This weekend, Mrs. Crystal Stuart hosted a marriage conference in our small town, and it reminded me of one of the first times I knew Crystal would be a blessing in my life. We hadn’t known each other long, and I was telling her about how much I was working. At the time, I was in […]
Nine Instructional Moves for Teaching Texts
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 […]