In February, this blog will be celebrating its ten-year anniversary! Leading up to it, I’m re-starting a series I tried to do in the past called “A Look Back.” Each week, I’ll be re-posting a few of my favorite posts from the past ten years.

You might also be interested in:

 A Look Back: Best Posts From 2007 To 2009 

 A Look Back: 2010’s Best Posts From This Blog

A Look Back: 2011’s Best Posts From This Blog

A Look Back: 2012’s Best Posts From This Blog

A Look Back: 2013’s Best Posts From This Blog

A Look Back: 2014’s Best Posts From This Blog

A Look Back: 2015’s Best Posts From This Blog

This post originally appeared in 2016, right after the Presidential election.  It seems particularly relevant based on events that have taken place over the past few days. Teachers might consider using it as a lesson this week:

goodpeople

Yesterday was a rough day at school, and The Washington Post published a column I wrote about it, ‘Dear President-elect Trump’: Immigrant students write letters asking for ‘the opportunity to demonstrate we are good people.’

The writing exercise yesterday was incredibly helpful (you can download the sentence frames we used here). Then, seeing their letters in The Washington Post less than twenty-four hours later really helped them feel a lot better.

The Sacramento Bee will be sharing excerpts tomorrow, too.

Even though it was useful, it hasn’t solved anything – here’s how I ended the piece:

school-is-a-safe-place

 

I’m adding this post to:

The Best Posts & Articles On How To Teach “Controversial” Topics

The Best Sites To Learn About The 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections