Welcome to Feltopia!

Kicking off the inaugural post for Feltopia Press's new blog.  Here I hope to offer thoughts and suggestions for teaching English grammar, writing, and literature.  And shamelessly promote my store on TeacherspayTeachers.com. 

This Monday being Martin Luther King, Jr.'s memorial day has given me cause to stop and ponder just how far we have come in our efforts to make America truly fair and free for all its citizens.  My students (and I) find it hard to imagine an America where some people lived in fear, segregated from their fellow Americans because of the color of their skin.  I look at photos of those old signs and think, how silly!  And yet they were taken so seriously at the time.  Let's hope we continue to evolve, recognizing that we are all human: black and white, Latino and Anglo, Christian and Jew and Buddhist and atheist, straight and gay, conservative and liberal. 

 

Some great articles to help students realize just how far we've come:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Non-Fiction-Readings-from-the-Civil-Rights-Era-texts-Objective-Assessments   Not only important historical background, but great practice reading non-fiction, utilizing context clues and active reading strategies, and responding critically and thoughtfully to the text.  Comes with high-level, objective assessments that are linked to common core standards.  A very popular and well-liked item--give it a try in your 7th through 12th grade classroom.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Non-Fiction-Readings-from-the-Civil-Rights-Era-texts-Objective-Assessments-297522