3) rarely cared about the hour - that create a rhythm and reflective tone.

The contrast of vague and specific details: "A summer when I got lost in time" with "blood on handkerchiefs," for instance.

The first paragraphs gives an overview of the narrator's summer, while the second paragraph zooms in on a specific relationship.

Invite students to try it by saying...
In this passage the narrator is reflecting on the summer spent with her girlfriend Mabel. The sentence falls in Chapter Fifteen, subtitled "July and August". Even though these paragraphs summarize a two-month period in the narrator's life, it doesn't feel like summary - the details she includes are so vivid and specific that it feels like she is painting little scenes for us. Summary doesn't have to be boing. Summary can be as rich and alive as scene. Today I want you to think about a short time period in your life - maybe last week or month, maybe all of last year, or maybe another fragment of your life that stands out for a specific reason. You might begin by listing out some of the details that made this time period unique. And then can you use Lacour's paragraph to help you string these details together into a summary that feels present and alive and in focus? What possibilities do you see here for your students? How could this sentence / passage study connect with the current literature or writing content in your class? How could it help your students? Leave a comment below, or connect with me on Twitter @allisonmarchett.

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Text: We Are Okay by Nina Lacour Audience: 9-12 (The narrator, Marin, is a freshman in college, and the book contains some very mild sexual themes.) Book Talk: It's not uncommon for teens to feel betrayed by their parents at some point -- when they show up at that party and drag you home, or...

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Kelly recognizes that part of the reason students struggle with reading is because they lack prior knowledge and background. They can decode the words, but the words remain meaningless without a foundation of knowledge. To help build his students' prior knowledge, he assigns them an Article of the Week every Monday morning.

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My Daughter Reminds Me Why I Write (and Why She Doesn’t) | To Make a Prairie

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My Daughter Reminds Me Why I Write (and Why She Doesn’t) | To Make a Prairie

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My Daughter Reminds Me Why I Write (and Why She Doesn't)

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October 20th was National Writing Day, which many teachers celebrated on twitter and blogs by sharing why they write. I couldn't quite finish this by then, but I'd been thinking about that why-i-write question ever since I had a conversation with my 25-year-old daughter who professes to hate writing.

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"Word Gap" is the term used to describe the difference in vocabulary development of low-income children and middle-and-high-income children during their pre-school years.

It's always sounded a bit fishy to me (and to others), but a lot of high-profile names have put a lot of resources into trying to respond to it (and in some bizarre ways).

I've compiled both the supporting and skeptical resources over at The Best Resources For Learning About The "Word Gap" at my other blog, Engaging Parents In School.

This week, a new study was unveiled that appears to blow the original study that supposedly found this gap out of the water. Here are tweets and links related to it:

This could/should be true blockbuster for #edequity/#earlychildhood folks. https://t.co/rzrlZZT9xD pic.twitter.com/luieegBOiZ

- Zahava Stadler (@ZahavaEdBuild) May 11, 2018

For folks without access to academic journal libraries: https://t.co/L3esB8lPbe

- Marlo 🐝🌸☘️ (@coldgirlfeverr) May 12, 2018

I thought this had already been discredited. I saw a bunch of articles about how it was bunk at least a year ago, but I think even more. https://t.co/IRjLgXtH8O

- Tamar Fox (@Tefox) May 11, 2018

There are cultural differences in how people teach small children to talk: talking to, talking through, and talking around the baby. It's dangerous to assume a difference is a deficit. https://t.co/K4RLcptk6Z

- Rebecca 👰 ; and Molly 🐕 (@edutinker) May 11, 2018

I'm incredibly grateful for this important work which debunks the widely circulated myth that low-income kids (mostly of color) suffer from a 30 million word gap, but I'm also sad that we have to spend so much time disproving bigoted ideas when we could be up to so much more. pic.twitter.com/wAGO3PgLZM

- Jonathan Rosa (@DrJonathanRosa) May 10, 2018

Debunking the "Word Gap" https://t.co/Bbf9rOvqjn

- Paul Thomas (@plthomasEdD) May 10, 2018

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"Word Gap" is the term used to describe the difference in vocabulary development of low-income children and middle-and-high-income children during their pre-school years. It's always sounded a bit fishy to me (and to others), but a lot of high-profile names have put a lot of resources into trying to respond to it (and in some bizarre ways).

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Assigning a One-Pager as a Culminating Project

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I recently assigned a one-pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice.

To make this project rigorous, I required my students to include multiple MLA-cited quotations with a literary analysis explanation. These are skills my students have learned and practiced all year long, so it was a way for me to assess that skill. I also wanted to give my students an opportunity to express their creativity, and it came through.
For the actual assignment, I created a one-pager choice board that is similar that requires students to connect four elements. Every student had to complete the quotes, questions, and images element of the project. From there, students had their choice of four different items they could include: a connection to a song, a timeline, a setting, or a figurative language option. By providing students with a choice, they feel like they have more say with their work.
I reviewed the assignment with my students, explained my expectations, passed out the handout (which was printed double-sided with the instructions on the front and the brainstorming organizer and checklist on the back), and showed my students some examples. Keep reading the post. You can sign-up for my emails to receive a free Google Docs copy of this assignment which includes the assignment, checklist, planning sheet, and a rubric.
I first assigned the project on a Friday to give my students an extra weekend to work on the project. Only a few students took advantage of this extra time, but I recommend giving some extra time. I also dedicated two class periods to work on this project, and most of them needed to commit outside class time on this project as well.

On the day projects were due, I provided my students with an opportunity to present their one-page to class. I did this as an extra-credit option. For each student who volunteered to present their project, I gave them an extra 5 points on their project).

Subscribe to Receive the One-Pager

You'll receive the one-pager assignment as a Google Doc link.

The Night One-Pager was an enjoyable project for my students, and it was the perfect final project to assign at the end of the school year.

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Assigning a One-Pager as a Culminating Project

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I recently assigned a one-pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice.

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I recently assigned a one-pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice.

To make this project rigorous, I required my students to include multiple MLA-cited quotations with a literary analysis explanation. These are skills my students have learned and practiced all year long, so it was a way for me to assess that skill. I also wanted to give my students an opportunity to express their creativity, and it came through.
For the actual assignment, I created a one-pager choice board that is similar that requires students to connect four elements. Every student had to complete the quotes, questions, and images element of the project. From there, students had their choice of four different items they could include: a connection to a song, a timeline, a setting, or a figurative language option. By providing students with a choice, they feel like they have more say with their work.
I reviewed the assignment with my students, explained my expectations, passed out the handout (which was printed double-sided with the instructions on the front and the brainstorming organizer and checklist on the back), and showed my students some examples. Keep reading the post. You can sign-up for my emails to receive a free Google Docs copy of this assignment which includes the assignment, checklist, planning sheet, and a rubric.
I first assigned the project on a Friday to give my students an extra weekend to work on the project. Only a few students took advantage of this extra time, but I recommend giving some extra time. I also dedicated two class periods to work on this project, and most of them needed to commit outside class time on this project as well.

On the day projects were due, I provided my students with an opportunity to present their one-page to class. I did this as an extra-credit option. For each student who volunteered to present their project, I gave them an extra 5 points on their project).

Subscribe to Receive the One-Pager

You'll receive the one-pager assignment as a Google Doc link.

The Night One-Pager was an enjoyable project for my students, and it was the perfect final project to assign at the end of the school year.

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Assigning a One-Pager as a Culminating Project

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I recently assigned a one-pager final project to my sophomores for their culminating Night project. I wanted to combine as many rigorous ELA content ideas as possible, while also designing a fun project for students that provided them with a bit of choice.

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Assigning a One-Pager as a Culminating Project

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The Daring English Teacher: Why English Teachers Should Assign Creative Writing

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The Daring English Teacher: Why English Teachers Should Assign Creative Writing

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The short story is the backbone of the English class. Learning how to read through one, how to analyze, and seeing the different pieces of imagery and metaphor that can be found in it. However, writing short stories is something that can significantly help students.

It's a way to exercise the brain through the different creative processes that go into it. Much of learning nowadays is focused on the mathematical and analytical side of the brain. Creativity is not always seen as an important thing within schools as compared with test scores. However, students need to be able to exercise the creative side of their brain. Otherwise, they start to think of things in one particular way and are not open to other ways of thought.

Since there is this focus on the analytical side of student's brains, students often feel limited in ways to express their creativity. This is an excellent way to give students that freedom to think about situations that they or others they know might be in and run with the "what-ifs" they might face. This is also an excellent way for students to think about what they would want in other worlds.

Besides just letting the students be creative, writing short stories can help students understand the stories they are reading better. If the assignment is add in an extra chapter to a novel or say what comes after a short story, they have to think about the characters and their motives. It can provoke discussion for students on whether not a character would do this in that situation.

The student also has to understand the voice of the author and the imagery, metaphor, and many other things that go along with the writing. It makes students think about what words and phrases mean with the story, and look at and understand the setting of the world they are reading about.

Creative writing is a great way to help students with different things, and it's essential to allow students the ability to be creative within the classroom while learning the skills necessary to understand the things they are reading in the classroom.

Resources to teach creative and narrative writing:
Descriptive Writing
Narrative Writing

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Why English Teachers Should Assign Creative Writing

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The short story is the backbone of the English class. Learning how to read through one, how to analyze, and seeing the different pieces of imagery and metaphor that can be found in it. However, writing short stories is something that can significantly help students.

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But how do you start a unit of analytical writing? | Moving Writers

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But how do you start a unit of analytical writing? | Moving Writers

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One of my colleagues just went out on a limb and had her sixth graders compose graphic essays. I've wanted to do this for years but haven't had the nerve; I had a million questions! She gave me her rationale, her goals for the unit, the methods she used to scaffold the work for her students, the final products.

And yet, I still had one more question: "But what words did you say to start this?"

A reader had a similar question for us recently - "How do you start a unit of the kind of analytical writing you advocate for in Beyond Literary Analysis?" - and it's a really good question. How do you start? What do you say day one, minute one? What language do you use to communicate to your students what they are about to do - especially when jumping into something as challenging as analysis and as wide-open as Analyze-Anything-You-Want-In-the-World.

Although we spend the biggest chunk of Beyond Literary Analysis providing lessons for your class, we never do address the very first day or what a unit of analysis study might look like. We made this choice in part because it looks very much like the way we proceed in any unit of study (I've written about it here, and it gets a whole chapter of Writing With Mentors). Where our mini-lessons typically go, I use mini-lessons on passion, ideas, structure, and authority from the book based on what I think my students need most at that moment.

But I thought it might be worth spending a moment talking just about gearing up and getting going, including the language I use to explain to students what they are about to embark upon when they are writing free-choice, wholehearted, passion-driven analysis.

Article of the Week

This year, I spent the month before our first analysis unit secretly, undercover prepping students by choosing pieces of analysis for our Article of the Week. Here are the four I used:

After reading one of these pieces, I'd ask, "What would you call this kind of writing? What's its genre?" And students struggled. Some called it information writing because it was giving us information about Shaun White and Black Panther. Some called it opinion writing because it was giving us an opinion about the quality of A Wrinkle in Time as a book versus the film.

Every week I asked. Every week I told them, "This is a piece of analysis. In analytical writing, a writer explores a text." Then I'd ask, "What text do you think the writer is exploring in this piece?"

Note: for the time being, I was keeping it simple. I didn't say, "Well, you know, traditionally a text is considered to be something written in print, but I submit to you that a text can be more than that. Indeed, a text can be anything that has temporal boundaries and can be broken apart and studied in smaller pieces."

No.

I tossed the term "text" into the pool, let it float around and bump up against student thinking, and let them begin to figure out what that meant. And that was weeks one through four.

Tour of Analysis

When I was ready to begin our writing unit in earnest, I said, " We have been reading a lot of analytical writing recently, and you've seen it's everywhere. Writers analyze athletes and movies and books and even people! Let me show you some more!"

And then I took them on a tour of analysis from yesterday. (I spent 15 minutes of planning the day before grabbing screenshots of titles from my favorite sites: The Ringer, The New Yorker, A.V. Club, Vulture, Bleacher Report). As I flip through the headlines, I give them the briefest, 10-second narration ("Oh, this is a piece that analyzes the trend of boyfriend-style clothing", "This looks like a piece that is analyzing a team's chances based on their draft picks", etc.)

Passion-Exploring Activities

Then I tell them, "You are going to write a piece of analysis on something about which you feel strongly and know a lot!" We will spend the next few days figuring out what some of those things might be!"

And then I launch a couple of days of activities designed to help students discover their passions - those they are already aware of and those that have laid dormant for years! (You can find these in chapter four of Beyond Literary Analysis.)

Turning Topic to Text

Hopefully, after a few days of exploring their passions even your most uninspired, slumped-in-her-seat writer will have a topic in mind about which she feels strongly and has lots of content knowledge. But that might not yet be a text ready for analysis.

So now I tell my students, "We need to find a text buried within that topic you've discovered - and don't worry, we can find a text in anything. A text is anything with a beginning, middle, and end that can be broken down into smaller pieces so that we can understand them and understand the whole thing in a different way. Let's play a little game to see if we can tell what is a text and what is not a text!"

Here are my Text or Not a Text slides!

Y'all, kids catch on quickly! I have done this with seventh graders and with college-level high school seniors. With a few examples, 99% of students can bring their topic into a text. The key is almost always simply making it smaller and more specific.

The students who are still stuck can quickly become unstuck with a writing conference or by simply talking out their ideas with their peers.

Ready to Write

When everyone has a text, we are ready to start drafting in earnest, dipping into mini-lessons and feedback along the way. Take a breath - this was a hyperspeed fly-by. Perhaps you're thinking, "Uhhhh...that's it?" Yeah, it really is. You and I have been set up to believe that analysis is big and serious and scary, but when we begin by showing students what analysis looks like in the real world they will instantly recognize it. This is what they're reading before they buy a new video game and after last night's concert, and in anticipation of the next professional sports draft. They might not have the lingo yet, but they know analysis. And if we let it be fun and casual (and also smart and nuanced) they will be able to dive in, unfolding their brains and sharing what they know most about.
What do you think? Ready to jump in? Do you have different words you use that makes the work of analysis clear to students? Please share in the comments below, with me on Twitter @RebekahODell1, or on Facebook.

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But how do you start a unit of analytical writing?

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One of my colleagues just went out on a limb and had her sixth graders compose graphic essays. I've wanted to do this for years but haven't had the nerve; I had a million questions! She gave me her rationale, her goals for the unit, the methods she used to scaffold the work for her...

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Teaching Writing Through Video Games, Part I | Moving Writers

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Teaching Writing Through Video Games, Part I | Moving Writers

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I'm so excited to present today's guest post by Sarah Jones, whom I met through the Ohio Writing Project last summer. Sarah is an avid writer, reader, and gamer and is working to incorporate the workshop approach in both her Writing Through Video Games and Spanish classes. You can connect with her via email at jonessj2@miamioh.edu or Twitter @jonessjteacher. Today Sarah will share two ways you can bring video games into your writing classroom TODAY. On Friday, she'll help us think about incorporating video games into whole units of study.
"This is the only English class that I actually want to write for."

I get that a lot in my small elective called Writing Through Video Games. I designed the curriculum a few years ago as a writer's workshop and now we are adding Writing Through Video Games II next year. Now that I have established the class, the students know what to expect when they walk in: we're not playing video games, we're writing them. This class came out of my desire to have my students be more invested with their writing and from my love of video games.

As teachers, we always discuss how we can get our students more engaged in our classrooms and in their writing. For some students, essays about literature they did not choose to read are not relevant and it is easy to find the "answers" on the internet. I wanted to teach craft, style, and structure in a way that was engaging. The writer's workshop was the perfect way to be engaging with rigor and relevance but I needed a lens with which to teach my students how to write better. What were my students often engaged with? Video games!

Most research polls now say that around 97% of our students play games in some fashion, whether it's Candy Crush or Grand Theft Auto V . I have had hours of conversations with students about a game's mechanics and flow of story, the development of characters, the pros and cons to purchasing a game, or the profound impact a particular game had on their lives. Whether we like it or not, video games are important to our students; now what do we do?

We invite our students to write game reviews, top ten lists, autobiographical pieces, and so many more. We don't need a class solely devoted to the study of writing through video games, especially if video games are not your cup of tea! We just need to give them the option; a way to use their interest in video games to help them practice their craft.

Here are a few small ways you can implement the lens of video games into your classroom!
Notebook Time
An easy way to include video games in your classroom is during notebook time-or Quest Log s as we call it in our class! My students have been inspired by:

Images of characters or landscapes from games

Graphs and statistics about gamers or opinions of gamers

Famous quotes from games

Lines from great writing about video games

I find most of my images and graphs from places like . Statista and Google searches for images. Gaming outlets on the internet also have a lot of the mentor texts you can use for notebook time like IGN , Gamespot , Metacritic , and PC Gamer
Dungeon Forum Fridays
Video games can also be the source of great discussion and research. My students in Writing Through Video Games use NPR's articles and stories about gaming to develop new ideas and opinions about their favorite hobby for discussions. We do what we call a Dungeon Forum on Fridays (based on Spider Web Discussions by Alexis Wiggins) where they read an article ahead of time and hold a discussion about the topic. Dungeons in many video games are designed to be cooperative, just like these discussions, and online forums are always open to everyone to jump in to say their opinion. During these discussions that are focused on the article, I always stay out of the discussion and let them lead it. I just take notes in the background and map out the web of their ideas, solutions, and references to the text!

My students also tap into TIME Magazine , The Guardian , , and to find articles to support claims, pose discussion questions, and inform themselves about the gaming world. I generally search for articles based on topic, but I find that Keza MacDonald, a video game editor at The Guardian , has some intriguing and sometimes provoking opinion pieces. My students tend to disagree with her ideas and tone frequently and it brings up interesting counters from the students! Using an article about video games to start a discussion will spur some compelling debates and get most students involved in defending their opinions. Here are the articles that my students enjoyed the most:
What are your thoughts on adding small ideas about video games into your classroom? I would love to see your comments below!

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Teaching Writing Through Video Games, Part I

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I'm so excited to present today's guest post by Sarah Jones, whom I met through the Ohio Writing Project last summer. Sarah is an avid writer, reader, and gamer and is working to incorporate the workshop approach in both her Writing Through Video Games and Spanish classes.

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No Surprise To Teachers, But It’s Nice To Have Evidence: Study Finds That Students Improve Their Writing By Reading | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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No Surprise To Teachers, But It’s Nice To Have Evidence: Study Finds That Students Improve Their Writing By Reading | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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Reading for Writing: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading Interventions on Writing is a new meta-analysis that finds what most teachers already know - students improve their writing by reading:

Thanks to Dylan Wiliam for the tip.

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No Surprise To Teachers, But It's Nice To Have Evidence: Study Finds That Students Improve Their Writing By Reading

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Reading for Writing: A Meta-Analysis of the Impact of Reading Interventions on Writing is a new meta-analysis that finds what most teachers already know - students improve their writing by reading: Thanks to Dylan Wiliam for the tip.

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Good Video From Teen Vogue: “6 Misconceptions About Native American People” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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Good Video From Teen Vogue: “6 Misconceptions About Native American People” | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…

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Good Video From Teen Vogue: "6 Misconceptions About Native American People"

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I'm adding this video to The Best Sites For International Day Of The World's Indigenous People:

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Guidance Reports | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

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Guidance Reports | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

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Clear and actionable recommendations for teachers on a range of high-priority issues, based on the best available evidence.

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Metacognition and self-regulated learning | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

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Metacognition and self-regulated learning | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF

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Seven recommendations for teaching self-regulated learning & metacognition

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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Find & Make OneNote Templates

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Free Technology for Teachers: How to Find & Make OneNote Templates

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The more that I use it, the more I think that OneNote is a fantastic all-in-one product for note-taking, bookmarking, and general organization of your digital life. Like any robust product, OneNote has some features that you might overlook unless someone points them out. In my case, templates were a feature that I didn't notice until I had been using OneNote for a while. If you've been overlooking templates too, watch my short video to see how to find and how to make your own OneNote templates.

Applications for Education
OneNote's note-taking templates could help students streamline and organize the manner in which they take notes. If you have a structure that you prefer your students to us, create a template and share it with them. What I really like about OneNote is that you could create a note-taking template that allows your students to follow a structure, use handwriting, and then have handwriting converted to text (provided the student writes legibly).

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The more that I use it, the more I think that OneNote is a fantastic all-in-one product for note-taking, bookmarking, and general organization of your digital life. Like any robust product, OneNote has some features that you might overlook unless someone points them out.

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John Hattie's Research Doesn't Have to Be Complicated - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground - Education Week

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John Hattie's Research Doesn't Have to Be Complicated - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground - Education Week

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Education Week - Peter DeWitt's Finding Common Ground

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"I think all school leaders and teacher leaders need to look at Hattie's research for MORE than just data teams." Shana Brown

In this recent blog post Why Don't Teachers Use Educational Research In Teaching, Paul MacLellan wrote,

Last year, three education researchers from Durham University tried an interesting experiment. They carried out an intervention with several primary schools - an intervention that should have had a positive impact on their students' learning. But the researchers weren't interested in the outcome for the students - at least, not directly. What they were interested in was how the teachers implemented the intervention.

They were using research on effective feedback by John Hattie and Helen Timperley. After an initial training for all staff and leaders, and then an observation of watching teachers provide effective feedback to students, the researchers found that 'Overall, the data indicate that there is no convincing evidence of a beneficial impact on pupil outcomes from this intervention.' MacLellan wrote, This is quite surprising given that this technique has been shown to be effective over several previous studies.

So, why did this happen?

MacLellan went on to write,

The problem was in the delivery of the enhanced feedback model. Initially, the teachers were confused about the structures around feedback the research put in place. 'They thought that they knew what feedback was,' says Beng Huat. 'At the first training session they said, "We are already using feedback in school. Any good teacher already uses feedback. Why are we doing this?"

Confirmation Bias
As a Visible Learning trainer working with John Hattie, I started my new career with him almost three years ago getting an understanding of the 138 influences (approaches to learning) from his first book, and then moved on to the other 12 influences that he added after Visible Learning for Teachers. As I sit here, I am exploring the next 45 influences that he has added. I have been profoundly impacted by the work that Hattie has done, but it took me a great deal of reading, researching and practicing to get a handle on the work.

Much like the study from above, people often show up to professional development believing they already do what we, as facilitators, are teaching them to do. It's one of the reasons why Hattie has researched micro-teaching (.88) because teachers can video themselves teaching over a 15 minute period and watch it at least three times to see if they really do what they think they do (yes, leaders can video conversations to see if they listen more than they talk).

This whole idea of thinking we know we are doing already what we are learning about in professional development sessions is called confirmation bias. In Psychology Today, Shahram Heshmat writes that,

"Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true."

The Basics Behind the Research
In order to understand Hattie's research, it's important to understand some basic elements behind it. Those are:

Meta-analysis - In their new book Visible Learning For Literacy ( click here for a link to the book and companion videos), Fisher, Frey and Hattie define meta-analysis as, " A statistical tool for combining findings from different studies with the goal of identifying patterns that can inform practice (p. 5)." They go on to write, " A meta-analysis synthesizes what is currently known about a given topic and can result in strong recommendations about the impact or effect of specific practice." Each meta-analysis comes with an effect size (defined below).

Effect Size - Fisher, Frey and Hattie define effect size as, " The magnitude of the impact that a given approach has." Meaning, how well it works when it comes to the teaching and learning going on the classroom. Some examples of approaches are direct instruction which has a .59 effect size, classroom discussion .82, and feedback has a .75 effect size.

Hinge Point - It has long been agreed upon by researchers over the last few decades that when a given approach has an effect size of .40 it means that the approach can offer, when done correctly, a year's worth of growth for a year's input. Anything over the .40 can offer more than a year's growth. So, if we look at the given approach of classroom discussion, you can see that when done well that can lead to two year's of growth.

Every one of Hattie's influences, which you read about here, came from meta-analysis that he collected from developed countries from all around the world. So, for those of you who say they wouldn't work for your students, it's quite possible that the research collected involved students just like the ones you have in class. After all, the research involves over 300 million students.
300 million students...
Where to Start?
The best thing to do is to look at the influences and pick two or three. Explore the research behind them online or in Visible Learning or Visible Learning For Teachers. Some of the influences that I think can give us the biggest bang for our buck is feedback (.75), classroom discussion (.82), teacher clarity (.75), and teacher-student relationships (.72).

Since the implications of the above study focused on confirmation bias and the confusion that can stem from that, we need to take one of these influences and have more than one training around it. We need to focus on it with a critical friend or use several faculty meetings. Perhaps, we should even make it part of a year long goal instead of using the " one and done" approach where we do one training and one observation, and then give up before we even get to the implementation dip.

In response to my blog post Leadership: It's Much More Than Doing Discipline and Blanket E-mails, RTI Coordinator Shana Brown Tweeted "I think all school leaders and teacher leaders need to look at Hattie's research for MORE than just data teams." Brown is correct. I don't just believe this because I do Hattie's work and he wrote the foreword of my book. I believe this because once you learn Hattie's research...you can't unlearn it.

It's not just for data teams. Given the research MacLellan focused on in his article, school leaders need to understand the implications of the research, and help support it within their schools (i.e. Goal setting with teachers, formal observation feedback, etc.).

It's overwhelming to try to understand it all at once, and it's nearly impossible to do that. However, what educators can do is choose one or two high impact influences and one low impact influences that surprised them and begin exploring from there. Take those one or two influences and make them a year long goal. Don't expect changes overnight or within a week or two. Using influences correctly takes a great deal of research and practice.

Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including Collaborative Leadership: 6 Influences That Matter Most (September, 2016. Corwin Press), where he explores 6 of Hattie's influences from a leadership perspective. Connect with Peter on Twitter.

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John Hattie's Research Doesn't Have to Be Complicated

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"I think all school leaders and teacher leaders need to look at Hattie's research for MORE than just data teams." Shana Brown In this recent blog post Why Don't Teachers Use Educational Research In Teaching, Paul MacLellan wrote, Last year, three education researchers from Durham University tried an interesting experiment.

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New Year Leadership Challenge 2: Curiosity

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[Instead of just challenge-based learning, how about challenge-based leadership?]

Sir Ken Robinson said in Creative Schools:

Human achievement in every field is driven by the desire to explore, to test and prod, to see what happens, to question how things work, and to wonder why and ask, what if?

Young children have a ready appetite to explore whatever draws their interest. When their curiosity is engaged, they will learn for themselves, from each other, and from any source they can lay their hands on. Knowing how to nurture and guide students' curiosity is the gift of all great teachers. They do that by encouraging students to investigate and inquire for themselves, by posing questions rather than only giving answers, and by challenging them to push their thinking deeper by looking further. (p. 135)

Others have noted the power of students' asking their own questions - not just answering those of others - and using those inquiries to drive meaningful learning:

When students know how to ask their own questions, they take greater ownership of their learning, deepen comprehension, and make new connections and discoveries on their own. However, this skill is rarely, if ever, deliberately taught to students from kindergarten through high school. Typically, questions are seen as the province of teachers, who spend years figuring out how to craft questions and fine-tune them to stimulate students' curiosity or engage them more effectively. We have found that teaching students to ask their own questions can accomplish these same goals while teaching a critical lifelong skill. ( Rothstein, D., & Santana, L. (2011). Harvard Education Letter, 27(5))

Unfortunately, as Postman and Weingartner noted long ago in Teaching as a Subversive Activity:

What students do in the classroom is what they learn (as Dewey would say) . . . Now, what is it that students do in the classroom? Well, mostly, they sit and listen to the teacher. . . . Mostly, they are required to remember. . . . It is practically unheard of for students to play any role in determining what problems are worth studying or what procedures of inquiry ought to be used. . . . Here is the point: Once you have learned how to ask questions - relevant and appropriate and substantial questions - you have learned how to learn and no one can keep you from learning whatever you want or need to know . . . [However,] what students are restricted to (solely and even vengefully) is the process of memorizing . . . somebody else's answers to somebody else's questions. It is staggering to consider the implications of this fact. The most important intellectual ability man has yet developed - the art and science of asking questions - is not taught in school! Moreover, it is not "taught" in the most devastating way possible: by arranging the environment so that significant question asking is not valued. It is doubtful if you can think of many schools that include question-asking, or methods of inquiry, as part of their curriculum.

New Year Leadership Challenge 2: Curiosity What could you do as a school leader to hack at some new possibilities for curiosity- and inquiry-driven student learning...

in the next two weeks?

in a one- or two-month spring pilot?

in full-force implementation next school year?

[HINT: think some students, not all; some teachers, not all; some blocks of time, not all; some locations, not all; etc.]

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New Year Leadership Challenge 2: Curiosity

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Instead of just challenge-based learning, how about challenge-based leadership?] Sir Ken Robinson said in Creative Schools : Human achievement in every field is driven by the desire to explore, to test and prod, to see what happens, to question how things work, and to wonder why and ask, what if?

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My First Chapter: Aligning Our Practices with Our Beliefs | To Make a Prairie

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My First Chapter: Aligning Our Practices with Our Beliefs | To Make a Prairie

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SpeakPipe - receive voice messages from your audience directly on your website.

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SpeakPipe - receive voice messages from your audience directly on your website.

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SpeakPipe allows your podcast listeners to send you voice messages (voicemail) right from a browser without any phone calls.

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How effective is your teaching practice? | Ease Education

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How effective is your teaching practice? | Ease Education

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instructional materials — Kelly Gallagher

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instructional materials — Kelly Gallagher

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All things Kelly Gallagher, including my books, my schedule, teacher resources and what's going on in my life as a teacher.

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All things Kelly Gallagher, including my books, my schedule, teacher resources and what's going on in my life as a teacher.

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Love of Learning More Predictive of Success Than Grades - The Atlantic

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Love of Learning More Predictive of Success Than Grades - The Atlantic

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What Happens When Teachers Stop Giving Grades?

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A group of educators in Kentucky gave it a try.

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10 Questions About a Student-Run #Edcamp - Cooper on Curriculum

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10 Questions About a Student-Run #Edcamp - Cooper on Curriculum

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Typically in my school district, the last day of school for students is immediately followed by two full-days of optional professional learning for teachers. This year was no different. At the elementary level, the focus of the first day was inquiry-based mathematics. And, the second day contained opportunities for participants to dive into (1) Writing Workshop, which has been a focal point of ours for two years, and (2) Guided Reading, a practice we will prioritize next year.

For me (and for the teachers, I believe) the highlight of the second day was the two Edcamp-style time slots - from 9:45 to 10:45 am, and from 11 am to 12 pm - during which teachers facilitated conversations based on topics of their choosing (as long as they related to Writing Workshop or Guided Reading in one way or another). The idea was to provide teachers with opportunities to celebrate their successes, while also giving them time to plan for the future. And, much of this planning ending up occurring across grade levels and/or schools, which made this time that much more valuable.

While all of these sessions were undoubtedly worthwhile, Christina, a first grade teacher, arranged one that was notably unique. During this learning opportunity, attendees explored ways in which their students could create and publish Writing Workshop digital portfolios by combining apps that included Seesaw, Shadow Puppet, Doodle Buddy, and more. But, as much as we love these technologies, what mattered most was the fact that this session was facilitated by her first grade students.

That being said, looking back, here are ten questions I have about this student-run Edcamp.

1. How strong are our relationships with our students? Strong enough for our students to come back into school to work with us two days after school has ended?

2. "Why write for your teacher when you can publish for the world?" - Alan November TEDx Talk (start at the 7 m 30 s mark)

3. In other words, if six-year-olds know how easy it is to publish for an authentic audience, how can we expect them to get excited about handing it in for an audience of one, the teacher?

4. If first graders can publish, can't everyone else? (I've seen kindergartners do it too.)

5. If students are publishing at such a young age, at what age can we guarantee they're learning about digital citizenship and digital literacies (which include social media)?

6. If first graders can learn these apps, and teach others how to use them, how can we still use "I'm not good with technology!" as an excuse to limit students' experiences? (We can't.)

7. Why aren't more students asked to lead the learning of other students or educators?

8. In general, students aren't used to having a voice in their learning. Are they aware they're missing out, or do they not know that other options exist?

9. For us educators who want a voice in our learning, are we providing these desired experiences for our students?

10. Seriously. How amazing are these first graders?

In the End
Above everything else, the most valuable lesson for me is...
If most of what we learn during professional development can be made obsolete by a software update, we're focusing on the wrong stuff.
Christina was able to incorporate various technologies into her classroom, despite the fact that none of our Writing Workshop professional learning explicitly focused on technology. We learned about the Writing Workshop framework (along with the Units of Study), and once she developed a deep understanding of these practices, the natural next step for her was to enhance what she was doing with a combination of technologies that (1) were already available to her, and (2) she explored through a webinar. Furthermore, several other teachers have also taken it upon themselves to do the same.

Rock solid pedagogy comes first, whether it's Writing Workshop, Guided Reading, inquiry-based mathematics, or anything else. Once the pedagogy is there, the rest will follow.
What questions can you add to my list?
Connect with Ross on Twitter.

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10 Questions About a Student-Run #Edcamp - Cooper on Curriculum

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Typically in my school district, the last day of school for students is immediately followed by two full-days of optional professional learning for teachers. This year was no different. At the elementary level, the focus of the first day was inquiry-based mathematics. And, the second day contained opportunities for participants to dive into (1) Writing ...

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Three Places to Find Public Domain Video Clips

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Three Places to Find Public Domain Video Clips

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On Wednesday I published suggestions for places to find public domain images. Then yesterday I received an email from a reader who was wondering about public domain video options. These are the three resources that I suggested to her.

The Internet Archive is the first place that comes to mind when I am asked for a source of Public Domain media. The Moving Image Archive within the Internet Archive is an index of more than 1.7 million video clips. Most of what you will find in the Moving Image Archive can be downloaded in a variety of file formats. You can search the archive by keyword or browse through the many categories and thematic collections in the archive. One important thing to note about the Internet Archive is that you probably don't want students to search it without supervision. In fact, I'd probably just create a folder of footage from archive that I share with my students.

The Public Domain Review is a website that features collections of images, books, essays, audio recordings, and films that are in the public domain. Choose any of the collections to search for materials according to date, style, genre, and rights. Directions for downloading and saving media is included along with each collection of media.

The National Parks Service offers more than 4,000 videos that are in the public domain. You can search for videos according to National Park or National Forest. All of the public domain videos can be downloaded. Some of the files are quite large so keep that in mind if your school has bandwidth limitations and you plan to have all of your students searching for videos at the same time.

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Three Places to Find Public Domain Video Clips

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On Wednesday I published suggestions for places to find public domain images. Then yesterday I received an email from a reader who was wondering about public domain video options. These are the three resources that I suggested to her. The Internet Archive is the first place that comes to mind when I am asked for a source of Public Domain media.

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Free Technology for Teachers: Create Simple Animations With ParaPara Animation

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Free Technology for Teachers: Create Simple Animations With ParaPara Animation

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Parapara Animation is a free animation creation tool developed and hosted by Mozilla. The tool is easy to use and it does not require registration in order to use it. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create an animation with ParaPara Animation.

Applications for Education
I first learned about ParaPara Animation when Kevin Hodgson posted some of the creations that his students made. As you can see in those animations, students can use ParaPara Animation to tell short stories through their drawings.

Mozilla offers some lesson plan suggestions based on the use of ParaPara Animation. You can find those lesson ideas here.

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Create Simple Animations With ParaPara Animation

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Parapara Animation is a free animation creation tool developed and hosted by Mozilla. The tool is easy to use and it does not require registration in order to use it. In the video embedded below I demonstrate how to create an animation with ParaPara Animation.

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Save Grading Time and Provide Meaningful Feedback: It Is Possible | Independent Reading Ideas | United States | Read It Write It Learn It

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Save Grading Time and Provide Meaningful Feedback: It Is Possible | Independent Reading Ideas | United States | Read It Write It Learn It

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Independent Reading Ideas | United States | Read It Write It Learn It

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Independent Reading Ideas | United States | Read It Write It Learn It

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Lesson plans, activities, engaging games, escape rooms, independent reading ideas and motivation plans, and tips for using mentor texts for middle school ELA.

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Great Big Story : Spoken Without Words: Poetry With ASL SLAM

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Great Big Story : Spoken Without Words: Poetry With ASL SLAM

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Spoken Without Words: Poetry With ASL SLAM

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It's spoken word without spoken words-ASL SLAM is an open space for poets to perform their work in American Sign Language (ASL). As ASL SLAM's executive director Douglas Ridloff explains, ASL poetry doesn't rely on rhyming patterns or meter within auditory or written wordplay; rather, the art is "more about the movement, a visual rhyme versus an audio rhyme."

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Taking attendance is usually a five-minute task at the start of a class period, but in my classroom, it can sometimes take much longer. On rare occasions, taking attendance can take up an entire class period.

This happened recently when, for 75 minutes, students listened respectfully to each other. No one snuck a peek at phone messages. No one left the room for a washroom break. Not a single student looked bored. There was no technology involved.

All I did was take attendance.

Stretching Our Minds

It's been decades since I stumbled upon the power of what I call the attendance question. I asked each student in my high school English class to tell me what he or she thought the color of silence was while I took attendance. The question was meant to get them thinking metaphorically just before a poetry lesson, but I was surprised to notice the students' interest in each other's responses. Curious about this, I began to use similar open-ended questions in other classes. In social studies, I asked what was wrong with the world. In psychology, I asked about students' favorite childhood toys. In math, I'd ask, "What is the color of 2?"

The most important characteristic of my attendance questions is that there are no "right" answers. In a setting where being right is critical for success, the attendance question is abnormal enough to get students' attention.

When we trace back the meaning of attend through Old French ( atendre) to its Latin root ( attendere), we can see that when we attend, we are "stretching our mind toward" something. The attendance question gets students to pay attention through inviting them to stretch their minds toward a question which has no right answer.

When we take attendance, we are essentially asking each student, "Are you here?" But are students actually present when their minds are elsewhere? By asking the attendance question, I am indirectly asking my students, "Who are you? How are you? What matters to you?" Through their consideration of a response, I hope they stretch their minds toward presence in the classroom.

Creating a Sense of "We"

The kind of attendance question that I ask will change over the course of the semester. At the beginning, the questions are safe and easy to answer, but toward the end of the semester, they might keep students talking long after the bell.

Questions at the beginning of the semester may be:

What's your favorite food/movie/book/celebrity/season?

What was the best part of the summer?

What was the most beautiful/interesting thing that you saw this morning on your way to school?

What's the taste of happiness/the shape of sadness/the smell of joy?

Questions like these help students to see similarities and differences among their classmates. They can begin to see a "we" in the classroom: we like pizza, we like summer, we're Vancouver Canucks fans. I love watching students who have never spoken to each other discover that they love the same things or that they see sadness in the same way.

Because learning is fundamentally a social and emotional experience, achieving this sense of we is critical before students fully engage in classroom activities. A sense of we creates safety and makes it more likely that a student will risk moving out of his or her comfort zone to try something new -- and ultimately to learn.

However, it's one thing for a teacher to know this and quite another to actually create a space where students feel safe and comfortable. Even with a plethora of how-to advice on creating community in a classroom, it can be difficult to know what will work best for any particular group of students. But whether the classroom is in Africa or Canada, taking attendance is what all teachers do everywhere, and it's through this simple act that any teacher anywhere can begin building community in his or her classroom.

The type of question that I ask is linked to how cohesive the classroom community is at the time. After those first "getting to know you" questions, I introduce this question: "How is the weather in your world?" If students are feeling stressed or tired, they may answer "stormy" or "cloudy." If they're in a good mood, it's "sunny" weather. Answers to this attendance question give me a sense of the general mood in the room, and I can then adjust my lesson in response. (Giving a test makes no sense when the general weather report includes storms with lightning and thunder!)

The attendance question that took up the entire 75 minutes recently was: "Have you ever had the experience of wishing you were the opposite gender in a particular situation?" Students will only answer this type of question authentically if they feel safe. That my students felt comfortable enough to be vulnerable in their answers was a result of months spent learning about each other through responses to attendance questions.

Recognizing What Matters

After decades of finding different ways of asking students, "Are you here?", I'm still learning about the impacts of the attendance question in my classroom. If I forget to ask one, students remind me. And if I post one on our work schedule and then don't ask it, I get lots of complaints.

If you'd like to try this in your classroom, here's an important caveat: Never directly link the attendance question to any curricular content. If you do, the question becomes a test of knowledge and not an invitation to stretch the mind. It wouldn't be an invitation to attend or be in attendance.

More often than not, I've finished taking attendance in the first five minutes of class. But on those days when that process becomes much longer, it's always worth the extra time getting to know who my students are and what matters to them.

How do you build community in your classroom?

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Building Community With Attendance Questions

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Taking attendance is usually a five-minute task at the start of a class period, but in my classroom, it can sometimes take much longer. On rare occasions, taking attendance can take up an entire class period. This happened recently when, for 75 minutes, students listened respectfully to each other.

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The HipHopEd chat rewinds are archives of past HipHopEd Twitter chats. We encourage participants of the HipHopEd community to review transcripts of our previous chats to support professional development and to provide an opportunity to catch up on a chat in the event that you were unable to participate in the HipHopEd chat.

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Free Technology for Teachers: This Online Audio Editor Is Beautiful

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Free Technology for Teachers: This Online Audio Editor Is Beautiful

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Beautiful Audio Editor is a free audio editor that you can use in the Chrome and Firefox web browsers. Beautiful Audio Editor lets you record spoken audio directly and or import audio that you have previously recorded in MP3 and WAV formats. You can edit and blend multiple tracks in the Beautiful Audio Editor. When your audio editing project is complete you can download it as an MP3 file, download it as a WAV file, or you can save it in Google Drive.

For the last few years I've recommended using Twisted Wave to record and edit audio on Chromebooks. Beautiful Audio Editor offers more options and is what I'll be using on Chromebooks from here on.

Applications for Education
Beautiful Audio Editor could be a great tool for your students to use to create podcasts on their Chromebooks. The use of multiple track editing will let your students fade-in music or other canned introductions. Likewise, they'll be able to splice in audio samples in the middle of spoken tracks and or under spoken tracks as background music.

Learn more about using Chromebooks in your classroom when you attend the Practical Ed Tech Chromebook Camp.

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Beautiful Audio Editor is a free audio editor that you can use in the Chrome and Firefox web browsers. Beautiful Audio Editor lets you record spoken audio directly and or import audio that you have previously recorded in MP3 and WAV formats. You can edit and blend multiple tracks in the Beautiful Audio Editor.

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This is just mathematically interesting (no political motivation here) https://t.co/iBd9Siiqjh

- Caitlyn Gironda (@Caitlyn_Gironda) January 15, 2017

You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama's Presidency

I saw a tweet on Twitter linking to a New York Times article about the Obama presidency. I thought the way the article included interactivity was particularly clever and how much better it was than just reading static numbers.

Link to New York Times Article

Teaching Lessons

So what can we learn from this? We can straight up use this article with our students and design a lesson to incorporate it or we think about how to provide similar experiences for students.

Interactivity: Have students interacting and not just consuming.

Uses real data/news: This is not Joe carrying 50 watermelons. It is current, real data and a real news article. Instead of a worksheet of made up number or sentences, try to get the information from someplace real.

Predict: Before the reader is given information the reader is asked to make a prediction. This draws them into wanting to know the answer. Even a blind guess, this increases interest. In general, start with students thinking before presenting them with what to know.

Analyze/Discuss: Rather than just reading a chart students can analyze the results and compare with their guess. If students are working in small groups they can discuss with each other and see how their responses were different.

Instant Relevance

Want more ideas on how to use real data to engage students? Check out Denis Sheeran's book " Instant Relevance." It's a super funny and engaging read and will help you to use current experiences to design lessons.

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Real Data, Predict, Analyze, Compare, Discuss - Teacher Tech

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Real Data, Predict, Analyze, Compare, Discuss This is just mathematically interesting (no political motivation here) https://t.co/iBd9Siiqjh - Caitlyn Gironda (@Caitlyn_Gironda) January 15, 2017 You Draw It: What Got Better or Worse During Obama's Presidency I saw a tweet on Twitter linking to a New York Times article about the Obama presidency.

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Is Depth of Knowledge Complex or Complicated? - Robert Kaplinsky

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I am concerned about Depth of Knowledge (DOK) being viewed as a complicated issue when it is really complex.

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Beam is a free chart maker that makes data visualization stupid easy. Make a chart in seconds.

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Tiki-Toki Timeline Maker: Beautiful web-based timeline software

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There are loads of timeline makers out there.What's so special about Tiki-Toki's timeline maker? *Active premium accounts only What can I do with Tiki-Toki? The only limit is your imagination but the following may provide some inspiration Can I see some timelines?

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Nearpod - Create, Engage, Assess through Mobile Devices

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Nearpod - Create, Engage, Assess through Mobile Devices

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Nearpod: Foster a love of learning in every student

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Create active learning experiences students can’t wait to be a part of.

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Kahoot! | Learning games | Make learning awesome!

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Kahoot! is a game-based learning platform that brings engagement and fun to 1+ billion players every year at school, at work, and at home.

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Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software

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Flowchart Maker & Online Diagram Software

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Lucidchart is the intelligent diagramming application where seeing becomes doing. With this intuitive, cloud-based solution, everyone can work visually and collaborate in real time while building flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, and more. Sign up for free now.

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Anchor Charts 101: Why and How to Use Them, Plus 100s of Ideas - WeAreTeachers

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Anchor Charts 101: Why and How to Use Them, Plus 100s of Ideas - WeAreTeachers

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Anchor Charts 101: Why and How To Use Them

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A primer for newbies and a refresher for anchor chart pros!

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Two years ago through my awesome professional learning network on Twitter, particularly thanks to Ebony Elizabeth Thomas , I found out about the National African American Read-In. This event is sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Black Caucus of the NCTE and has been held since 1989. You can find out more on the NCTE's African American Read-In site . The more I read and researched about the Read-In, the more convinced I became that I needed to host one at my library!

And yet I knew that when someone thought of my small town (population around 17,000 - but that's being very generous, really) they might ask themselves why I felt an event like this was a perfect fit for my patrons. According to the 2014 census the African American population of my small mountain town in New Mexico is .07%. For New Mexico as a whole, the African American population is 2.5%. That, of course, was exactly why I thought it was a perfect fit.

It is White people's racism that makes us think African American literature is only for African Americans. By that same account, it is our work as White people to dismantle this misconception. No one assumes only White people will want to read Shakespeare or, say, Emily Dickinson. We are taught those works are universal, they are for every one. But too often, racism tells us that books by Native people or POC are only for the members of those groups. We conveniently forget the windows element of "doors and windows" and assume that means minority groups have windows into the White experience.

The African American Read-In was the perfect chance for my libraries to open some windows. And to share some great books - of course. For one week, we designed all our programs for 0-5 around books and songs by African American artists and writers. We sang and danced to Ella Jenkins songs and read Langston Hughes poems at Toddler Time. After school, we lined the spaces of our reading circle with books by African American authors and read picture books by Jacqueline Woodson and N Joy out loud. In the second year of our celebration, three local AP English classes visited from the high school and spent an hour reading picture books. We designed a program for our homeschool book club around Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach .

Because I had a clear vision of how I wanted these programs to happen, getting staff buy-in wasn't really hard. Instead of vaguely hand-waving "let's do something for Black History Month, I guess?" the African American Read-In gave staff some real direction and a framework. From there, it was easier to see why we were doing this - and measure impacts.

In each of these programs, we talked to patrons about the African American Read-In and we shared bookmarks we'd downloaded from the NCTE toolkit. We always had piles of books (for all ages) by African American authors and illustrators on hand and encouraged them to check them out or even just browse through them. One thing I trained my staff on in preparation for these events was that we wanted to be deliberate about these programs. I didn't want to present it as an incidental program - I wanted patrons to understand that planning and thought had gone into these events, that our library was choosing to promote and spotlight this work. I agree that we, as White Librarians, need to do more than just talk about and use these books during Black History Month. But I also love that the African American Read-In takes place in February. It's a way to do more than make a display but to put the titles in hands and in action. Every time we saw how children laughed or were entranced by this work, it was a reminder that these books are for everyone during every month of the year. Using them, programming around them, thoughtfully choosing them, watching patrons embrace them made a much stronger impact and meant so much more than just putting them out with a "It's February, You Know The Drill!" sign.

This year, during one of the AP English classes sessions, a particularly intense boy suddenly started waving his hand around, calling me over. It was such an elementary school gesture for a senior in high school to make, it made me smile. When I walked over to him, he had two books spread out in front of him, a juvenile non-fiction book and picture book.

"Look," he whispered, gesturing at them both insistently, "they are both about - about - Gullah ." He was especially proud that he had made this connection and he was grinning at me.

I realized this very smart almost 18 year old boy had never heard of Gullah before. "Yes," I said. "Gullah is a language and a group of people." He was nodding but had already looked away and was reading the notes in the books. He mostly, I think, just wanted to show me what he'd found. He was already back to the books.

This encounter is why I knew the African American Read-In was valuable, essential even, to my patrons. Windows matter. So do White librarians unequivocally standing up for the concept that these books deserve a place in our collection and our programming because they are relevant, useful, and even joyful for everyone. Promoting and programming for the African American Read-In has been eye-opening for patrons and staff, which was another goal. It's on White librarians to start the progress and push forward on the idea that books by African American authors, any by Native writers and other writers of color, are for all our patrons: no matter where we're located.

The African American Read-In was our first push forward at my library, but it won't be our last. I urge you to look at your community connections and your programs and see how you can participate in the African American Read-In next year. It's not too early to start planning now.
Here's some pictures from our Read-Ins!

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Two years ago through my awesome professional learning network on Twitter, particularly thanks to Ebony Elizabeth Thomas , I found out about the National African American Read-In. This event is sponsored by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Black Caucus of the NCTE and has been held since 1989.

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Kelly Gallagher: Students Need Models Across Writing Process

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Kelly Gallagher: Students Need Models Across Writing Process

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A MiddleWeb Book Excerpt

Kelly Gallagher's In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom (Stenhouse 2015) is not precisely a sequel to his highly praised 2009 critique of literacy learning in the NCLB era, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It. But it is certainly a follow-up, written in response to the dramatic changes in literacy education triggered by the Common Core State Standards.

Gallagher's approach in his new book is to consider both the strengths and shortcomings of the Common Core ELA anchor standards, based on research and best practice that he believes will best serve young learners. His call to action ends Chapter 1:

Let's step away from the politics and madness that have accompanied yet another new educational movement. Let's step away from the pendulum that has swung once again. Let's step away from teaching to another series of tests that narrow our instruction. Instead, let's direct our focus on what we know works when it comes to teaching students how to read, write, listen, and speak. Let's focus on what is in the best interest of students.

Gallagher then devotes two chapters each to the reading and writing anchor standards. Next, in Chapter 6, he looks at "Using Models to Elevate Our Students' Reading and Writing Abilities." Gallagher urges teachers to

make sure we provide our students with plenty of opportunities to stand next to worthy models of reading and writing... Amongst all the noise currently surrounding the new standards and testing, let's not forget that building better readers and writers often begins with finding good models for our students to emulate.

Chapter 7 reflects on another Common Core focus, "Sharpening Our Students' Listening and Speaking Skills." Gallagher then summarizes his perspectives in the final chapter, "Shift Happens."

Although Gallagher never strays from his advocacy message (teachers are obliged "to stay true to what works"), the book is full of actionable teaching ideas and examples, many drawn from his own classroom. In choosing an excerpt to share with MiddleWeb readers, our goal has been to isolate 1200 words that both demonstrate his advocacy and offer immediate, helpful ideas to teachers.

Our selection comes from Chapter 6. (For more on Gallagher's CCSS perspective, preview the book at the Stenhouse site.) - John Norton, MiddleWeb co-editor

Why Students Need Models Across the Writing Process
by Kelly Gallagher
In the 1964 World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals, some of the Cardinals players noticed that Yankee outfielder Tom Tresh had a slight limp as he ran out to his position in left field.

"Does he have a bum knee?" someone asked.

"No," replied third baseman Ken Boyer. "He runs like that because that's the way (Mickey) Mantle runs" (Halberstam 1994, 323). This form of emulation amongst ballplayers is not uncommon, notes Tim McCarver, Cardinal catcher and Hall of Famer.

McCarver often noticed that "young players, consciously or unconsciously, tended to take on the mannerisms of the best players of their teams" (Halberstam 1994, 323). There is no mystery as to why they did this: Aspiring young players study the superstars in hope of discovering the magic ingredients that fuel their amazing feats-from how they carry themselves to the way they swing the bat. After all, there's no better model for success than those who are successful.

It's not my job to teach my students how to play baseball, but if it were, I'd want them to run (and hit) like Mickey Mantle, too. Instead, my job is to build young readers and writers, which is why I want them to consciously and unconsciously emulate the mannerisms of the Mickey Mantles of adolescent literacy-the John Greens, the Laurie Halse Andersons, the Chris Crutchers. Providing models for emulative purposes is critical to deepening my students' ability to read and write.

Models Matter in the Teaching of Writing

To show my students the importance of models, I begin by distributing a blank sheet of paper to everyone in the class. I tell them that I am going to name an item and that I want them to draw it to the best of their abilities. When they are ready, I write "Kakapo" on the board and tell them to begin. Without fail, they ask, "What is a Kakapo?" I tell them that if they don't know what it is, they should guess what it might be and to begin drawing what they think it might look like.

Students come up with some unique creations. After some sharing (and some laughter), I show them a photograph of an actual Kakapo, which is a flightless member of the parrot family with a greenish-yellow underbelly, a broad head, a large bill, and an owl-like circular facial disk (BirdLife International 2014). Of course, their original drawings are inaccurate, so after they have looked at the photograph for a few seconds, I remove it and then give them two minutes to revise their drawings. Immediately, their drawings improve. The point of the lesson? To draw a Kakapo, one must know what a Kakapo looks like. This lesson helps them to internalize the importance of having a model at their sides.

I am not charged with teaching my students how to draw birds, but I am charged with teaching them how to read and write better. Instead of photos of Kakapos, they need lots of models of exemplary writing. If we want our students to write compelling arguments, or interesting explanatory pieces, or engaging narratives, we need to have our students read, analyze, and emulate compelling arguments, interesting explanatory pieces, and engaging narratives. Before they begin writing, they need to know what the writing task at hand looks like.

Models Help Young Writers

When it comes to the teaching of writing, effective modeling entails much more than handing students a mentor text and asking them to emulate it. It is not a "one and done" process.

Rather, students benefit when they pay close attention to models before they begin drafting, they benefit when they pay close attention to models while they are drafting, and they benefit when they pay close attention to models as they begin moving their drafts into revision.

Mentor texts achieve maximum effectiveness when students frequently revisit them throughout the writing process. Let's explore the value of modeling in each of these stages.

Modeling in the Prewriting Stage

If we want our students to write in a particular discourse, such as poetry, then we should begin by providing them with lots of poems to read. As students are swimming in poems, we must move beyond simply asking them to retell what the poems say; to maximize the effectiveness of the models, students need to be taught how to read like writers-how to notice the techniques, the moves, and the choices the poets make.

Students are accustomed to being asked what is written, but asking them to recognize how the text is written is a different kind of reading than many of them are accustomed to. This shift-from what something says to how it is said-is seen in three of the ten Common Core anchor reading standards on Craft and Structure ( CCRA.R.4, 5 & 6).

All three of these standards ask readers to answer the same basic question: What did the writer do? To get my students to begin thinking in these terms, I start them with "Four Skinny Trees," a vignette from Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street:
They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn't appreciate these things. Their strength is secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep. Let one forget his reason for being, they'd all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach. When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be. (1991, 74)
After reading this passage, students are asked to identify the techniques employed by Cisneros. For example, I want them to recognize how she employs personification ("Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine"), how she uses similes ("they'd all droop like tulips in a glass"), how she uses intentional repetition ("Four who . . . Four who . . . Four whose . . ."), and how she stacks the end of the passage with a series of intentional fragments. I also want them to understand that she uses four skinny trees as a central metaphor for the struggle of growing up in poverty.

Having students recognize these techniques before they begin writing helps students adopt these techniques when they get to the drafting stage.
[Gallagher continues with a discussion of modeling in the drafting and revisions stages and the use of mentor sentences. The second half of the chapter explores reading models.]
Read a review of In the Best Interest of Students here at MiddleWeb.
Kelly Gallagher is a veteran secondary school ELA teacher, literacy consultant, and the author of six books about aspects of teaching, including Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle & High School; Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, Grades 4-12, and Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts. He currently teaches at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California.

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Kelly Gallagher: Students Need Models Across Writing Process

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A MiddleWeb Book Excerpt Kelly Gallagher's In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom (Stenhouse 2015) is not precisely a sequel to his highly praised 2009 critique of literacy learning in the NCLB era, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It.

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#cyberPD DIY Literacy: Teaching Charts - Repertoire and Process

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#cyberPD DIY Literacy: Teaching Charts - Repertoire and Process

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#cyberPD DIY Literacy: Demonstration Notebook

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#cyberPD DIY Literacy: Demonstration Notebook

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LDC unites a network of educators and uses disciplined inquiry cycles to test and refine our strategic supports for instructional improvement. An independent study by CRESST (UCLA) involving 110+ schools in LAUSD and NYC confirmed that LDC had a statistically-significant impact and large effects sizes that amounted to over 9 months additional growth over matched pair control students.

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Laura Varlas

Have you ever used the Internet to research a topic you're about to teach and gotten lost in the weeds? Student teachers or new teachers may be especially prone to falling into this time trap.

To avoid racking up miles on your virtual FitBit, try bookmarking a list of 10 or fewer go-to curriculum planning sites and limiting your searches to these trusted destinations. Here are 10 that I used during my recent student-teaching internship (for more insight, read " Ten Survival Tips from a Student Teacher").

1. Each content area-specific professional teaching organization hosts its own lesson sharing site. For example, English teachers will want to favorite NCTE's Read Write Think, science teachers have NSTA's Classroom Resources, social studies teachers can bookmark NCSS's Online Teachers' Library, and math teachers will want to seek out NCTM's Lessons site.

2. EngageNY is the go-to site for Common Core State Standards-aligned unit and lesson plans for K-12 Math and English Language Arts. I found the questions provided for close reading in ELA lessons to be particularly helpful.

3. Teacher Larry Ferlazzo's site is a clearinghouse of educational resources. He regularly posts "Best Sites for ..." lists, where he compiles the best resources for teaching on a particular topic or with a particular type of media or technology (e.g. infographics, primary sources, or tablets).

4. Lit Charts is similar to SparkNotes, but with more interactive features and focus on organizing content by theme, these provide a useful aid for close reading literature.

5. Museums and institutions offer a wealth of resources on their sites. Like most major museums, the Smithsonian has a "For Educators" section that features digital archives of primary source documents, as well as lesson plans designed around the museums' collections. The Library of Congress features a trove of primary source documents, as well as teacher-created lesson plans that use these artifacts.

6. The New York Times Learning Network shares lesson plans, writing prompts, and quizzes based on the articles, essays, images, videos, and graphics published on NYTimes.com.

7. PBS' Learning Media site organizes a variety of media-audio, video, images, and interactive-by subject and grade level. Their Crash Course video series presents an especially succinct and engaging way to dive into the key points and background knowledge needed to begin study on a topic.

8. Search any topic on their site, and NPR will connect you to relevant research, news events, and commentary. Search your local station's site for ways to link topics to your students' home turf. Public radio podcasts, like This American Life or Reveal, can encourage students to think about content in a new way by weaving journalism and personal storytelling.

9. With TED-Ed Lessons, illustrators and educators team up to bring you brief, engaging videos that discuss a compelling question.

10. Vocabulary.com shares academic vocabulary lists tied to particular texts or even recent events (for example, the presidential debates).

If your list feels lackluster, ask your fellow teachers and school instructional coaches for ideas. Follow experts, organizations, and your discipline's hashtag on social media if you'd like content notifications pushed your way. By limiting your go-to sites, you'll avoid grazing on the entire Internet, and you'll also become more adept at retrieving relevant content from the sites in your inner circle.

KEYWORDS

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Laura Varlas Have you ever used the Internet to research a topic you're about to teach and gotten lost in the weeds? Student teachers or new teachers may be especially prone to falling into this time trap.

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Explore – Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

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Explore – Scholastic Art & Writing Awards

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Kagan's FREE Articles - Kagan Structures and Learning Together: What is the Difference?

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Kagan's FREE Articles - Kagan Structures and Learning Together: What is the Difference?

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Kagan's FREE Articles - Kagan Structures and Learning Together: What is the Difference?

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Read Dr. Spencer Kagans provocative and insightful articles on Kagan Structures and how they have the power to transform education. Cooperative learning, multiple intelligences, the brain, character development, Win-Win Discipline.

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Kagan Cooperative Learning - Frequent Questions

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Kagan Cooperative Learning - Frequent Questions

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Kagan Cooperative Learning - Frequent Questions

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With Kagan's new software, DecisionTools™, you can make decisions with a click!