Stephanie Affinito

If you know me, you know I’ve been on my own healing journey to find freedom from chronic pain. I’ve tried everything: doctors, specialists, acupuncture, nutrition therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, lifestyle changes and more. Some helped, some didn’t. But I’ve finally found something that has given me more hope than I’ve had in a while and IT’S WORKING: expressive writing therapy.

Happy Friday! As always, I’m here in your Inbox with a weekly dose of literate love where I share snippets of what I’m reading, writing, learning and loving in hopes that it inspires your own literate life, too. This week, I’ve got four books to share, a hack to change the way you talk to yourself, a fun foible writing prompt and a list of things I love, too.

If I were to ask any educator which instructional practices create joyful readers, you might expect to hear any of the following: a rich classroom library, access to just-right books, teachers who model a love of reading, supportive parents, and more. You probably would not expect any educator to say a high-stakes assessment could create readers. But according to my son, it does. You might not expect a child to come home from multiple days of high-stakes assessments as a joyful reader. But he did.