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Remember going to the bookstore as a kid and picking up a brand new novel off the rack?

Did you bend the book and thumb every page rapidly like a deck of cards, sniffing the fresh right-off-the-press newspaper smell?

Nothing like a brand new book!

This year I am teaching from a new textbook, so new that all I have to preview is the publisher's sample student copy with the corner cut off.

I am both eager and anxious: eager to share fresh material with the students and anxious about how I will engage them more effectively than last year (I get the uncommon opportunity to follow my freshman into their sophomore year).

Trying to plan the entire year in a couple days before school starts is a key to good year-long organization. It allows me to cover not only the essential objectives of the standards for the grade but also more of the extended objectives that really enrich student learning. The flexibility of a year-long plan is unparalleled by even the most ingenious single lessons that haphazardly spring up at just the right moments during the year.

Extended periods or days of extra state-mandated standardized testing devour precious teaching time, and there's no pre-planning that will adapt and adjust as easily as a well-sketched year-long plan does when it's in place.

So, here I sit, two weeks before the commencement of classes, staring at the mid-point of the book and wondering how I am going to engage the students in meaningful learning of the text so they are both enriched by knowledge and ready for any state test.

For decades, it's been a story-by-story struggle to get students to read accurately, answer honestly, and participate fully. Sometimes, I get thoroughly involved in creating single, effective explanations that motivate most of the students to seek their own understanding

At this juncture, a teacher can make or break his effectiveness for the year. It's at this point that a teacher can get bogged down by over crafting rigidly ideal lessons, lessons that have failed often enough in previous years to make a teacher question his ability to effectively deliver any of the lessons.

Lesson-by-lesson anxiety is the culprit that blocks the big picture from a teacher's mind, thereby spinning him dizzily into a spiral of self-doubt, resignation, and plain old fear of failure. One thing I do to keep from spiraling out of control is to consider the parts of the state testing that the majority of my students failed last year.

Data analysis is not only the latest buzz word

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