Note from Dave: This post and its nine moves has been polished, improved, and incorporated into the reading chapter of my new book, These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most. If you like my blog, you’ll like the book — it’s a condensed and coherent version of all that I’ve written […]
Problems = Opportunities
Many years ago, a young community organizer met a man who had worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi. This man told the community organizer that the key to Gandhi’s success was that he viewed every problem as an opportunity rather than a setback. That community organizer took the advice to heart, applying Gandhi’s attitude to all areas of his […]
Give Me a Number
Before we talk philosophy, before we discuss how to teach reading, writing or speaking, give me some numbers. How many texts are your students getting the opportunity to read in a year? How many articles, primary source documents, textbook pages, lab reports, novels, poems, and the like are a part of your curriculum every year […]
A Non-Freaked Out Approach to Reading like a Professional
Last time, I shared how to read (and enjoy) more books this year; this time, I’d like to share my own simple rules for reading. I guess you could say this is how I avoid freaking out about the discrepancy between how many things there are that I want to read and how little time I […]
How to Read (and Actually Enjoy) More Books this Year
Several years ago, I got pretty into Goodreads, mostly because I like measuring stuff and Goodreads made it fun to set goals for and keep track of how many books I read. It was also a big thing on Twitter — people would share how many books they were reading, and they would set reading goals for […]