Sonya's Teaching Blog

Reading Girl Code: Gaming, Going Viral and Getting It Done  was accidentally appropriate on my part, as May 11 was National  Girls Learning Code Day . This book was written by Sophie Houser and Andrea Gonzales and tells the true story of how they spent a summer learning to code with a  Girls Who Code  camp in New York City, created a game together as a final project, and experienced their game, Tampon Run , going viral and taking their lives by storm (the game was not working for me when I tried, but there is now a version for iOS included in the link). Girl Code  cover care of Goodreads . There were a lot of things I loved about this book. I love that it was a book written for teens, by teens. I loved that they speak so frankly about their experiences, including both the positive and the negative aspects of their experience. In addition to talking about coding, they discuss topics such as anxiety and impostor syndrome, trying to figure out what you want...

Cover of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas' Red: A Haida Manga . Image care of chapters.indigo.ca Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas is often credited with the creation of the "Haida Manga" genre of graphica, and Red  is one of his most well-known works. It tells a classic Haida cautionary tale of pride and revenge in a very visual style. What's more, the pages of the book can be removed and put together to build a mural (though readers will need two copies of the book to do this properly). Mural made of pages from Red: A Haida Manga . Image care of Huffington Post . Yahgulanaas encourages readers to take the book apart for this purpose, and as much as it hurts me to take books apart, I think this is required to really appreciate the art of this book. When read in a linear fashion, some of the book feels out of order or like bits are missing. The extra connections made between pages complete the picture, and the story. And I think students would love the opportunity to ta...

In spite of having surgery today, I am going to get out an IMWAYR post this week because I have just read so much amazing stuff!  Speak  by Laurie Halse Anderson is an incredible book that I first need to mention comes with content warnings for sexual assault, self harm. These are difficult and yet necessary topics to discuss with young adults - they are sadly a reality for many youth these days and need to be discussed in classroom in supportive ways. Anderson, Laurie Halse (1999). Speak . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. The book itself includes resources for youth needing support related to sexual assault, though they are USA centered. The first thing I recommend if you are going to discuss this book in a classroom setting is gathering resources that are local and useful to students in your class. Chances sadly pretty high that someone in that class will need these resources. Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak . Book cover care of goodreads.com Laurie Halse Anderson t...

What is this list? Lately, I have been reading quite a bit of LGBTQ2+ young adult fiction. I was finding it hard to find and identify books with non-binary characters - meaning characters whose gender identity isn't exactly that of a boy or a girl (for more information, check out this page from the National Center for Transgender Equality). Books for young people with non-binary characters are becoming more common, but are still under-represented. It's estimated that 25%-30% of transgender people are non-binary ( Webb et al. ). And so this list was born. It is meant for teens and parents interested in finding more stories including non-binary experiences, as well as teachers and librarians who want to recommend books with non-binary characters or include them in their teaching. It is meant for everyone who just wants to read a good book! If there is enough interest in this list, I will keep it as a living document and will continue to add and update books based on my ...