Last week was supposed to be students’ first week with the novel The Pearl, finishing the novella this week. But last week was the first week with distance learning, and there was no way I was going to be able to teach the class novel remotely, even if I did get access to the book. So my teaching partner and I planned to have students create a video of their favorite independent reading book they read this year and upload it to Flipgrid. (You can find the assignment here if you’d like to try it.) Since last week and this week assignments are optional, I had about half of my students make videos and submit. It was so good to see their faces and talk about their favorite books. My teacher heart was happy. (You can see my original plan in pencil and my new plan in pen.) There were a lot of ups and downs last week, and next week we go to “distance learning for all,” which means assignments count, it’s not optional. …