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It’s Time to Admire: Sharing in the Beauty of Students’ Writing
Heather Fisher shares a process to help teachers learn to admire student writers and find the beauty in their work.
QuickTake: Choice in Making Plans for Writing
Ruth Ayres shares the importance of giving students choice when planning their writing projects.
Writing from the Heart
Kate Mills and Tara Barnett pour their hearts into teaching writers, but when Tara loses her family dog, she is reminded that writing is the thing that helps us understand what’s most important.
Centering Students’ Brilliance (Booklist)
Stella Villalba is passionate about centering the beauty, brilliance, and genius of all students in our classrooms. She shares an inclusive booklist to inspire and support other educators in doing the same.
Three Ways to Engage Your Students in Reading and Writing Poetry This Spring
Gretchen Schroeder offers three poetry writing activities to take the pressure off of the writing process by using another poet’s structure and/or words as a starting point. You’ll be amazed by how deep and personal the resulting poems can become. Download a PDF for students to collect lines for a cento poem.
Student-Generated Questions to Promote Problem Solving and Modeling with Mathematics
Mallory Messenger shares a process for students to engage and solve a type of intriguing question called Fermi Questions.
Teaching Students to Be Teachers
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share a process for empowering students to be teachers in partnerships and small-group instruction.
It’s the Final Countdown: Using Chunking and Timers to Scaffold Reluctant Writers
What do you do when students won’t write during class? Gretchen Schroeder offers a creative, practical, and effective solution.
Building Independence in Problem Solving
Mallory Messenger shares the intentional moves needed to help students build independence in problem solving.
Exploring Rural Literature—A Middle-Grade Booklist
Leigh Anne Eck was named the Indiana Rural Teacher of the Year and shares the way she rethought her library through the lens of reflecting her students’ rural identity or revealing rural stereotypes. This middle-grade booklist is an excellent place for us all to begin expanding our classroom libraries.
Rural Matters: Revealing Perceptions and Celebrating Roots
Gretchen Schroeder addresses the negative and positive perceptions of rural people with her high school students through readings, discussions, and analytical writing. Download a guide for Critical Rural Perspective Analysis to use with your students.
Assessing High School Readers
Secondary instructional coach Holly Wenning shares ways to assess high school readers.
Assessment in Classroom Book Clubs
In this third installment about classroom book clubs, Leigh Anne Eck shares options for robust assessment as well as answers to some frequently asked questions.
Letting Informational Mentors Lead the Way
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share a practical process for using an informational mentor text to support students as readers and writers. Download a note sheet to support students in noticing text structure.
One-Page Reading Response: A Simple Approach to Complex Assessment
Christy Rush-Levine uses one-page reading responses as a simple culminating activity to provide closure for book clubs. However, the data they offer about readers is far from simple.
Implementing Classroom Book Clubs (Part Two)
In this second installment about book clubs, Leigh Anne Eck shares procedures for book club meetings, as well as discusses the importance of standards and instruction. Download a discussion guide.
Teaching Readers Rather Than Teaching Books
Secondary instructional coach Holly Wenning shares her own paradigm shift of teaching readers rather than teaching books, and encourages all teachers to consider the importance of putting students before books when planning literacy instruction.
Getting Started with Classroom Book Clubs (Part 1)
In the first installment of a three-part series, Leigh Anne Eck clearly lays out how to get started with book clubs. Included is an editable planning bookmark to give students more ownership of their reading schedules.
Anthologies to Diversify Middle School Reading Instruction
Christy Rush-Levine offers a booklist of anthologies to diversify middle school reading instruction. In this robust list, everyone will find a new addition to use as a whole-class text.
The Importance of the Workshop Model in High School
Instructional coach Holly Wenning shares the importance of the workshop model, and especially work time, for high school students. See the transition from minilesson to work time in a 10th-grade English class.
Still Thinking: An Opportunity to Pause and Think Deeply
Jodie Bailey provides a structure to give students more time to think through ideas and problems. By using this practice, students gain ownership for their learning.
The Power of an Anchor Chart in a Digital World
Dana Murphy reminds us of the power of an anchor chart in a digital world.
Renewing Energy in the Classroom
Gretchen Schroeder finds ways to increase the energy students have for doing work in her classroom. Her practical tips are useful for all students.
Math Debates: A Powerful Sense-Making Routine
Jodie Bailey shares a powerful practice of math debates for students to explore a problem with discussion and evidence to discover the correct solution.
Nourish a Sense of Belonging
Dana Murphy shares ways to nourish a sense of belonging in all students.
Reading Threads
Christy Rush-Levine guides us to make reading recommendations based on what students enjoy most about a book they recently read. Christy used to make recommendations based on the genre or topic, but she has learned to listen to students to discover the reason they loved a recent read and use this information for recommendations.
What Matters More
Dana Murphy shares that by asking “What matters most?” she can make decisions that allow her literacy instruction to be student-centered and authentic.
Using Daily Attendance Questions to Build Community and Communication Skills
Gretchen Schroeder is surprised to find benefits of a stronger community and communication skills through a practical attendance practice in her high school classroom.
Poems to Start the Year
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share poems to start the year that touch a variety of needs, from building community to connecting with colleagues to hosting parents for back-to-school night.
Honoring Student Identity (Download a Survey)
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills share their authentic process for expanding their beginning-of-the-year student survey to make it more open for all students.
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