Rigorous Resources for Struggling Students
More and more educators are realizing that the time to have difficult conversations in our classrooms is now. In case you’re just starting to Black Lives Matter unit, here are some of the best fiction books for teaching about #BlackLivesMatter.
Slay by Brittney Morris is a groundbreaking novel in many ways. Morris has found a way to merge difficult racial conversations with the world of online video games. These two topics are always ones that immediately engage my high school students. In this blog post, I’ll explain why Slay by Brittney Morris should be the newest YA novel in your classroom library.
Elizabeth Acevedo’s newest novel With the Fire On High won’t stay on your classroom library shelves for long. Acevedo turns up the heat with her young protagonist Emoni–a high school senior, a talented chef, and a young mother.
How do you get American students to even begin to grasp life in a third world country? With Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani and Viviana Mazza, students will be able to engage and connect to the world beyond their own lives.
Not only does the book contain dueling, Victorian magicians, but Morgenstern’s details and descriptions make it feel like you are right there with them. This novel is not just a passive reading experience–The Night Circus is truly a magical experience to add to your classroom bookshelves.
Jason Reynolds is the king of engaging young adult literature. We all know that. But Long Way Down, in my opinion, really kicks it up a notch. In this Long Way Down Lit Literature review, I’ll show you just how powerful, and accessible, this novel in verse is.
Everyone should have a classroom library, whether you teach English or another content area. Classroom libraries offer all kinds of benefits: increased student reading achievement, greater access to print material, greater levels of volume of student reading, and more. But starting a classroom library is a daunting task. How do you afford it? Organize it? Maintain it?
How many times have you heard the phrase “I don’t read” in your classroom? For me, it happens every week during independent reading. For these reluctant readers, it is even more important that we find the perfect books for high school students who hate reading.
Beautiful. Heart-wrenching. Timeless. These are the words we often use to describe powerful classics. Well, they also describe Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls.
I don’t care who you are, we all love a little bit of romance. But I cannot hand a book about a relationship to a student without making sure there’s a twist. See, while I have a healthy respect for love, I hate to see it idealized. Enter Dreamland by Sarah Dessen.
