Confident Readers, Writers, Leaders

Newsletter

This week we examine confidence within the context of reading, writing, and leading in schools.

1. These two questions, from writer William Kenower, have been helpful for me in overcoming fear during my writing process.

2. I am finding the educational resource Reviving the Essay: How to Teach Structure Without Formula by Gretchen Bernabei to be very good so far.

3. Reviving the Essay was referenced by Thomas Newkirk in his excellent book Minds Made for Stories: How We Really Read and Write Informational and Persuasive Texts.

4. In this post, I reflected on the importance of who we know vs. what we know.

5. Colby Sharp, a 5th grade teacher, reflects on five things he learned from his students after reading their response journals in this video.

6. I appreciate my connection to Allison Zmuda, co-author of Learning Personalized. She reposted a previous article I wrote about what students should know and be able to do.

7. Any success should be accompanied by a sense of gratitude and humility, something I wrote about in this post.

8. I heard Regie Routman speak at the Illinois Reading Council this week, always excellent. She stressed the importance of leadership, referencing the article Good Leaders Make Good Schools by David Brooks for The New York Times.

9. I also enjoyed Jon Scieszka’s session. My son liked his memoir Knucklehead: Tall Tales and Mostly True Stories About Growing Up Scieszka. (His 6th grade teacher read it aloud last year - yay!)

10. We should never feel guilty about taking a break, according to research summarized in this Quartz article.

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