Self Care
When Choice Literacy was launched in 2006, we never imagined that wellness and balance would be a part of the conversation here. Yet how can anyone take care of students if they don't learn how to take care of themselves? These features are all about being kind to yourself so that you can show grace and compassion to others.
Latest Content
On Perfection and Goals
Ruth Ayres explains how she sets realistic goals for her own learning during the year.
Notes from the Mad Teachers Liberation Front: Create Your Manifesto
Start your school year off right (or get it back on track) with a manifesto about who you are and what you value. Ruth Shagoury provides a mentor poem, guidelines and samples.
Volunteered: What I Learned from Cleaning Out the Barn
Andie Cunningham is "ticked and disgusted" when her boss volunteers her for yet another committee. Cleaning out the barn clears her head, reminding Andie of all the tools and strategies literacy leaders have for dealing with whatever is flung their way.
Lines Written at Lunchtime Above Tintern Abbey
Shirl McPhillips celebrates high summer, friendship, and handwritten notes in this poem and reflection.
The ABCs of Literacy Coaching (Part 1)
Heather Rader shares the essential elements of successful literacy coaching in this first installment of a month-long series.
Write Today
Ruth Ayres describes her own experiences as an author, blogger, and teacher. She shows how possible and essential writing is for even the busiest educators.
Telling Our Stories
Ruth Shagoury and Andie Cunningham beautifully weave together poetry and storytelling in a potent professional development activity for teachers.
Trying to Coach Without the Budget in Mind
Melanie Quinn makes a somewhat surprising discovery in the midst of the budget cutting season. The best way to justify her literacy coaching position is to do less – but do everything extraordinarily well.
When You Hate the Book
Abandoning a text isn't always an option (in school or life). Clare Landrigan considers her own experience as a reader and applies those lessons to the classroom.
Letting Go After Holding on Tight: Reflecting on the Last Days of School
Andrea Smith writes about how our instincts as parents and teachers merge to make it so hard to say goodbye at the end of the school year.
Best Practices All Day Long: Balancing Personal and Professional Success
If you’ve ever experienced that disequilibrium of feeling completely organized in your professional life, and hopelessly scattered during your personal time, you’ll enjoy Melanie Quinn’s reflective essay.
Lady With the Yellow Umbrella
In this poem, Shirl McPhillips writes about "learning better how to live" while finding peace and purpose in the midst of adversity.
Motive, Means, and Opportunity
When educators have literacy-rich environments at home, it is important to consider students' daily access to reading materials. Ellie Gilbert uses motive, means and opportunity to think about our literacy landscapes.
On Compassion
You’re a sucky teacher!” How would you respond if a student hurled those words at you? Katie Baydo-Reed shares a deeply honest and personal account of the year early in her career when she developed a corrosive relationship with her students, and what she learned from the experience about compassion.
A Bad Case of the Never-Ending Januaries
With a tough winter and tougher budget prospects, many schools will be dealing with the Januaries straight through March. Our contributors have suggestions for dealing with stress, fatigue, and depression to help renew and re-energize your work.
Harbinger
Shirley McPhillips draws parallels between a tentative, battered robin in the snow and the fragility of teachers in the spring.
Along Saplines
A poem and reflection to lift your spirits if you have the late-winter blues.
An Uncommon Place
A mulberry tree crashes during a blizzard, creating a surprisingly lovely mental space for Shirl McPhillips to craft her poem.
Make it Personal
The connections we make with students and families are what we remember most when all is said and done. Trish Prentice has thoughts on what changes a respected teacher into a beloved teacher.
Now is Our Season
Shirl McPhillips so eloquently captures the spirit of the light and dark, hopeful and ambivalent, quiet and purposeful time after the holidays in this poem.
Learning from Coaching Mistakes
Inventors understand that early prototypes inform them best about what doesn't work rather than what does. But what about when prototypes are people? Heather Rader reflects on risk-taking, failure, and learning as a literacy coach.
If We Could Meet Again
Shirl McPhillips captures perfectly the "shaking off the old classroom skin" feel of the start of the summer. Shirley's commentary encourages teachers to use time away from students "to break out, free up, go someplace, and cast off the trappings."
Restless Wanderer: Lessons for Teachers from Summer Vacations
Are teachers ever really on vacation? In “Restless Wanderer” Shelly Archer ponders moments on a holiday that aren’t much fun, and can’t help but connect them to teaching struggles.
Days Ease
"Some people suggest that in summer's ease, we have the time to rethink our curriculum, to read and select books we want to use next year, to consider how we will begin again in the fall, to get better organized. Yes, we do. And, yes, we could. But somehow just thinking about all that makes me tired." If you couldn't agree more with these words from poet Shirl McPhillips, you are sure to enjoy this poem.
Cap’n George: Mentors Who Matter
Shirley McPhillips finds the mentoring that helps her most as a poet includes principles that are useful in any teaching situation.
A Three-legged Dog and a Show About Nothing
If you've resolved this year to keep up with your own writing journal so that you can share the good, bad, and ugly of your process with students, you'll enjoy Jennifer Jones' inspirational and practical new piece.
Models, Coaches, Shepherds, or Rock Stars? Our Reading Roles in the First Few Weeks of School
Cheerleader? Shepherd? Rock Star? Coach? Andrea Smith considers her changing reading “roles” early in the school year as she tries to build a classroom community that shares her passion for literacy.
On Not Fretting
Kelly Petrin’s meditation phrase for the day—Do not fret; it only leads to evil—guides her through a home visit with a parent who worries about her daughter’s literacy skills. This is a terrific short read for thinking through how to make encounters with parents less stressful.
The Porch in August: Letting It Be
Shirl McPhillips reminds us "in the face of all that tugs at us from the past and from what's to come, we can step into the moments of the day with our students and take pleasure in what we find there." Such wise words for any time we need to hit the pause button in our lives.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Recommending Yourself
Suzy Kaback asks her students to write letters of recommendations for themselves, and finds that the activity ripples across the school mentoring community. This exercise is a terrific catalyst for creating personal improvement plans.
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