Empowering Your Classroom

Celebrating Women’s History Month With Your Students March Madness is alive and well. It seems no matter what you teach, someone has ideas on how you can bring

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Preparing for the Unexpected: Crisis Management in the Classroom

The desks are arranged, the pencils are sharpened, and stacks of syllabi are waiting to be dispersed. Your classroom is ready for the new school year. Or is it?  When most

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Making Connections: Reimagining the Beginning of the School Year

It seems like every August the question on every teacher’s mind is: what am I going to do with students during the first few days of school? No

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Writing Revelations: Why Writing Wednesdays are Good for Everyone

In my school district, November is affectionately known as “No School November.” Between election day, a teacher workday, and three recognized holidays, we end up with only one

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Curating Collaboration

One of the favorite buzz-words in education is “collaboration.” Teacher certification programs teach future educators about the value of collaboration. Teaching interviews often inquire about an applicants’ view

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Fall Favorites

We’ve had a busy month here at Alexandrite Publishing. From teaching, to blogging, to shopping, here are some of our favorite highlights from October: 10.  Beginning our month

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In Defense of Books

Like many educators, I am becoming increasingly disheartened by the growing number of calls from parents and lawmakers around the country to exclude certain books from education. Tennessee

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Writing Wednesdays: Why We Write

Dedicating every Wednesday to creative writing instruction takes commitment. Rearranging the schedule in order to maintain weekly writing when unexpected events chip away at instructional time takes commitment. Taking

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Write Out Loud

The sound of students’ voices fills my ears as I wander around the room. Fragments of stories here. An interesting line of text there. The sentences float like

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Student-Centered Classroom Design

My first year teaching was a rushed experience. Hired just seven days before classes started, I found myself swept up in a sea of meetings, lesson planning, first-year

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