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

We love a good unit makeover, and today you’ll hear part of one in action! We’re going to do a makeover on a unit that Marie has taught one time so far. It uses the text, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. This unit is part of a brand new course. As many of you may have experienced, brand new course + brand new unit = flying by the seat of your pants! In other words, it’s a good time to talk through it and think about some changes that can be made the next time that it’s used.  The unit that we’re talking about in today’s episode looks at systems of power. You’ll hear us discuss the vision for this unit, go through some clarifying questions, and move into forming an essential question. Most importantly, you’ll gain an understanding that this process is pretty messy to work through! Register for our virtual workshop on teaching biography and memoir: https://www.curriculumrehab.com/biographyandmemoir Check out the show notes: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode118 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

We’re on this podcast for a lot of reasons, and one of them is to unpack one of the most powerful and often underutilized genres in the ELA curriculum world, and that is biography and memoir. In our last episode, we began making our passionate case for biography and memoir. If you missed it, you can check it out here.  We’re continuing that conversation today so that you can get even more excited to join our upcoming virtual workshop on teaching memoir and biography. Tickets start at just $7 and we would love to have you join us! We really want this episode to serve as your initial brainstorming so that when you come to the workshop, you are feeling prepared and have ideas ready to go. When we’re talking about how to effectively approach this genre, it all starts with essential questions. If it feels challenging to craft essential questions for biography and memoir, don’t worry, we have lots of ideas for how you can do this with intention. In fact, we have three specific approaches to creating a unit around biography and memoir that we'll share with you in this episode. Register for our virtual workshop on teaching biography and memoir: https://www.curriculumrehab.com/biographyandmemoir Check out the show notes: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode117 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Hey Brave New Teachers! We’re excited to start a brand new series that we’re putting together for you, starting with this episode. This series will lead into our newest virtual workshop (what we’ve called “festivals” in the past!) that will be held on October 3, 2022. It will be centered around nonfiction and teaching biography and memoir. Are you wondering why we’ve chosen biography and memoir? To put it simply, using biography and memoir, whether it’s a whole unit or sprinkled into your other units, is the single best way to bring authentic voice into your classroom. Today we’re sharing four main points that will build our case for biography and memoir. Register for our virtual workshop on teaching biography and memoir: https://www.curriculumrehab.com/biographyandmemoir Check out the show notes: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode116 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Sometimes the best ideas and inspiration come from hearing about other teachers’ experiences in the classroom. That’s why I’m excited to have Ana Perez on the Brave New Teaching podcast today. Ana is a 10th year high school ELA teacher and a Jill of many other trades including poetry, Zumba, and techy resource creation. In the classroom she's a proponent of relationships over content, and outside the classroom, she enjoys creating resources to help other teachers foster meaningful relationships, too. She is passionate about sharing both knowledge and empathy, and believes strongly in the importance of mental health for both teachers and students.  In this conversation, you’ll hear Ana share how she paired Frankenstein with Punching the Air. She created an entire unit that covered a classic text, a film of that text, and a YA novel in-verse. She’s going to tell us all about how she dreamed this unit up, how she planned it all out, and how the unit actually went for her students. Buckle up, because it's incredible! Watch our FREE masterclass, Down with the Reading Quiz SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode115 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Today's episode marks the last in the series we are doing on classroom management. To close out the series, we're talking about a strong belief that we have here at Brave New Teaching, which is this...true compassion is accountability! We'll share what this actually means, and how you can take this belief and incorporate it into your classroom this year. Reserve your seat for The First Ten Days: The Complete Back to School Toolkit Watch our FREE masterclass, Down with the Reading Quiz SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode114 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

When you think about your role as a teacher, are you trying to control your classroom, or are you trying to build a community? Our guest today, Dr. Deonna Smith is asking the tough, yet crucial, questions like this in part three of our series on classroom management! This is her zone of genius, and we couldn’t be happier to have her on the podcast to share her experience and insight. Deonna is a former teacher, instructional coach and school leader. Before transitioning into leadership, Deonna taught intervention, elementary and middle school math and science. As a student and teacher,  Deonna saw how systemic racism negatively impacted both adults and kids. This experience set Deonna on a journey to learn more about how teachers can liberate their students’ potential through anti racist practices. Deonna is dedicated to her own learning as well and recently completed her doctorate in education from Loyola Marymount University. Connect with Dr. Deonna Smith: Follow her on Instagram @deonnasmith Head to her website Enroll in The Anti-Racist Institute  Check out her Workshop Replays Reserve your seat for The First Ten Days: The Complete Back to School Toolkit SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode113 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Here at Brave New Teaching, we feel strongly about several things, one of which is creating a classroom culture that exudes trust, acceptance, and community. We believe that these things are at the heart of successful, and holistic, classroom management. That’s why in this second episode of our four-part classroom management series, we are chatting with our friend, John Rodney about organic community in your classroom (and may be slightly fan-girling while doing it!). SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode112 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

As you prepare for another school year, how are you feeling about your classroom management? We don’t know about you, but we were raised in an age of clip charts, reward systems, and overall surface level management systems that were really creating inequitable experiences for students.  We now know that there are better practices to put in place that are equitable and responsive to all kids. Your goal is not a perfect classroom. Your goal is to create an environment where your students are going to be academically and socially successful; to create a safe space where students can have hard conversations, be vulnerable, and trust each other. Thinking about classroom management in a new way can be overwhelming, especially when you’ve got so much else on your plate at the beginning of the year. As always, that’s why we are here to help support you and take some of that pressure off.  This episode is the first of a four-episode series all about classroom management. You won’t only hear from us, but also other amazing educators who have gotten their classroom management really dialed in, in ways that are so organic and invigorating. SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode111 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

Do you ever feel like the position you are currently in as an educator just doesn’t quite fit? Maybe it’s because of the grade level you’re in, the specific school you work at, or the colleagues that you work with.  Whatever the reason, if where you are in your career as an educator doesn’t feel right, you don’t have to stay there. If your passion is teaching, and you know you want to stay in this career, there are lots of shifts that you can make while still staying in the classroom. You’ll hear from Darin Nakakihara in today’s interview, who has experienced several shifts in his career until finding the one that was perfect for him. Darin shares his advice on the first steps to take if you want to be in the classroom, but you just don’t fit where you currently are. Darin (Mr. N) is a high school teacher in Southern California. He loves connecting with students and building relationships and community, and his passion for education comes through in all he does. When he is not teaching you can catch him fishing, building amazing edtech tools, or spending time with his family. SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode109 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel

This episode is special for so many reasons. Want to know why? To begin, we are recording together in person!!! 🥳 We’re at the 2022 Teachers Pay Teachers conference in Chicago and it’s the first time we’ve been together since the very first time we met, (which was THREE years ago). It’s surreal to be here right next to each other after staring at each other through a computer screen for years. As we sit down today, we’re reminiscing on where we started, and getting excited about what is to come for the rest of this year and beyond as we begin season five of this podcast. SHOW NOTES: https://www.bravenewteaching.com/home/episode108 Follow us on Instagram: @bravenewteachingMentioned 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!"Get your FREE Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs gateway lesson: shop.bravenewteaching.com/cloudyCheck out Curriculum Rehab here!Support the show📚 BNT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & RESOURCES 👩‍💻 Join Happy Hour! Curriculum Rehab Down with the Reading Quiz Shop the BNT Resource Library Connect with us on Instagram @bravenewteaching Subscribe to our YouTube Channel