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I wiggle in my desk chair, softly swiveling it ever so gently back and forth, and fidget with my pen. I am a student in my own classroom. At the front of the room stands a teacher in my place. To outside observers the girl dressed in flip flops and jeans pointing at things projected to the white board could not possibly be in charge—if anything they might mistake her as an unruly student who escaped from the confines of her desk.

A student pleads with me at the beginning of class to bring an electronic reader to class? “I’m almost finished reading my book and I want to finish it, but it’s on my (electronic reader name), the students says. “Please? I’m at a really good part.” At first, this appears to be every language arts teacher’s dream; students begging to continue reading things they’ve read on their own time for fun. But, then come the problems.

“A Painter Named Kennedy” provides students with a narrative about the experiences of one young man with a disability. This toolkit structures a class reading of the story.

Mendez v. Westminster has gone largely unrecognized in history instruction. If it is mentioned at all, the case is often tagged as a precursor to the civil rights movement or as the Mexican-American version of Brown v

The transition from middle school to ninth grade creates chaos for students. In eighth grade, students know their teachers and their classmates. They have a safe academic home. Then comes high school.

"I'm done," I could have said. "Finished." I felt I had potential as a teacher during my master’s degree coursework. "You have the building blocks to make a difference in the lives of children," one of my professors wrote on an assignment. For two years, I have used the building blocks of compassion, courage and creativity to build my classroom.

Our history is sometimes painful; focusing on the “best version” of that history to make it more palatable to young readers denies them the education they deserve.

This teacher wanted to empower her female students through literature. She boosted all students’ reading skills and self-confidence in the process.