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Racial stress can silence children. Storytelling can awaken their voices.

Poet Adrienne Rich once asked: How can we connect the process of learning to write well with [a] student’s own reality, and not simply teach her/him how to write acceptable lies in standard English? The question appeared in her 1979 essay, “Taking Women Students Seriously.” Last week, Adrienne Rich passed away, leaving today’s educators to ponder alone a question that remains as pertinent as ever.

As an eighth-grade writing teacher, I routinely focus on reading student writing and utilizing it for several purposes. I am designing effective lessons, creating sound rubrics for assessment, developing peer conferences and monitoring their ability to meet standards and benchmarks. However, I often forget about one of our most important, frequently overlooked roles as writing teachers: our role as listeners.

Young philosophers in San Francisco ponder age-old questions

I didn’t say a word. I never saw myself as a person to let a homophobic comment slide. Even from another adult. Even from someone with more power than me in the hierarchy of the school structure. But that day, in that conversation, I just let it go.

This high school student with APD shares some classroom and teaching techniques that helped her succeed—and that can benefit all students.

As teachers, we hear almost daily that we “must meet the students where they are.” It is a core tenant, a sacred truth offered as a key to successfully unlocking the hearts and minds of even the most reluctant learners.