Gabrielle Plastrik

@gplastrik

MG and YA reader, curator of learning experiences, parent, executive function coach, baker, and poet. I work toward a more just world with little choices every day.

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Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Jul 4

#iteachenglish ???? American Indian Stories by Zitkala Sa, The Grapes of Wrath, and Their Eyes Were Watching God

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Jun 6

Do you know about Dr. Immordino Yang's study on teacher's brains and content of writing feedback? You might find it interesting. www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-9...

White page. Black text. "In a core hub of social-affective neural processing, the rostral ACC, the magnitude of the increase in neural activity as participants assessed their own students’ assignments was related to the degree to which the participants’ feedback provided each student with personalized developmental support. Participants with highly developmentally oriented feedback focused their comments on students’ habits of mind—their dispositions for deep thinking and their psychosocial capacities for learning through classroom discourse with peers60. For example, one participant described their student’s “courageous,” “curious” thinking as an asset the student could build from as she grows her 'confidence' and ability to 'share more' and 'collaborate'"

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 30

Kwame Dawes - "The Remnant" The remedy being in the senses feels pertinent to this moment. Enjoy!

Debris spreads like the scattering of bones
on the seabed, coral growing around
the long history of bodies jettisoned.

This is a myth. The artist must
imagine a biblical calamity.
The truth is that, soon, sand will cover
all evidence, soon, even the ancestors
singing deep in the ocean will not
be heard. Soon, in the soft rumble
of walls of water moving,
deafness will be all that is left.

The space beneath the freeway,
all the vehicles emptied, the pillars holding
up the interlocking maze of asphalt
and cement, is the graveyard of all
desire. We will walk among
the broken planks, the empty cars,
the tattered garments, and here
we will find ourselves alone, the wind
moving with the constant hum
of air circling the void.

To hold ourselves intact, we must
close our eyes and imagine green,
and then, for sustenance, drag our
tongues across our foreheads, to taste
the salt and sweet of our hope.

— Kwame Dawes

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 29

Abbie Houston Evans #poetry 📖

In Conclusion
Abbie Houston Evans

If I could live year-round upon this hill
I should be wiser, but I could not prove
Even then some things I know: say what you will,
The sweet-fern leans against the log for love.

Beyond the reach of argument with me
Is the purple on the shingles of the shed
That kindles as the sun sinks. When I see
Mist fill the lowlands as I go to bed,

I know I am through with cleverness, I know
That earth’s great pulse ignores it: though it run
It cannot overtake that logic slow,
Uncontroverted, making nine fields one.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 22

Public service announcement...I you were born female and are b/t 32 and 55, consider reading this. One very helpful part of the structure is the "If your doctor says ___, ask them ____." The state of women's midlife health knowledge requires us to be informed.

Teal and black background. Image from Libby App. White text reads, "Mary Clare Haver, MD The New Perimonpause" above a darker teal square with the title and author listed again.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 2

I am going back to school to help k-12 education better support twice exceptional learners.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Mar 24

Barnes has written a thrilling YA escape romp. It is firmly #YA. This book was so much fun. If you need an escape, check it out. 👍📚 📚👍

Cover of the Grandest Game. Black background. Jennifer Lynne Barnes is written in white at the top. The image is of a golden three leaf clover with small gold and jeweled items in it. The cover says, "The Grandest Game" all caps in blue above the clover. Underneath, it says "Only one can win," in much smaller white font, also all caps.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 6

@hooverstreetrag.org #9 Go Blue! time.com/7358185/top-... Disclosure: I am always wary of these rankings, but... also not going to complain about top 10 🫶

A table listing the best ranked universities in the world according to Time Magazine. The University of Michigan is 9th. University names are in blue.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Dec 23

This book is about Black farmers who owned more than $2000 worth of land pre-Civil War in the then West (MI, IL, IN, and OH) and could vote because of $ and land. The map at the front is a powerful resourcw.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 26

#monkeyshine2025 #monkeyshine #pear-shaped So fun! #ymca

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 9

This is one of my favorite passages of Walden. I use it to teach enjambment. Groups of students create poems using mostly only these words. Every group always has a different poem. Then we look at the work the line breaks are doing in their creations. 📖

At length the sun’s rays have attained the right angle, and warm winds blow up mist and rain and melt the snow banks, and the sun dispersing the mist smiles on a checkered landscape of russet and white smoking with incense, through which the traveller picks his way from islet to islet, cheered by the music of a thousand tinkling rills and rivulets whose veins are filled with the blood of winter which they are bearing off.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Jul 4

A Civil War cannon in Grant Park in Galena, IL. It took a cannon to its side (you can see the dent)! #iteachsocialstudies

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Jun 23

If you are teaching students to grow as writers attending to sentence construction puts a lot of tools in their tool box. Check our Mr. Luther's resource and chip in! #iteachenglish Lev Grossman's The Bright Sword is full of interesting syntactical arrangements. Here is one from page 814:

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· May 15

Puppy at the beach! Take care!

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 28

Thanks again for the fact checking!

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Apr 16

Anne Lamott's Operating Instructions is laugh out loud funny & deeply serious. Check out this section where she is talking herself into the idea that it will be okay that her unborn baby will someday have to start 7th & 8th grade, which she calls "the hell and the pit." 🍎

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Mar 1

🍎 📖 🗺 ELA, Humanities, & history teachers can help Ss to observe and learn from their emotions by noticing when characters in lit. and people in hist. are & aren't doing that. We can process "What would you do differently" & "What did they do well in terms of emotional awareness" in discussion.

Thr cover of Shift. It is mostly a white cover. The title of the book is black and takes up the top half of the cover. The authors name, "Ethan Kross," is at the bottom, also in black. In the middle, there is one of those things with thr metal magnet balls where you hit one and it hits all of them. They are emotions in colors from red to green. The green "happy" one is the one being pulled back.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 25

This looks amazing! I just started Rising from the Ashes. So far, it is definitely worth picking up. paulayoo.com/books/rising...

White box around the cover of Rising from the Ashes, which depicts LA on fire in 1992.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 19

If you have time to pop in for a session (or join us for the whole day!), sign up for @edmindfully.bsky.social Educating Mindfully's free virtual resource showcase THIS FRIDAY!!! 🍎 🗺 📔 Check in with yourself, self-regulate, and learn useful tools & strategies! www.educatingmindfully.org/showcase

White box with an orange border. Blue gear shape with "Educating Mindfully" inside it in the upper left corner. Text reads: Resource Showcase. Mindfulness, SEL, Wellness. Friday, February 21st. Free, Virtual, open to all.
Vendors appear below. Click the link for the full list.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 13

If your school is interested in ways to support students with SEL and wellness, check out this free resource showcase from Educating Mindfully. #educatingmindfully #SEL #wellnessinschools 🍎 RSVP Here: www.educatingmindfully.org/showcase

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 9

Counting in Dog Years is a great mix of poetry and math 📚👍.

This is thr cover of counting in dog years. There are zany things all over a dark blue background with a yellow border. A dog with balloons and a birthday hat is at the bottom.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Feb 9

📚👍 City Spies: London Calling does not disappoint! We drew out the last chapter because we didn't want it to end. Now, the wait begins again!

Three kids run across a bridge in front of Big Ben. The cover of this books glows a warm yellow. The title is blueish green and positioned over the Thames, which flows under the bridge the kids are on.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Jan 3

📚👍 If you are looking for a way to use a holiday gift card for a kid, consider checking out thr Cybils short lists. It is such a great experience to judge Elem/MG realistic fiction to help male these short lists. These are excellent books!

Not Nothing book cover
The Misfits book cover
The Tenth Mistake of Hank book cover
Hooperman book cover
Tig book cover

Bletchley Riddle book cover
The Door Is Open book cover
Grow Up, Luchy Zapata book cover

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Dec 28

This poem was with me a lot during the last T. presidency, and silence continues to be on my mind a lot now.

"On the Fifth Day" by Jane Hirschfield with a picture of a river above it.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Dec 12

The Learning Network had a calendar of their NYT contests! Some students benefit from a winter break challenge and might be interested in getting ahead on a contest. 📖 🗺

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Dec 3

And whole class feedback for final essays and projects is THE WAY.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 26

If you are looking for ways to invite students to level up their thinking, the dimensions of depth and complexity provide a tool box. These are great ways to differentiate without adding more work for students who are ready to do more. 🍎 🗺 📖 🕰

A 4x4 grid with the image the goes with each type of thinking. Tope left box says "Dimensions of depth and complexity." Then, the next two are Language of thr Discipline and Details. The second row is Patterns, Rules, and Trends. The third row is Unanswered Questions, Ethics, and Big Ideas. The final row is Over Time, Multiple Perspectives, and Across Disciplines.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 25

🗺 The UN held Summit of the Future Action Days in Sept. The youth who gathered crafted a doc with their recs for youth involvement in progress on key issues. I can imagine some neat ways to use this doc in small groups or as a text for interpretive discussion. The full doc: lnkdln.in/eEj4RpTJ

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 22

I really appreciate the "what do busy teachers actually need to know angle." Sometimes researchers and people peripheral to education forget how much is actually happening every minute of a teacher's day. And if the kids are in distress, how far away research and theory feels...

Picture of text from linked article starting at "In terms of the educational conversation" and ending at "knowledge of the curve." Black text double spaced on a white background.

Gabrielle Plastrik@gplastrik· Nov 22

Layla also says hi from WA. This is her new "fun" thing to do.