Hello everyone! When it comes to getting students to engage with content, we often focus on compliance. We want to see students doing the work as we say to do it and during the timeframes we determine are correct. This over emphasis on compliance, however, can actually work against us. Students may be “doing the work,” but is it registering meaningfully in their minds? Is it enriching their lives for the better, or is it simply getting them a grade in a class?

Or… more importantly, who is doing the work in a class where compliance is the primary goal?

In this episode, Kelly Gallagher returns to the show to take us on a deep dive into these ideas and more. We discuss not only why we should focus on engagement, but why engagement will benefit students for far longer than simply “getting work done.” Kelly explains the thinking behind his latest book, 4 Essential Studies, and how this has led to truly opening up genre studies to empower readers and writers.

If you missed out on his first time on the show, you can check that out here. 

This episode is sponsored by Heinemann—the leading publisher of professional books and resources for educators—and their professional book, Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices by Lorena Escoto Germán.

With Culturally Sustaining Practice as its foundation, Textured Teaching helps secondary teachers stop wondering and guessing how to implement teaching and learning that leads to social justice.  Lorena Germán shares her framework for creating a classroom environment that is highly rigorous and engaging, and that reflects the core traits of Textured Teaching: student-driven and community-centered, interdisciplinary, experiential, and flexible.  The actionable strategies Lorena uses to bring Textured Teaching values to life illuminate what is possible when we welcome all types of texts, all types of voices, and all forms of expression into the classroom.

Learn more about how to become a culturally sustaining educator. Visit Heinemann.com to download a sample from Textured Teaching.