By Sunaina Sharma As English teachers, we constantly seek ways to deepen student thinking and engagement—especially in an age when traditional literacy practices alone may not fully reflect how students process and communicate ideas. Over the years, I’ve started to rethink what counts as “writing” and what counts as “text.” What if visual expression wasn’t…
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By: Kimiko Shibata As an MLL (Multilingual Language Learner) teacher, I am privileged to be able to welcome and support newcomer families who arrive in our schools as they get to know their new community and school system, and help to connect them with appropriate supports to meet their needs. I complete initial assessments to…
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Connecting Syntax and Knowledge-Building to Create Meaningful Learning Opportunities in Elementary As a child, I remember diagramming sentences and doing worksheets about there, their and they’re amongst many others. It was soooo boring! The sentences were always random, perhaps about “Anne doing art” or “Bob doing homework.” They didn’t share anything meaningful with me. It…
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It’s the last week of July, and some teachers are still shaking off the stress of the 2022-2023 school year. The release of Ontario’s new language arts and de-streamed English curriculum the last week of June was in many ways indicative of the school year – a year of working to respond to change in…
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Structured Literacy In Junior/Intermediate: Forever Growing, Shifting, and Changing The Challenge We all have students who struggle with reading and writing, but what can we do and how do we support them? “I wasn’t trained to teach students to read” and “I don’t know where to start” are common hesitations that we hear, but we…
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Critical Moves Using Technology That Are Transformative, Not Trendy We need to adapt to move forward has become a catchphrase. And like the game Catch Phrase – a mashup of Taboo and Hot Potato, we move like the timer on the game’s device, which beeps louder and faster as your heart races to find the…
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A Battle for Process Over Product in the Age of Chatbots For Christmas, we tried to pare things down. Our kids each got to request one gift from Santa and we supplemented with a board game — for my son, an 8yo strategist, chess player, and self-proclaimed gamer (which is really just for an hour…
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Title: Point-less: An English Teacher’s Guide to More Meaningful Grading Author: Sarah Zerwin Publisher: Heinenmann Grade(s): 6 -12 Originally Published: July 2020 Genre(s): Education, Destreaming, English Language Arts Teaching, Assessment, Student-Centered Learning, Literacy Pages: 171 Content + Trigger Warnings: n/a The Point is Not the Point: Reimagining Student-Centered Classrooms for Destreamed English It’s…
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As we’re approaching the end of our second year of pandemic teaching, I think it’s safe to say we’re all feeling the grind. As such, the ELAN Ontario panel discussion, Amplifying Joy in the Classroom, proved to be a profoundly welcome respite on Sunday, May 1st. Hosted by ELAN executive member and newly-minted DPCDSB secondary…
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Blog post written by Degmo Gedi. twitter account: @GediDegmo ELAN Reading Reviewer Coordinator/ History/Math/English Teacher, Toronto DSB Immigrating from East Africa to Canada in the early 90s, I had mixed emotions as I navigated through the educational system in Toronto. On one hand, I was hungry to devour new literature and learn about new cultures…
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