Choice Literacy Articles & Videos
The Choice Literacy library contains over 3,000 articles and 900 videos from 150+ contributors. Classic Classroom and Literacy Leadership subscribers have access to the entire library. Content is updated continuously, with five to six new features published each week.
In this two-minute video, Andie Cunningham reinforces the concept of spacing words with her kindergartners using her own writing and a brainstorming web.
Jennifer Allen reflects on essential layers that provide a safety net for the challenges facing beginning teachers.
Max Brand considers how rereading helps students understand and enjoy texts.
Shirl McPhillips recalls a junior high experience that promoted serious "attitude" and an uproar among her peers.
Aimee Buckner shares three essential "power tools" for writers.
Gayle Gentry reflects on how a colleague’s simple request to reorganize a classroom library turned into coaching opportunities that had a direct impact on student learning.
Moving a child from simple to complex sentences is the goal in this second-grade writing conference.
In this video from Linda Karamatic’s second-grade classroom, boys discuss the book Fudge using the protocol provided by Linda.
Andie Cunningham and Ruth Shagoury share the assessment tools they use to track Andie’s kindergarten writers.
In this video from her fourth-grade classroom, Aimee Buckner teaches the “listing” strategy, using the book This Is the Tree: A Story of the Baobab as a mentor text. Aimee talks about mentor texts, using her own writing as a model, and the needs of intermediate readers and writers during the lesson and interview.
Teachers continue to puzzle over and sort through the terminology in the Common Core related to opinion and persuasive writing. Amanda Adrian and Heather Rader consider terms and teaching strategies.
Debbie Miller goes against the grain, advocating for “the luscious feeling of endless time” as we slow down to confer with children.
Jesabel Centeno helps her emergent bilingual learners respond orally to texts and share favorite books with classmates.
Interviews early in the year are a potent tool for building a class community.
Franki Sibberson works to expand her views of spelling and word work, redefining routines in her grades 3 and 4 classroom.
Suzy Kaback catches a young learner near and dear to her in the process of plagiarizing. She uses the experience to develop a template to help students and colleagues with notetaking.
Who is a “drive-thru” reader? One who zips through the start of a book and discards it before finishing, moving ever more quickly through random books. Aimee Buckner has some minilesson suggestions for dealing with those students who can’t or won’t finish any books they start.
Franki Sibberson wants her students to be more than just good spellers — she wants them to understand words in sophisticated ways, from many different angles. Children's books are a tool for reaching that goal.
Mary Lee Hahn prepares for classroom visitors, and the process of viewing her room with fresh eyes makes her question routines and wall displays.
Tara Smith finds her sixth graders have years of experience with writer's notebooks by the time they reach her classroom. How to inspire enthusiasm for a familiar tool? Mix old favorite tasks and lessons with fresh texts and tech-savvy options.
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills offer tips and a booklist to position students to read novels in verse.
Gretchen Schroeder bolsters her students’ reading lives and deepens discussion about theme by using the rich graphic novel They Called Us Enemy as a whole-class read with her high school students. Gretchen shows how teachers can support students in deep literary analysis.
Hayley Whitaker confers with a kindergartner and helps him make meaning through drawings.
Gigi McAllister shares the tradition of Gratitude Week. It gives students an authentic writing experience that has a ripple effect of spreading joy and gratitude throughout the school. It also shows them the significant impact that their words can have on others.
Gretchen Schroeder introduced the hermit crab essay as a creative nonfiction genre to her high school students. What began as an intriguing writing invitation led to realizing that students want to process these events through writing and that the hermit crab essay gives them a way to do so that is less daunting than just a blank page.
Linda Karamatic works with a student who is reading the Stink series as he tries out a new tool for documenting inferences as he reads.
Molly James is inspired by the book Friends Beyond Measure to use math practices to strengthen the bonds of friendship in her kindergarten classroom.
Becca Burk tackles the phrase many educators utter—fake it ’til you make it. Becca addresses the reasons why we feel this way, and gives an alternative mindset that is helpful in adopting anchor habits to thrive in today’s classroom.
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