During a reading workshop I gave several summers ago, a high school principal raised his hand and asked, "Why, after eight years of literacy interventions, are some 9th graders still entering my building as struggling readers?" Every day as I work to "catch up" those strugglers, I wonder the same thing. One experience last fall forced me to consider how educators' beliefs about these learners might be one of the problems.

It all started last June. Thanks to cell phones and satellite technology, I watched with the rest of the world as chaos erupted in the streets of Tehran as the Iranian people protested the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A week later, when news surfaced about the death of Michael Jackson, I learned that people on Twitter were "tweeting" about it several hours before the major news networks got wind of it. At that moment, I realized that if I didn't start becoming more proficient with technology, I was going to be an ignorant, lonely person.

Branded!