My mind works best in the early morning, so an important part of my summer routine is morning reading, planning, and writing. I usually start off by reading a chapter in a professional development text and then think about what I can incorporate into my plans for the next year. Sometimes this leads to bursts of creative lesson planning genius, like this morning as I was finishing Literacy for All: A Framework for Anti-Oppressive Teaching, by Shawna Coppola. While the entire text was beneficial to me, a few ideas provided serious nudges. I found myself completely revamping the way I approach identity and identity webs, thinking about how and where I can incorporate multimodality, and asking myself how I can conceptualize literacy as both a tool for liberation and for oppression. I’ve been working on updating my unit on Things Fall Apart, so the timing of reading this book was perfect. One thing I loved about this Literacy for All was how Coppola cited works that I know well, but made me think about them and how I can apply the knowledge contained within them in new ways. And then there were all the new resources combined with Coppola’s own experience and wisdom that made me want to learn more and continue to revise my units and lessons.
This book set the bar extremely high for my summer professional reading, and I HIGHLY recommend it for any educator.