It is a truth universally acknowledged that Mr. Darcy’s climactic letter to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice is one of the greatest epistolary examples in any novel. To a similar degree, it’s agreed that there is too much fighting, “owning,” and trolling in today’s discourse, and not enough engaging, explaining, and seeking to understand. But ..read more

After months of giddy anticipation, my class finally got to hear Mindshift’s podcast about our work with podcasts. It’s a podcast about using podcasts — and it’s us! And it’s so good. First of all, I have to give all the thanks, credit, and props to Ki Sung, who produced the podcast. She was (is ..read more

Back in March, I co-facilitated a session (with listenwise.com) on using podcasts in the classroom at SXSWedu. The workshop attendees were immediately enthusiastic about incorporating podcasts in their classrooms (there are many great reasons to do so), and asked for explicit lesson plans,  worksheets, and useful templates—the demand for which completely caught me off-guard (silly ..read more

We got an awesome email recently from a teacher in Nairobi, Kenya, who uses our Serial podcast lesson plans with his 8th grade students, and it left us feeling humbled and energized. He really captured the data-gathering aspect of some of the Serial (Season 1) exercises, and we hope the following pictures and his descriptions ..read more

With all the talk of "fake news," we thought it'd be helpful to create a resource that practically helps students (of any age!) learn how to discern credible sources from sources lacking credibility. Using non-controversial examples (i.e. nothing remotely political), we've created a three-day "Fake News" unit, which empowers students with the vocabulary and sensibility to discern legitimate journalism from "fake news" (and the gradient of content between the two ..read more

I want to share some things about our presentation at SXSWedu before they slip my mind. It was so great to work with Listenwise and KUT. First of all, Monica Brady-Myerov and Emily Donahue were so easy to work with (that probably shouldn’t be my first priority but it is). Along with Chelsea Murphy (also ..read more

A teacher asked me if I had a schedule for teaching entire season of Serial, and I was surprised to find out that I hadn’t done that already. So here it is.  First, some notes and answers to frequently asked questions: There are 29 days of instruction in the Serial (Season 1) Lesson Plan Bundle. You can ..read more

I’m a little shy to share this, since it’s really just a draft. But I’m always encouraging my students to show their work, especially if it’s still under construction. My 11th grade English class listened to Serial (and loved it), and then also listened to an assortment of audio clips from various other podcasts. We analyzed ..read more

By this time tomorrow, I’ll be on a plane to Austin for SXSWedu, and I can’t wait. There’s already a basic summary of our presentation on the SXSWedu website, but real quickly I wanted to offer a personal recap of what we’ll be presenting and facilitating on Tuesday afternoon. Monica Brady-Myerov and Emily Donahue, both of ..read more

I was recently interviewed by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin, for CTA’s Educator Magazine, about accommodating introverted students. She was so professional, and it was great working with her. She wrote a perfect introduction, and the article also includes five quick tips for helping introverted students succeed in the classroom. Here’s the link!  ..read more