I’ve been writing this blog for six or seven years. I thought readers might find it useful for me to dig back in the “archives” and highlight my choices for some of the best posts that appeared during that time.

The first list in this series, My Best Posts Over The Years — Volume One, focused on the year 2007 and included a fair amount of still-useful material (at least in my opinion).

I’d say the same thing about my review of posts from 2008, which you can find in My Best Posts Over The Years — Volume Two.

Here in Volume Three I’ll identify the best of 2009:

I posted what has turned out to be the most popular piece I’ve every posted — The Best Resources For Helping Teachers Use Bloom’s Taxonomy In The Classroom (which, as I do for most of my “The Best” lists, I continue to update).

The Best Teacher Resources For “TED Talks” (& Similar Presentations) has been similarly popular over the years.

And The Best Places Where Students Can Write For An “Authentic Audience” is another long-time popular list that was published that year.

I had my first book published that year, Building Parent Engagement In Schools, and started by other blog, Engaging Parents In School. And I began publishing an annual list of my best posts on parent engagement.

Some “unusual” lists that I like, and which came out in 2009 include:

The Best Sites For Walking In Someone Else’s Shoes

The Best Sites To Learn About Walls That Separate Us

The Best Images Of Weird, Cool & Neat-Looking Buildings (& Ways To Design Your Own)

I still regularly use The Best Sources Of Advice For Teachers (And Others!) On How To Be Better Bloggers and The Best Sites For Free ESL/EFL Hand-Outs & Worksheets.

And my students love The Best Places To Read & Write “Choose Your Own Adventure” Stories.

I wrote Teaching Secrets: The Last Day of School for Education Week, and Parent Involvement or Parent Engagement? for Learning First.

I also wrote an Ed Week article on making home visits to parents.

That year, I taught one U.S. History class in the classroom and another in the computer lab. I wrote about how it went here.

I reflect on the difference in career goals that I see in my mainstream and ELL students in The Hopes And Dreams Of My Students.

I wrote some decent posts on classroom management issues and lesson plans:

“I’ll Work If You Give Me Candy”

What Do You Do To Keep Students (& You!) Focused Near The End Of The School Year?

Want To Know What’s Happened Since My “Marshmallow” & “Visualizing Success” Lessons

Student Goal-Setting Lesson I’m Trying Out On Monday

The Importance Of Saying “I’m Sorry” To Students

When You Have A Sub…

Improvisation In The ESL/EFL Classroom — At Least In Mine

“How Students Can Grow Their Brains”


Answers To “What Do You Do On The First Day Of School?”

And here are some interesting education policy-related posts:

“Data-Driven” Versus “Data-Informed”

Evaluating Teachers In Order To Fire Them?


Is Figuring Out How To Make Schools Better A Puzzle Or A Mystery?


Do Teachers REALLY Come From The Bottom Third Of Colleges? Or Is That Statistic A Bunch Of Baloney?


“I just thought it would end differently this time”

Compasses Or Road Maps?

“Does Slow and Steady Win the Race?”

What Would Paulo Freire Do If He Was A School Superintendent?

Here are some posts to particularly useful sites that are still in operation:

Culture Crossing

The Art Of Storytelling

“Funniest videos about teaching / learning English”

The Fun Theory

And check out this essay on “The Best Teacher I Ever Had.”