iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Too much doom scrolling for me, friends I’m gonna try a social-media-dry January See y’all on the other side 🤠🫶🏽

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 31/12/2024

@robmclennan.bsky.social! The chapbook care package arrived today! Thanks for your generosity! Cannot WAIT to see what it inspires for my students! If you’re ever in TX, the first pitcher of margaritas is on me THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU! 🤠🫶🏽🫔

150

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Sansa Sandisk @cheatlines.co · 14/07/2024

"We are attempting to survive our time, so we may live into yours."

Statement by President Jimmy Carter included on the Voyager Golden Record: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/voyager-spacecraft-statement-the-president

121292415

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Nicholas A. Emmanuele, PhD (he/him/his) @naemmanuele.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

I just got @sarahmzerwin.bsky.social’s STEP ASIDE: STRATEGIES FOR STUDENT-DRIVEN LEARNING WITH SECONDARY READERS AND WRITERS (#Routledge) in the mail, and I’m excited to dive in! The book is beautiful with colorful charts, student work, and sketches!

Cover of Step Aside: Strategies for Student-Driven Learning with Secondary Readers and Writers by Sarah M. Zerwin, foreward by Cris Tovani. The cover has an image of a road or street on it.

6151

Reposted by JoelRGarza

River River Books @riverriverbooks.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Corrie Williamson, January 2025

$Filling the Birdfeeder on the Coldest Day of the Year with a line from William Stafford Here's one small thing I can help keep alive: chickadees flashing in the barred light between the big fir's old branches, which are bowed into shapelessness by wind, snow, time. The bohemian waxwings came for a day, found no berries, flocked as one into vanishment. Ravens ride the storms, black boats with slow black oars. In the middle of the day an ermine lithe as a snake leaps across the yard, leaving the full print of its form in the snow, divot and tail, divot and tail, then dives, disappears, until the head rises like a submarine's periscope. Individual flakes gleam bright as mica in the cold. I think of the mouse moving low in the layers, how the ermine finds him and tears him apart there in that invisible subnivean universe, how bright his unseen blood. What will I say when you ask me if what I have done is my life? The fox's faint tracks dent the fractal shards of sky. The chickadees shiver themselves alive.$ YOUR MOTHER'S BEAR GUN
POEMS CORRIE WILLIAMSON

Beat skull with colored flora

Design by Alban Fischer

YOUR MOTHER'S BEAR GUN
POEMS CORRIE WILLIAMSON

Beat skull with colored flora

Design by Alban Fischer

6218

Reposted by JoelRGarza

River River Books @riverriverbooks.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Preorders are now live for Joe Wilkins’ Pastoral, 1994 and Corrie Williamson’s Your Mother’s Bear Gun! 20% discount, and our limited edition broadside bundles coming soon 📚✨ riverriverbooks.org/store/

Gorgeous cover design by Alban Fischer featuring dramatic, green sky, Barbwire and lake or culvert reflecting a sky

Stunning cover design by Alban Fischer featuring Bear skull with flowers coming out of it

1209

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Chen Chen @chenchenwrites.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

literature in translation should be the biggest section of any bookstore tbh

922716

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Humanitycritic @humanitycritic.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

A shitty narrator can quickly take you out of the audiobook experience. But Percival Everett's "James" is narrated by Dominic Hoffman, and he does a masterful job. So masterful, that I'm tempted to purchase books on audible just off the strength of his involvement.

3122

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Erin "Skeleton Factory" Ryan @eringloriaryan.bsky.social · 22/12/2024

If the Depp-Heard fiasco didn't, the Blake Lively smear campaign should drive home an important media literacy lesson that I'm afraid many are missing: when it seems like everybody is suddenly talking about something, consider the possibility that the viral moment was engineered.

8572801810

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Chanea Bond @heymrsbond.com · 22/12/2024

Okay #poetrypeople Sharing my favorite poems to teach and what I focus on. Please do the same! First, is “Fuck your Lecture on Craft, My People are Dying” by Noor Hindi. #EduSky docs.google.com/presentation...

Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dying
BY NOOR HINDI
Colonizers write about flowers.
I tell you about children throwing rocks at Israeli tanks seconds before becoming daisies.
I want to be like those poets who care about the moon.
Palestinians don't see the moon from jail cells and
prisons.
It's so beautiful, the moon.
They're so beautiful, the flowers.
I pick flowers for my dead father when I'm sad.
He watches Al Jazeera all day.
I wish Jessica would stop texting me Happy Ramadan.
I know I'm American because when I walk into a room
something dies.
Metaphors about death are for poets who think ghosts
care about sound.
When I die, I promise to haunt you forever.
One day, I'll write about the flowers like we own them.

1125164

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

Teachers at work today

26214

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

How do you make feedback human? Best decision I’ve made in years: speaking, rather than writing, feedback as often as possible Let Ss hear your encouragement, let Ss hear you say their name, let Ss hear how proud you are I use Mote, but it could be any number of things 🎤📝 www.mote.com/record

mote.com

Mote | Make Learning Accessible with Voice & Audio Tools

Mote's web audio recorder is the fast and easy way to record, save and share voice messages on the web with speech to text.

3152

Reposted by JoelRGarza

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 19/12/2024

i recall a time when using a private email server was the single greatest scandal in american history. i guess today’s it’s just tuesday www.politico.com/news/2024/12...

politico.com

Trump's transition is happening over private emails. Federal officials are nervous.

Agencies are weighing in-person requirement for sensitive data.

607194635754

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

English teachers, where you at? 🤔🫶🏽

13142

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

Okay found one more reading goal for 2025: chapbooks 🤠🫶🏽 Subscribing now, Rob, be ready!

292

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

There have been more school shootings in the past four years than in the previous nine. There have been 709 school shootings since 2008. That's 709 times a school community was shattered, and children's lives were changed in irrevocable ways. Shame on this country and every adult in it.

A bar graph displaying the number of school shootings from 2008, in which there were 18, to 2024, in which there were 83.

24420

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Jes The Activist Teach @jessycamathews.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. #BookSky #BookChallenge #Books Day 16/20

291

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Maud Newton @maudnewton.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

For my fellow ancestors-facing memoirists, I'm going to recommend some books I admire and often suggest to writers. First up: Leah Myers's (@n8vwordsmith.bsky.social) slender, poetic, wide-ranging THINNING BLOOD, which I reviewed for NYT last year.

nytimes.com

Blending Native History and Myth Into Heartfelt Memoir (Gift Article)

In “Thinning Blood,” Leah Myers mixes genres to explore her tribal heritage.

2201

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Deep Vellum @deepvellum.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

We could not be more thrilled to see that LITTLE SEED, the tender and wonderous memoir by Wei Tchou, is one of The New Yorker's Best Books of 2024!

2224

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Jes The Activist Teach @jessycamathews.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

I had to take some time to process losing Nikki Giovanni. I adored her humor, wit, brilliant mind, and immeasurable talent with words. If you need a lesson for her, please take this. I give a gift because she was a gift to me. docs.google.com/document/u/0...?

docs.google.com

Nikki Giovanni Playlist

The Nikki Giovanni Playlist Poet Nikki Giovanni was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on June 7, 1943. Although she grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, she and her sister returned t...

44618

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

It's ironic because I constantly tell my students I care about what they think and they feel and that I want them to use writing as a tool to express both of those things.

2133

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 07/12/2024

“Living in a culture where 30% of the contents of a bookstore are translations is very different from living in a culture where only 3% of the books are.” translationpatterns.substack.com/p/3-percent-...

translationpatterns.substack.com

3 percent, 60 percent: the singularity of English in the world of translations

making sense of some crude numbers

010621

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Victor Ray @victorerikray.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

Dr. King’s observation that we can achieve diversity that futhers state violence but not basic justice still stands. From his classic speech “Beyond Vietnam”

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem. And so we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. And so we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would hardly live on the same block in Chicago. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor.

4281114

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

I love a book in my hands. I love dogearing pages. I love annotating bits that excite & amuse & gutpunch me. AND sometimes (more & more often lately) I consider myself blessed to have a gifted reader bringing a story to life in my ears James is such a story ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ www.audible.com/pd/B0CBCY41W...

audible.com

James

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reim...

4290

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Alex Shevrin Venet @asv.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

This workshop is next week! Join us to get a refresher on creating safety in the classroom via the four priorities of trauma-informed ed. Pay-what-you-can (including $0) www.tickettailor.com/events/uncon... #EduSky

tickettailor.com

Looking for a trauma-informed reset in the final weeks of the year? Let's talk about how to build safety and care in the classr...

01211

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Just narcissistic enough to get off on this Content Analysis: A delightful mix of conversational warmth and academic sharpness, Joel writes like a friendly professor who just threw a few puns into the syllabus :) blueskyroast.com

3150

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

This list of books is 🔥🥹🤔

140

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 01/12/2024

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. My explanation / gratitude for each & url to purchase is in the alt text 🤠🫶🏽 #Books #BookSky 💙📚 #BookChallenge #20BookChallenge Day 1/20

Front cover of Yasunari Kawabata palm of the hand stories, which I discovered through an epigram in a William T. Vollmann novel. Kabata focuses on three kinds of characters that he says see the world more clearly than anyone else: children, young women, and dying men. Each story is about two pages long, and will have you meditating on its meaning for days (or in my case, decades) later.

Start with Thank You or Umbrella.

https://www.hpb.com/palm-of-the-hand-stories/M-3669506-T.html?srsltid=AfmBOopWw2EEU1IZP4MaC9iGBkTB5_swsNc5ke1VE6hfGRmL-WHrqGeK

2222

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

It's the day after Thanksgiving and Mary Ruefle is all out of gratitude

Mary Ruefle

Red

I fucking depended on you and
you left the fucking wheelbarrow
out and it's fucking raining
and now the white chickens
are fucking filthy

2224

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

My Ss *love* the humanizing, inspiring, complex stories that Players Tribune publishes Cannot wait for them to see “The Hard Part Out Loud”, a video by the strong, brave survivor & gold medalist multi-sport Paralympic athlete Oksana Masters 👊🏽 youtube.com/watch?v=TRmD...

youtube.com

060

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Scott Bayer @lyricalswordz.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

I don't know what my affiliation with #NCTE will be going forward. If the organization does not prioritize people, specifically the safety and well-being of its most marginalized members, how can I continue to support it? How can I fund it with annual dues and conference fees?

1443

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Erin Palazzo @erinpalazzo.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

Good morning on the final day of #NCTE! As @joelrgarza.bsky.social would say, “clouds, man”

1111

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

@pronounced-ing.bsky.social, thank you for your art, your inspiration, & your kindness to me & loads of HS teachers this afternoon at #NCTE24! 🤠🫶🏽

0121

Reposted by JoelRGarza

rbkohn.bsky.social @rbkohn.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

Day two of #NCTE @joelrgarza.bsky.social I was inspired by many today, but this reminded me of the joy of being a student and the power of a teacher when a teacher shares what they are passionate about. m.youtube.com/watch?v=CZxs...

m.youtube.com

Hanif Abdurraqib - And What Good Will Your Vanity Be When The Rapture Comes

YouTube video by Button Poetry

182

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Tricia Ebarvia @triciaebarvia.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

Checked into my #NCTE24 hotel, turned around, and first folx I see are @jessycamathews.bsky.social and @joelrgarza.bsky.social This is a good sign 💛

7712

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

School supply flex: Check out ya boy’s laptop cover on the right 📓💻🤠🫶🏽

Photo of one sweet-ass laptop cover that looks exactly like one of them dang black & white composition books, which I use & love

2120

JoelRGarza @joelrgarza.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Excited to lean on NYT Learning Network coming out of Thanksgiving Their review unit always *kills*—and I’m excited to see how students take on the new parameters for “My List” Love how this list format allows Ss to center their own unique lens & likes 📝🤔🫶🏽 www.nytimes.com/2024/07/25/l...

From NYT LEARNING NETWORK Student Contest Calendar
JAN. 15-FEB. 12, 2025
New! My List: A Different Kind of Review Contest
Cindy Lozito
Three Novels That Have Great Teenage Characters
Four Sci-Fi Movies That Even People Who Hate Sci-Fi Will Love The Five Worst Fast Food Sandwiches
Choose any collection of three to five works of art or culture to group in some way, and then tell us, in 600 words or fewer, why we should - or shouldn't - check them out.
You can work alone or with others and can make lists about any category of creative expression The Times covers, whether books, movies, restaurants, albums, theatrical productions, video games, dances, TV shows, architecture or art exhibitions. More details to come, but for now check out Times collections like this one (about Star Wars) or this one (about new songs) to get the idea.

0121

Reposted by JoelRGarza

Dave Itzkoff @ditzkoff.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

this is like something a character in Animal Farm would say, and every 6th grader in the classroom would understand why it's wrong www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/o...

489160883280