By: Toni M. Poling Recently I was thumbing through my social media (as one does when one is avoiding schoolwork) when I came across this stanza from Mary Oliver’s “Sometimes”: Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. I sat there staring at the screen Read more…
Me: “Today we are going to talk about poetry! Who’s excited?” Every class I’ve ever had: *crickets* I’m not sure about your students, but mine don’t love poetry. A few years ago, when we switched to the standards which shall not be named and our focus shifted to informational text, Read more…
Toni M. Poling, NBCT On the fifth day of school, as the bell chimed to signal the end of my last class of the day, a student looked at me from the back of the room with a surprised look on her face. “Is this class shorter than other classes?” Read more…
By: Toni M. Poling There is something about the first few days of the month of May that makes me happy. The air is perfumed with lilac and the books in my classroom windowsills are dappled with sunlight. If there was a Maypole outside, I wouldn’t be able to resist Read more…
By Toni M. Poling I value student voices. My students have opinions, lots of them, about everything! It’s very to become dismissive of a teenagers’ opinions; they’re often not well thought out, well researched, or well stated. But if I truly value student voices, it means I not only have Read more…