Brave New Teaching: A Podcast for High School and Middle School Teachers

In this episode we interview teaching powerhouse Iris Crankfield who is currently in her 23rd year of teaching high school English. This is one of those conversations that makes you feel like you've known the person forever, because everything she says is so poignant, insightful, and caring as she shares her experiences and lessons learned as a classroom teacher who holds her students to high...

In this week's episode we share our top 4 strategies for simplifying and streamlining classroom management. These are the strategies that have COMPLETELY CHANGED OUR CLASSROOMS FOR THE BETTER, and we are excited to share them with you! We also put these strategies into a handy pdf to keep on hand - head over to our show notes to get your hands on it! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in thi...

Today's episode is one of our favorite kinds because we get to share the voices and ideas of some of our favorite teachers out there. This month, we recruited six phenomenal English teachers to share their favorite ways of taking inspiration from the season to create engaging, challenging, and fun lessons for their students. We hope you are inspired by their ideas and can implement them in yo...

On this episode we are joined with our good friend Amanda Werner from Amanda Write Now, who talks to us about her journey into practicing mindfulness regularly, introducing mindfulness practice with students, and all the ups and downs in between. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - pl...

This week's episode takes you through what we are both  currently planning and teaching in our respective classrooms.  We are dealing with the same essential question in completely different courses, teaching different materials and texts, but still using very similar techniques - namely, text pairings. There is a LOT here, so grab your notebook and enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned...

If you know anything about us, you know that we are not ones to sugar coat things... This episode is no exception. We share the strategies we are using to cope with teaching right now, how we are allowing ourselves to feel what we feel, and how we are moving  forward through it all. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Ho...

In honor of Latinx Heritage Month, we bring you a celebration of some of the Latinx writers we feature in our classrooms throughout the year. Make sure to head over to the show notes to get a free activity to use with students for analyzing voice in literature, as well as some activities for developing their own voice. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New...

If you are teaching virtually in part or whole this school year, THIS EPISODE IS FOR YOU. Grab a notebook and writing utensil, and get ready for our top tips and strategies for saving you time and (more importantly) energy when teaching from a distance. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a messa...

Get ready for another episode where we walk through a couple of close reading passages and the lessons we would use with our students. This time, we are discussing the literary element characterization, and how we approach this in our own classrooms. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message...

In this interview with Tanesha Forman (@love.tanesha) we dive into the importance of teaching poetry and other forms of art in the classroom, how to encourage students to make personal connections in a low-threat way, and how poetry is the perfect entry point to classroom conversations surrounding social justice. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teachi...

In this episode, we discuss a checklist of steps to take when planning your first week back at school, whether it be in-person or virtual! With the upcoming school year quickly upon us, we also talk through what the first week will look like in each of our classrooms, including strategies and activities we will include. Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New...

In this episode, we share some real honest stories from our classrooms - our greatest planning fails and wins. There are always lessons to learn from the fails (as well as the wins), and facing those moments for reflection make for some of the best parts of a teaching practice.  CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! &q...

In this episode we share our very first interview on the podcast with Dr. Anindya Kundu, discussing student advocacy and the role of educators in fostering that advocacy. Dr. Kundu is a wealth of knowledge and insight - this is not an episode to miss! His book, The Power of Student Agency has just been published and is available for purchase - see show notes for more info! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTE...

In this episode, we focus on one of the things that gets left behind when it comes time to digitize curriculum, and it happens to be THE MOST IMPORTANT PART - assessments. We give our best tips, tricks, and tools for using digital assessments both in the classroom and through distance learning.  CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Ha...

Get you pen and notebook ready - this is another episode FULL of resources for you as you plan your upcoming school year! We go through all of our go-to sources for supplemental texts, as well as some of the tools we use for presenting these texts to students...  CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a me...

This is an episode like no other we have done before - listen as we live workshop essential questions for Marie's new prep she will teach in the fall. Very minimal prep went into this episode, resulting in an authentic conversation and thought process that we are SURE will benefit your classroom! Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week...

In Part B of this 2-part episode, we finish our discussion and explanation of the steps to take in visualizing a unit of study that is cohesive, meaningful, and (very importantly)  a unit that you want to teach ! Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - please include your contact informat...

In Part A of this 2-part episode, we outline the steps we take when beginning the process of designing a unit of study. (SPOILER ALERT - we take the  exact same steps, but they look a little different for each of us...) This week we will get you started with the things to take into consideration when beginning, and next week we will finish up! Enjoy! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this epi...

This week's episode outlines the work we plan to do over the summer of 2020 to grow professionally. Books, podcasts, and online conferences to further Anti-Bias & Anti-Racist work in the classroom and beyond, as well as those with instructional strategies to engage and deliver content effectively... Enjoy! LINKS TO ALL RESOURCES MENTIONED IN SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more...

In this episode, we pivot a bit from educational philosophy and general teaching to a specific ELA strategy - close reading. We talk through what a close reading lesson is, what we use it for in our own classrooms, and then walk through two sample texts/lessons using close reading to teach the author's craft skill syntax. We hope you enjoy nerding out with us! :) CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Men...

As we find ourselves on the down-hill slide to the end of the year, this week's episode is about how we intend to make the end of this particular year - school year 2019-2020, the year of COVID-19 - count as more than just the year of the pandemic. We owe it to ourselves to finish strong, and here is how we plan to do just that...  Make sure to head over to the show notes for our Summer Readi...

In this 2-part episode, we discuss and explain actionable strategies to use at the end of the year for engagement and classroom management. Make sure to tune in to PART A of this episode from last week! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - please include your contact information so we can cha...

While this episode was recorded before COVID-19 and subsequent school closures changed the face of education for the foreseeable future, the strategies we talk about in it are translatable to the virtual classroom. Don't miss Part B next week! CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - please...

In this special Teacher Appreciation episode, we asked some of our teacher friends to share stories from their classrooms - and, of course, we share a couple of our own! Enjoy, and Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!! Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - please include your contact information so we can chat soon!"...

In PART B of this two-part episode, Amanda and Marie dive into teaching poetry - the why, the how, and more! Listen for an in-depth breakdown of actionable strategies to build your poetry-teaching confidence!  CLICK HERE FOR SHOW NOTES Mentioned in this episode: Get more Brave New Teaching each week: Join BNT Happy Hour Here! "Send us a message - please include your contact information so we...