The TeachingBooks Blog
Many of us have come to the field of education because of our own love of learning. But with all the daily demands on our time, it can be difficult to manage our teaching responsibilities and feed our professional passions.
When we stop to listen, poetry is all around us: in the rhythms that we walk, in the music that we listen to, in the natural world we experience. Fortunately, National Poetry Month gives us space to make this a curricular focus.
I have been asked quite often how Stella and Sam became TV stars. What was my role in their transformation? How did I participate in this transformation? Am I happy with the results?
Recently I've been watching and listening to elementary school students as they engage with nonfiction. The range of topics that excite them is extraordinary and their conversations about their reading remind me how powerful a stimulus books can be to exploration and critical thinking.
Would you like to listen to this year's award-winning authors and illustrators on their inspirations and influences? In this post, enjoy brief TeachingBooks.net recordings with the 2011 John Newbery, Randolph Caldecott, Michael L. Printz, Robert F. Sibert, Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpré, and Theodor Seuss Geisel medalists.
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (Little, Brown, 2010) is based on the true story of Dave, a man born into slavery in 1800 who created approximately 40,000 ceramic pots in his lifetime. Dave was owned by six slave masters, but was ultimately sold to a plantation that produced large clay pots. It was on this plantation that Dave was trained to make pottery and became a master potter.