About: Donna Miller

As I was reflecting about Teacher Appreciation Week, the text: Teaching from the Heart: Reflections, Encouragement, and Inspiration by Sharon Draper came to mind.  In the essay “Candles,” Draper celebrates a teacher’s selflessness and chooses the candle as a felicitous symbol to describe how we teach so that others can reach their goals. As Draper…

The first National Autism Awareness Month was declared by the Autism Society in April 1970, and in 2015, then President Barack Obama issued a White House proclamation recognizing World Autism Awareness Day as April 2.  These designations are part of a nationwide effort to promote autism awareness, inclusion, and self-determination for all and to assure…

April is National Poetry Month, so as you plan lessons for the coming month, consider incorporating poetry into your lessons.  For example, try pairing two short poems to make a mini-study of a concept, theme, structure, or perspective.  In the space of a class period, it’s possible to employ multiple reading strategies while enriching discussion…

Marshalling items into an order or ranking them seems to please our brains. There is a certain cognitive efficiency in such rankings.  After all, ranking reflects a type of organization and efficiency.  And a top ten list can potentially save a person a lot of time from having to perform individual research.  Such a predilection…