Teachers: The World's Greatest Thieves!

Ok, maybe we aren't really thieves, but man do we know how to steal and use other people's stuff! As I was preparing for the year I decided to push myself and REALLY be prepared and organized this year. I sat down to write the full units, including rubrics and essay questions, for each book I had asked the kids to read over the summer. I teach grades 5 - 12 so that was quite a task! I had decided at the end of last year not to have the 5th/6th grade class students read a book simply because I wasn't sure whether or not the books would be returned, so that left me with four books to prepare (we currently have no sophomore students).

As I began my preparations for units that were engaging, incorporated elements of drama and theatre (role play, design, scripting, etc.), and challenging for the kids, I turned to some of my favorite professional texts to see what they had that I could use. With Readicide (Kelley Gallagher), Deeper Reading (Kelley Gallagher), and When Kids Can't Read (Kylene Beers) at my side (along with the trusty Internet), I began to plan and organize. In essence, I was stealing other people's ideas to make myself ready and organized and honestly, it felt great!

  

There is nothing wrong with using the things other teachers have put out in the open for us and there are some great places to share with teachers: NCTE's Connected Community, a Ning I just joined called English Companion (http://englishcompanion.ning.com) where English teachers from all over can chat and help each other out, TeachersPayTeachers (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com), The English Teacher's Friend (http://www.englishteachersfriend.com) and I'm sure there are tons of others (these are just the ones I use). We shouldn't feel like we need to reinvent the wheel for each lesson, we should take a base and adapt it so the new wheel fits our car. After all, no one has the same passengers as any one else, so why would we want to use exactly the same things?

Steal, invent, adapt, borrow, whatever word works for you see how great it can make you feel!