Here is a video of President Obama’s moving eulogy at Reverend Clementa Pinckney’s funeral this afternoon. Here’s the transcript. I’ve also embedded some tweets sent during the service (Here’s a fascinating analysis of if by James Fallows): I plan to highlight this next quotation in history class: "History must not be a sword to justify injustice…but must be a manual for how to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past" —@POTUS — The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 26, 2015 "Guard against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview, but not Jamal" —@POTUS in Charleston http://t.co/qcUl5NnYQs — The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 26, 2015 "May God continue to shed His grace on the United States of America." —@POTUS http://t.co/14Z3HnNi8v — The White House (@WhiteHouse) June 26, 2015 The first black president singing Amazing Grace at the podium of a black church founded by a man who planned a slave revolt. — Cirque du SoBae (@brownandbella) June 26, 2015 "History can’t be a sword to justify injustice or a shield against progress but must be a manual for how to avoid… the mistakes of the past" — Libby Nelson (@libbyanelson) June 26, 2015 Obama talks up gun violence and the need to create better protections for citizens. http://t.co/WIT5KVDSU0 pic.twitter.com/NyKK9lS8Xa — NYT National News (@NYTNational) June 26, 2015

There are just so many good infographics and interactives out there that I’ve begun a new semi-regular feature called "Infographics & Interactives Galore." You can see others at A Collection Of "The Best…" Lists On Infographics and by searching "infographics" on this blog. I’ll still be publishing separate posts to individually highlight especially useful infographics and interactives, but you’ll find others in this regular feature. Here goes: The American civil war then and now interactive is from The Guardian. I’m adding it to The Best Sites For Learning About The American Civil War. 2 maps that show the Civil War really was about slavery is from Vox. I’m adding it to the same list. The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes is from Slate, and is pretty amazing. I’m adding it to our US History class blog under Slavery In The Colonies. What’s Really Warming The World? is an interactive from Bloomberg. I’m adding it to The Best Sites To Learn About Climate Change. I’m adding this next infographic to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures:

Video For All is a European-funded site filled to the brim with ideas on how to use video in language-teaching. It looks like an amazing resource. Even better, Russell Stannard, who is the person who wrote about the site in his great email newsletter, has created a series of videos describing how to best use Video For All. I’m adding this info to The Best Popular Movies/TV Shows For ESL/EFL (& How To Use Them).

Many teachers, including me, have experienced the struggle of getting our students to buy into seriously revising their original drafts. I’ve tried modeling my own writing process, and have met with limited success. I’ve previously posted this sixth-grader interviewing President Obama. He cut the President off when he began talking about students needing to revise their writing, and that reflects many students’ feelings about it: I was prompted to think about this by finally getting around to reading a late March New York Times column titled What’s More Important to You: the Initial Rush of Prose or the Self-Editing and Revision That Come After It? I thought that this excerpt, in particular, would be a good one to share and have my mainstream students (I think it might be too difficult for my ELLs) respond to a prompt along the lines of: According to Cheryl Strayed, what kind of relationship do original writing and the process of revising it have with each other? Do you agree with her? To support your opinion, be sure to include specific examples drawn from your own experience, your observations of others, or any of your readings. What strategies do you use to get students invested into revising their writing? I’m adding this post to The Best Posts On Writing Instruction.

Here’s my monthly round-up of new "The Best…" lists I posted this month (you can see all 1,450 of them categorized here): The Best Resources For Learning About Juneteenth The Best Resources On Effective Note-Taking Strategies - Help Me Find More The Best Movie/TV Scenes Demonstrating Metacognition - Help Me Find More The Best Summaries/Reviews Of Research On Social Emotional Learning - Let Me Know What I’ve Missed All My BAM Radio Shows - Linked With Descriptions The Best Websites For English Language Learner Students In 2015 - So Far The Best Theory Of Knowledge Resources In 2015 - So Far The Best Online Learning Games Of 2015 - So Far The Best Tweets Of 2015 - So Far The Best Resources, Articles & Blog Posts For Teachers Of ELLs In 2015 - So Far The Best Articles (And Blog Posts) Offering Practical Advice & Resources To Teachers In 2015 - So Far The Best Articles I’ve Written In 2015 — So Far The Best Fun Videos For English Language Learners In 2015 - So Far The Best Social Studies Sites Of 2015 — So Far The Best Articles & Posts On Education Policy In 2015 - So Far My Best Posts On New Research Studies In 2015 - So Far The Best Videos For Educators In 2015 - So Far The Best Web 2.0 Applications For Education In 2015 - So Far The Best Resources For Developing Student Portfolios All My 2015 Mid-Year "Best" Lists In One Place!  

I’ve just mailed out the July issue of my simple free monthly email newsletter. It has over 2,200 subscribers, and you can subscribe here.

Brad Ovenell-Carter shared this wonderful video on Twitter. I think it would be a great one to show on the first day of a Geography class. Do you have ideas on how it could be used?

The Washington Post just published this story of a man working with a Finnish broadcasting company to "to demonstrate both what it is like to live with HIV-related stigma and raise awareness of HIV." I’m adding it to The Best Web Resources For Learning About HIV & AIDS.

Focusing ‘More On What Goes Right Than On What Goes Wrong’ is the headline of my latest column at Education Week Teacher. In it, Rebecca Mieliwocki, Allen Mendler, Jennifer Orr, Mike Anderson, and Daniel Rechtschaffen contribute their suggestions on how teachers can maintain a sane balance between classroom and home life. Here are some excerpts:

© 2012 tsaiproject, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio As regular readers know, my colleague Katie Hull and I are working on a sequel to our popular ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide, and it’s going to be a good one. I’ve run up against a question in my writing and I’m hoping that readers can help… I’m trying to figure out the difference between cooperative and collaborative learning and, very importantly, how the Common Core Standards views them both. There seems to be multiple definitions out there about what the two mean - and, boy, do I mean multiple! It appears to me, and I might very well be wrong, that the Standards use the word "collaborate" in the context of discussions to help individual students develop their own understanding of concepts, like a Socratic Seminar (what might be other examples?). And it also seems to me that the Standards don’t particularly value a cooperative learning project where students are working on a common goal as "collaboration." However, the Standards would view that kind of project as a valid means towards achieving other Standards, such as "sustained research." I’m not an expert on collaborative or cooperative learning, and nor am I an expert on the Common Core Standards. So I’m hoping the readers will help me out here — am I on the right track or am I missing something?

I’m adding this NBC News video to The Best Resources For Helping Teens Learn About The Importance Of Sleep:

© 2009 ankakay, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Canada Day is often called "Canada’s birthday" and is celebrated on July 1st. You might be interested in The Best Sites To Learn About Canada and feel free to suggestion resources I should add to that list.

You’ll want to watch this new NPR animation accompanied by Jonathan Kozol reading from his classic education book, "Death At An Early Age":

World Bank Photo Collection via Compfight I’ve got a ton of tools on The Best Places Where Students Can Write Online. Many let you create picture books, create multimedia projects, and write a blog. But hardly any provide any scaffolded support for a student to actually write a "standard" essay. John Spencer’s Write About site, which I’ve previously written about in "Write About" May Be The Education Site Of The Year offers some of that. A site I learned about today called Write Well has some potential, though its scaffolded instructions are pretty meager and there are no models. What are tools that you use that I don’t know about? Here’s a Twitter exchange with a good caution and that also shares what I think would be helpful: @greg_ashman 1 that used graphic organizers,like ones many of us use in class,that could be moved around, w/accessible models could b useful — Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) June 29, 2015

Jenn Borgioli Binis shared and important article, Waiting for help and worn out by the status quo, about a school in New York City. It appeared in Chalkbeat. Here’s an excerpt: Happily, we are less likely to face this kind of situation here in California and at our school, but I’ve got to think that what’s happening at this New York school is not an uncommon experience. You might be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments.

Yale has created the Grammatical Diversity Project to document varieties of grammar usage across the United States. You can explore it with an interactive map on its site. You can also learn more about it at this Slate article: Documenting the Diversity of American English. I’m adding it to The Best "Language Maps."

"Family.Life" is a Syracuse University project that " explores family as the center of life around the world." The images are indexed by theme, a few of which you can see in the image at the top of this post. You can read more about what they’ve done at The New York Times article headlined A Global Look at Family and Life. I’m adding this info to The Best Sites For Learning About The World’s Different Cultures. You might also be interested in two New York Times posts where I described ELL lessons centered around family: This Mother’s Day interactive and supplemental activities focus on conjunctions and having students do writing about their mothers or other key family members. Students learn about the progressive tense in this passage about the changing nature of families, and use the article as a stepping-stone to a lesson of creating family trees — with a twist!

© 2011 mSeattle, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio Here are new additions to The Best Resources About Wealth & Income Inequality: Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America are from The Urban Institute. This chart explains everything you need to know about inequality is from The Washington Post. If you thought income inequality was bad, get a load of wealth inequality is from The Washington Post. Quiz: Can you recognize the shape of inequality in America? Most can’t is also from The Washington Post. People have no idea what inequality actually looks like is from The Washington POst.

Here’s how StoryCorps describes their new animated video: When Theresa Burroughs came of voting age, she was ready to cast her ballot—but she had a long fight ahead of her. During the Jim Crow era, the board of registrars at Alabama’s Hale County Courthouse prevented African Americans from registering to vote. Undeterred, Theresa remembers venturing to the courthouse on the first and third Monday of each month, in pursuit of her right to vote. I’m adding it to The Best Websites To Teach & Learn About African-American History.

The Supreme Court has just made a terrible decision to hear the Friedrichs case which, if they rule in favor of the plaintiffs (the likely outcome) will eviscerate public employee unions, including our teachers associations. And those are not the only ones who will be affected. As I said in a tweet earlier today: I thought readers might find these resources on the case helpful (you might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning Why Teachers Unions Are Important): The End of Public-Employee Unions? is from The Atlantic. Activists look to courts to weaken grip of California teachers union is from The Sacramento Bee. What AFT members need to know about the ‘Friedrichs’ case is from The American Federation of Teachers. Teachers ask high court to hear union dues case is from Ed Source. Justices take up dispute over union fees is from The Associated Press. Supreme Court to Reconsider Key Precedent on Teachers’ Union Fees is from Ed Week. Joint Statement on Public Service Workers on Supreme Court Grant of Cert in Friedrichs v. CTA Supreme Court to hear case challenging compulsory fees to CTA is from Ed Source.

Bansi Kara shared a Guardian story from today headlined Metaphor map charts the images that structure our thinking. It’s about a wild-looking Glasgow University project that has mapped "metaphoric connections" over the past 1,300 years (yes, that’s one thousand three hundred years). I haven’t quite figured out how to use it, and nor have I figured out its practical purpose, but I suspect the former might have something to do with the latter. If you have better luck, please let me know. I’m adding this post to The Best "Language Maps."

Ted-Ed just came out with a new video and lesson on "The incredible history of China’s terracotta warriors." I’m adding the video to the Ancient & Classical Periods section of my World History class blog.

This post originally was a request for help to find clips, and now I’ve turned it into a "Best" list sharing the ones readers have recommended. Last week, readers were very responsive to my request for help in finding TV and movie scenes that demonstrated metacognition, and you can see them all at The Best Movie/TV Scenes Demonstrating Metacognition - Help Me Find More. Now, I’m looking for clips showing characters demonstrating a growth mindset. I’ve got plenty of great clips and animations that explicitly explain what a growth mindset it, and you can see them at The Best Resources On Helping Our Students Develop A "Growth Mindset." But video clips from TV and the movies are obviously more engaging to students, so I’d like to have a few in the mix. You might also be interested in: The Best Movie Scenes, Stories, & Quotations About "Transfer Of Learning" - Help Me Find More! The Best Video Clips Demonstrating "Grit" - Help Me Find More The Best Video Clips On Goal-Setting — Help Me Find More The Best Video Clips & Full-Length Movies For Helping To Teach Persuasive Techniques (Help Me Find More) The Best Video Clips On The Benefits Of Writing Well — Help Me Find More The Best Video Clips & Full-Length Movies For Helping To Teach Persuasive Techniques (Help Me Find More) The Best Funny Videos Showing The Importance Of Being Bilingual Or Multilingual — Part One The Best Funny Videos To Help Teach Grammar - Help Me Find More The Best Fun Videos To Teach Language Conventions — Help Me Find More The Best Videos For Teaching & Learning About Figurative Language Here are The Best TV/Movie Scenes Demonstrating A "Growth Mindset": Moshe Mittelman recommends this great one from Back To The Future: Mrs. Waters suggests these first two: Judith Dubois recommends this one: Here’s one suggested by Reed Gillespie - I just wish it didn’t convey that the teacher would get the student "there." Instead, I wish it conveyed more clearly that the student would get "there" more on his own - with some assistance from the "teacher." Here’s one that sort of relates to a growth mindset, but is more just inspirational: Jen Marten suggests this from Meet The Robinsons: Fred Delventhal made these recommendations: I’d follow up that last video with this one:

Last night, I asked readers to recommend movie scenes that demonstrated a growth mindset. Here is what they’ve come up with so far: Mrs. Waters suggests these first two: Judith Dubois recommends this one: