Here is an excellent resource for us to use in the social studies and ELA classrooms to help improve literacy. Explore Kelly Gallagher’s site by looking at his Article of the Week and “food for Thought” links.  Also take a look at his book “Readicide” as it makes you stop to think about how we can best serve learners.  Check out the links at the bottom of this page to see articles Kelly assigned his students.

In addition to teaching English full-time at Magnolia High School in Anaheim, California, Kelly has an extensive background in secondary literacy education. He served as the English Coordinator for the Anaheim Union High School District, an urban district comprised of 37,000 secondary students; a Co-Director of the South Basin Writing Project at California State University Long Beach; and an adjunct professor at California State University, Fullerton, where he taught secondary literacy courses.

Kelly is a teacher and a former statewide trainer for the Puente Project, a University of California outreach program that prepares under-represented high school students for successful transition into universities. He has also served as a teacher leader in the California Reading and Literature Project, both at the University of California Los Angeles and University of California Irvine.

Kelly is the author of Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School (Stenhouse 2003), Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12 (Stenhouse 2004), Teaching Adolescent Writers(Stenhouse 2006), and, most recently, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It (Stenhouse 2009). Additionally, his work is the subject of four professional videos: Article of the Week (Stenhouse, July 2009), Improving Adolescent Writers (Stenhouse 2009), Building Adolescent Readers (Stenhouse 2005), and Twenty Questions Homework (Stenhouse 2006). In addition to his publications, Kelly travels extensively speaking to education professionals and providing professional development workshops.

In 2005, Kelly received the Award for Classroom Excellence by the California Association of Teachers of English, the state’s highest honor for English teachers.

Kelly lives in California with his wife and two daughters. He is a lifelong baseball fan and voracious reader.

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http://kellygallagher.org

Below you will find the articles Kelly Gallagher assigned* this year to his students.

Please note, all articles are subject to the copyright protections stipulated by the original source.

“One School Girl’s Protest of Seventeen Magazine — Now 75,000 Strong” by Julia Bluhm for Huffingtonpost.com (A Note from Kelly: As the school year comes to a close, this will be the last AoW of the year. Here’s to the teachers who are committed to building our students’ prior knowledge. You have to know stuff to read stuff.)
“Think Congress Is Sophomoric? A Study Says You’re Right” by Lisa Mascaro for the Los Angeles Times
“Brain Ailments in Veterans Likened to Those in Athletes” by Gretchen Ertl for the New York Times
“D.I.Y. Biology, on the Wings of the Mockingjay” by James Gorman for the New York Times
“Five Myths About America’s Decline” by Ian Bremmer for the Washington Post
“Study Sheds Light on How Birds Navigate by Magnetic Field” by James Gorman for the New York Times
“New Technology” The Week
“Digital Shadow: How Companies Track You Online” The Atlantic Online
“The Battle for the U.S. Senate” The Week
“The Trayvon Martin Killing” The Week and ABCnews.go.com
“10 Things You Need to Know Today: March 18, 2012” The Week
“Cracking Down on For-Profit Colleges” The Week
“Americans’ Growing Dependency on Food Stamps” The Week
“Will Jeremy Lin’s Success End Stereotypes?” by Timothy Yu for CNN.com
“Oscar Night: How Are the Winners Picked?” The Week
“NRC Approves First New Nuclear Plant in a Generation” by Ayesha Rascoe for Reuters.com
“The Kids Are More Than All Right” by Tara Parker-Pope for the New York Times
“Iran: The Showdown Over the Strait of Hormuz” The Week
“A Tough Homecoming for War Veterans” The Week
“The Fragile Teenage Brain” by Jonah Lehrer for Grantland.com
“Buff Your Brain” by Sharon Begley for Newsweek
“Al Qaeda on the Ropes: One Fighter’s Inside Story” by Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau for Newsweek
“Last Convoy of American Troops Leaves Iraq, Marking an End to the War” New York Times
“Super PACs: All the Speech Money Can Buy” The Week (revised)
“Obsessed with Children” The Week
“NASA Launches Sophisticated Rover on Journey to Mars” by the Associated Press for the New York Times
“Bystander Psychology: Why Some Witnesses to Crime Do Nothing” by Maia Szalavitz and posted on Time.com
“Five Myths About Healthy Eating” by Katherine Mangu-Ward for theWashington Post
“The ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement” as posted on Wikipedia.com
“Paralyzed Man Uses Mind-Powered Robot to Touch” by Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer
“Cleaning Up the Trash in Space” The Week
“Brown Signs California Dream Act” by Patrick McGreevy and Anthony York for the Los Angeles Times
“Chimpanzees Clear Some Doubt After Generosity Is Questioned” by Carl Zimmer for the New York Times
“Are Americans Smarter Than Ever?” The Week
“Five Myths About Earthquakes” by Susan Hough for the Washington Post
“Making Headway in the Movement to Protect the World’s Sharks” by Elisabeth Rosenthal for the New York Times
“A Legacy of Illnesses from 9/11” by Linda Zamosky for the Los Angeles Times
My Plate Replaces the Food Pyramid from ChooseMyPlate.gov

Looking for previous year’s Article of the Week assignments? Check out the
Article of the Week Archive.