Articles
Here is where you’ll find all the latest print features from our contributors. If you’d like to browse specifically by grade level, topic, or contributor, you can use the links in the right sidebar.
Latest Content
Journals or Writers’ Notebooks?
Journals? Writers’ Notebooks? Shari Frost shares tips and strategies for explaining the difference between the two for teachers, as well as professional development resources.
Remote Coaching Videos
We know our subscribers who are literacy coaches have a pressing need for resources to use in remote coaching contexts, as well as in college courses that are now being moved to online platforms. During the COVID-19 crisis, we are opening up more videos for our members to use in remote coaching.
Planting Rainbows
Bitsy Parks shares how she adapts her favorite first-grade spring literacy project for remote learning.
Letting Go in the Remote Learning World
Jen Schwanke, like many of us, is scrambling to deal with issues cropping up in the new world we all face of remote instruction. She shares some of the most common problems, and how teachers might deal with them.
Book Selection for Early and Emergent Readers
Some emergent readers happily browse for books and explore them independently. For others, it’s a struggle. Cathy Mere shares her favorite strategies for helping all readers get comfortable with selecting books on their own.
The Good Part of Tech
Bitsy Parks shares how she integrates technology into her workshops with first graders in a way that is simple, effective, and natural.
Interpretation and Comprehension
Teaching comprehension skills can be a complex and overwhelming task. Tammy Mulligan shares a process for expanding and deepening student interpretations of text.
Building Primary Writing Skills Through Character Study
Jennifer Allen upends the normal routines in a primary writing workshop to introduce students to a compelling character.
Remembering the Big Picture in Reading Assessments
Kate Mills notes her own miscues in reading a bedtime story to her young children, and thinks about what that means for analyzing the running records of readers in primary classrooms.
Making Learning Stick: Learning Progressions and Student-Created Exemplars
Tammy Mulligan explains the process of having students analyze and create models of good writing and analysis for assessing themselves and peers.
Can a High-Stakes Assessment Create Readers?
Stephanie Affinito encounters an unexpected by-product of testing for her son—the uninterrupted reading time waiting for others to finish builds a good habit. She shares how teachers might reclaim 10 minutes a day for independent reading.
Teaching Constructed Response Before Exams
Teaching the genre of tests can seem far removed from writing workshop. Matt Renwick explores how to teach constructed response in a way that is integrated with the tenets of good workshop instruction.
Don’t Force Vulnerability
Ruth Ayres eavesdrops on some moms complaining about homework assignments, and finds the experience leads to reflection on the dangers of forcing students to make themselves vulnerable in classrooms.
Creating a Safe Space in Middle School
Christy Rush-Levine ponders what it means to create a safe space for all of her middle school students, and then makes some changes.
Poetry and Pastiche
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills introduce their middle school students to pastiche, a technique of mimicking the craft of favorite poems and poets.
Kindergarten and Middle School Poetry Partnership
Middle schoolers and kindergartners forge friendships at Katherine Sokolowski’s school through a sweet poetry writing and sharing project.
Quick and Easy Word Study Groups in First Grade
Bitsy Parks shares some of her favorite strategies for quick and meaningful word work groups in her first-grade classroom.
Teaching Transition Words
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills work with a second-grade team to think through how best to teach transition words during a fairy tale unit, especially to students who are English learners.
Writing Partners
Partner work is an essential component of many literacy workshops. Dana Murphy explains how she is intentional in building thoughtful routines and expectations for partner work in her fifth-grade classroom.
Exploring Author’s Craft in Graphic Novels
Christy Rush-Levine finds her middle school students need more support and scaffolds to understand authors’ craft in graphic novels.
Trauma and Literacy
Jen Schwanke remembers her own experiences with trauma as a scared young girl, and how one kind teacher made all the difference in putting her on the path to healing. This makes her ponder the power of literacy in reaching wounded students in our midst.
Kids Teaching Kids: Student-Led Lessons
Nawal Qarooni Casiano outlines the process for empowering students to lead lessons for classmates.
Pairing Video Clips with Text: The Great Depression
Mark Levine has his middle school students “closely read” paired videos as well as texts to ponder the value and accuracy of different historical sources.
Self-Esteem and Literacy: Understanding Jeff
Jeff is apathetic and unengaged. To help this middle school learner, Mark Levine needs to understand his history. Mark shows the power of interviews for connecting with struggling teen learners.
Collaborating for Understanding in Writing
Mark Levine realizes explaining expectations for an essay assignment over and over again isn’t working. But when he has students write in pairs for a portion of his workshop, magic happens.
Reading Mats Build Confidence
Tammy Mulligan explains how the use of the popular “reading mats” can help build reader confidence.
Appointment Clocks
Gretchen Schroeder uses “appointment clocks” to ensure her students meet with a variety of peers for partner work.
It’s All in the Details
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find their middle school students need some scaffolding to tease out essential details in literature.
Writers Make Plans
Tammy Mulligan considers the rituals she has for preparing to write, and then uses what she learns in classroom writing workshops.
Community Timeline Project
Katherine Sokolowski uses the Community Timeline Project to bring together students and older community members around history and writing. Includes a downloadable interview guide to help students record the interviewee’s life story.
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