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"Larry Ferlazzo's Websites of the Day…" - 5 new articles
Springsteen Releases Song About Minneapolis That’s Great (For The Classroom, Too) – Here’s Audio & Lyrics
Bruce Springsteen just released this song (you can read the lyrics here). I’m adding it to The “Best” Lesson Ideas For Teaching About The Protests & Killings In Minneapolis, where you can also find two poems written by Amanda Gorman.
      My Best Posts That Appeared In January
I regularly highlight my picks for the most useful posts for each month — not including “The Best…” lists. I also use some of them in a more extensive monthly newsletter I send-out. You can see older Best Posts of the Month at Websites Of The Month (more recent lists can be found here). You can also see my all-time favorites here. I’ve also been doing “A Look Back” series reviewing old favorites, too. Here are some of the posts I personally think are the best, and most helpful, ones I’ve written during this past month (not in any order of preference) – also note that I group many updates on the Trump administration’s current attack on education and democracy in weekly posts you can find here): Here’s Advice I Gave To My Student Teacher Grandson This Week About Student Engagement “LangTwo” Seems Like A Decent AI-Powered Language Tool & It’s Free (For Now, At Least) “American Empire” Is A Very Timely Resource For Social Studies Teachers How Many Teachers Leave The Profession Within Their First Five Years? “Spelly” Looks Like A Good Free Tool Where ELLs Can Get Their Pronunciation Assessed Excellent Summary Of Research On AI & Learning, But Recommendations Are Pretty Weak I Love This Idea Of “Espresso Dialogues” For English Language Learners “News In Simple” Has The “Same” News Content At Three Different English Levels “Hidden Door” Uses AI To Let You Role-Play Within Classic Novels Global Survey Finds That American Teachers Are The Ones Most Likely To Leave The New Yorker’s New Word Game, Shuffalo, Is Great For ELLs Two New (To Me, At Least) Sites For Excellent Free Lesson Plans Study Finds, To No One’s Surprise, That Well-Designed Peer Assessment Can Be Effective Video: “Proof” Is An Amazing Poem Written For The Inauguration Of Mayor Zohran Mamdani “Minnesota Students Are Living in Perilous Times” “‘Survival Mode’: A Minnesota Teacher of the Year Decries Immigration Crackdowns” “Teachers Have to Be ‘Gatekeepers of Safety’ in Minnesota Since Killing of Renee Nicole Good” “How Should Teachers Deal With Hurtful Language in Literature?” “6 Words of Wisdom From Teachers for Teachers” “Teaching English Learners Is Complex. Here Are Some Tested Strategies” “9 Teacher-Recommended Books to Hone the Craft and Nourish the Soul”
 A Look Back: Peer Review Process & Downloadable Form I Used This YearFor the next month or so, I’ll be republishing my best posts from the last half of 2025.
 mcmurryjulie / Pixabay
Lots of research shows that peer review in the classroom can be very helpful and effective – if done well. That last part is always the tricky part. I used a new peer review process and form with my IB Theory of Knowledge students this past year. I wouldn’t say it was gangbusters, but it went okay. Students first spent fifteen minutes completing the first part of this downloadable form. There, they identified concerns, questions, worries they had about writing their essay. You’ll see in Part Two of the form where they have to write down helpful advice they received from classmates in response to their questions, and Part Three where they have to write good advice they felt they gave. All the parts offered models and examples of advice to ask for and advice to provide. As you can see from the anonymous survey of students afterwards, their general reaction was “meh”:
Here are some students’ comments: It was helpful for me, because I got told that my work was good and excellent. It was helpful to me by improving the quality of my outline. Letting me know what thing i should do and what things I shouldn’t do. It was helpful to me because it was nice to hear feedback from them so we can work on ourselves and better ourselves. No one really had advice or questions for anyone, I don’t think its a problem with the exercise per se but more in the students not wanting to give a lot of effort in the last few weeks of the year. it was not that helpful I could have spent the time working on my essay instead I think it was helpful because it helped me learn new things and perceive things differently. I think it could be better improved if everyone was more collaborative. It was helpful to me as it helped shape my idea of how I am going to do this essay. i enjoyed this activity because i got good feedback. I also gave advice to people as well that i hope helped them as much as it helped me. this was very helpful for me because now i know what I’m going to write and i have an idea of how to do it It was helpful for me because I was able to get feedback on my work from people other than myself and my teacher(s). It allows me to reflect on future mistakes and current mistakes. The peer review was helpful to me because it’s hard to revise your own work so it’s helpful to get input from other people’s point of view.
I’m not sure what, if anything, I’d do differently. It sounds like some found it helpful, and others did not.  Classroom Instruction Resources Of The Week
Each week, I publish a post or two containing three or four particularly useful resources on classroom instruction, and you can see them all here. You can also see all my “Best” lists on instructional strategies here. Here are this week’s picks:
I’m adding this tweet to Does Anyone Use “Interleaving” When Teaching ELLs? If So, I’d Love To Hear What You Do:
I’m adding this tweet to The Best World Poetry Day Resources – Help Me Find More:
Why Word Problems Feel So Hard and What Teachers Can Do is from Ed Week. I’m adding it to The Best Apps, Online Tools & Other Resources For Math. A Tool to Help Students Navigate Difficult Text is from Middleweb. I’m adding it to The Best Resources On “Close Reading” — Help Me Find More.  December’s “Best” Lists – There Are Now 2,569 Of Them! Prawny / Pixabay
Here’s my regular round-up of new “The Best…” lists I posted this month (you can see all 2,540 of them categorized here – you might also want to check out THREE ACCESSIBLE WAYS TO SEARCH FOR & FIND MY “BEST” LISTS). Here are the lists from this month: The Best Ways For Modifying Assessments & Supporting ELLs The Best Lesson Ideas About The U.S. Intervention In Venezuela Eleven Articles I Wrote This Year  More Recent Articles
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