English Leadership Quarterly - Volume 39, Issue 4, 2017

When an early-career teacher changes schools, he finds that the new school’s curriculum doesn’t quite mesh with his teaching plans. After spending the first part of the school year in despair at his “failing” plan, he returns to his professional mentor texts to reinvigorate his classroom practice and recreate the classroom reading community he had been sorely missing.

“Summer slide” is an ongoing issue in school districts that break for the summer. The authors discuss their successful effort to create a project that will keep students learning in and with their families and communities through the summer regardless of whether they are enrolled in summer classes.

Teachers and students seem to fear being “wrong” in any context, even in situations in which information is not expected to be “right.” The author points out that learning happens exactly because we don’t have the right answer.