Surrounded by Professionals

I really enjoyed the NCTE conference last weekend for a number of reasons, but one of the main ones was the fact that I was surrounded with enthusiastic thoughtful English teachers from all over the US. It is good to get out of the BCLA bubble every once in a while and see what issues and questions I share with others, and what teaching ideas I had not even considered. It was refreshing and invigorating to re-think readers workshop and to hear some speakers share how they used popular fiction to teach the skills students would need to use to understand The Oddessy. I had really forgotten the power of sharing best practices. Since this was so exciting, I was really wondering how we could do this more in our own department. After the conference I decided I wanted to find more time to talk to other English teachers about what they were doing in their classes. I'm going to try and take more time to be really present in our meetings, and to start some informal conversations about what is working in everyone's classes rather than constantly focusing on the next little thing I have to do to make it through the day. In that spirit, please share any great ideas or things you have done in your class this year that you see working (or are at least excited about!)