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
5 Strategies for Engaging Boy Writers
Jennifer Allen has been fascinated with helping boys write for years, ever since her own son insisted on writing on the same topic over and over again. She shares her five favorite strategies for boosting interest in writing among boys.
Things That Can Fly Away—A Tribute to Mary Oliver
Shirl McPhillips honors the poet Mary Oliver upon her passing, reflecting on the power of favorite poems and poets to endure in the lives of writers.
Mindful Test-Taking
High-stakes tests weigh on teachers and students through the winter and spring. Mark Levine shares mindfulness strategies for test-taking, explaining how to help students recommit and refocus in the midst of an exam.
Grammar Games
Melanie Meehan shares two of her favorite games for teaching grammar, including templates and web resources.
Picture Books to Teach Digital Citizenship
Students aren’t just collaborative in our classrooms—they are connecting with others all over the world. Stephanie Affinito shares her favorite picture books to teach digital citizenship.
An All-School Writing Project: Six-Word Memoirs
If you want to bring everyone in your school together around writing, you can’t beat the simplicity and fun of six-word memoirs. Jennifer Schwanke describes how she sparked enthusiasm for the project in her school.
The Importance of Correct Examples
Melanie Meehan explains why it is important to mentor students who are struggling with correct examples, and why she cautions writing teachers to avoid “find the mistakes” exercises.
The Magic That Might Go Down
Christy Rush-Levine decides to slow down in her classroom and engage more fully with a student who is a wiseacre and resistant reader. What happens next can only be described as magic.
Building Habits with Short-Term Goals
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills explain why short-term writing goals can help students reset expectations for their writing on a daily basis, and how they make these goals an integral part of their writing workshops.
Beyond Plot: Conferring with Ian
Andrea Smith confers with fourth grader Ian, who is plowing through a book series. She helps him look at the bigger picture of characters, themes, and how the series might end.
Reset
Christy Rush-Levine finds her students sometimes need to stop and be challenged to think in more positive ways about their reading abilities. She describes how she designs minilessons for impromptu resets in her middle school classroom.
When Students Set Intentions
When students set intentions, reflection and celebration go hand in hand. Melanie Meehan explains how teachers can help students become more explicit about intentions with practical cues from bulletin boards and index cards.
Sharing Writing in a Class Celebration
Do celebrations matter? If you know Ruth Ayres, you know her answer is always a resounding YES. Here are her best tips for sharing writing in a class celebration.
The Power of Similes
If you want stronger poetry from students, a good starting point might be to explore how to write a powerful simile. Gretchen Schroeder explains how she helps her high school students play with and create better similes.
Past Midnight
Shirl McPhillips shares a poem she’s written about her grandmother Eva, and the fragments of memory that inspired it.
Poetry Connections
Poetry writing always has the potential to spark some magic in students. Christy Rush-Levine finds this magic requires a few conditions to be in place first in her middle school classroom.
Hidden Treasures
Matt Renwick describes the process of paying attention to telling details, and gives practical advice for teaching this skill to young writers.
The Third (or More) Time Is the Charm
Gretchen Schroeder finds helping her students see the value in rereading poems is all about helping them pay close attention to imagery.
Being a Teacher Writer Is More Than Being a Teacher Who Writes
Ruth Ayres explains how the distinction between writers and teachers who write is subtle but essential for understanding mentoring in workshops.
Pick a Poem
David Pittman delights in a student’s enthusiasm for poetry, leading him to reflect on how teachers often need to overcome their own negative history with poems to spark student love of the genre.
Readers’ Guides: Helping Students Think About Informational Text
Suzy Kaback finds the task of creating readers’ guides helps students in the intermediate grades think about evidence in texts in more sophisticated ways.
Hunting for Textual Evidence
Gretchen Schroeder finds just telling her high school class to include textual evidence when making points and arming them with sticky notes leaves many students bewildered. She regroups and comes up with activities to scaffold their understanding of what makes for valid evidence.
Shoulders-Down Spaces
Suzy Kaback feels rising unease as a tourist in unfamiliar neighborhoods. The experience provokes empathy for students who find classrooms strange or uncomfortable.
The Right to Be Seen
Stella Villalba is at a loss when a teacher is hostile to a new English language learner in her classroom. She considers the unspoken challenges of welcoming students who may never have been in school before.
Teaching Tone: Deal Me In
Gretchen Schroeder’s high school students are surprised to see a deck of cards on their supply list. The cards are a tool for teaching the vocabulary of tone in creative ways.
Retelling and English Language Learners
Retelling is an essential skill many English language learners struggle with. Stella Villalba finds tackling vocabulary in context is the key for many.
Word Walls in Preschool? Yes, You Can!
A word wall in preschool?! Shari Frost helps a teacher meet this impossible edict, and has a lot of fun in the process thinking about how our youngest learners acquire word knowledge.
Fear of Reading
Gretchen Schroeder reflects on why some of her students have developed a fear of reading by the time they reach high school.
High Standards and Struggling Learners
Mark Levine explains why high standards can be helpful even for students who are struggling in his middle school classroom.
Conferences Between Middle School Parents and Teachers
Parents of middle school students are often bewildered at how best to deal with their child’s unresponsiveness. Jennifer Schwanke explains how teachers can construct conferences with middle school parents that foster reflection, action, and shared goals.
Browse Content By
Type
Category
- Assessment Tools
- Big Fresh Archives
- Booklists
- Choice Numeracy
- Classroom Design
- Common Core
- Community Building
- Conferring
- Content Literacy
- Digital Literacy
- English Language Learners
- Equity
- Family Relations
- Free Samples
- Guiding Groups
- Leadership
- Literacy Coaches
- Mentor Texts
- Minilessons
- New Teacher Mentors
- Podcasts
- Poetry
- Quote Collections
- Reading Strategies
- Self Care
- Struggling and Striving Learners
- Talking and Listening
- Teacher Study Groups
- Teaching Reading
- Teaching Writing
- Word Study and Vocabulary
Author
- Melissa Quimby
- Nawal Qarooni
- Gwen Blumberg
- Julie Cox
- The Lead Learners
- Hannah Tills
- Josie Stewart
- Ruth Metcalfe
- Mallory Messenger
- Becca Burk
- Jodie Bailey
- Vivian Chen
- Mary Brower
- Tiffany Abbott Fuller
- Stephanie Affinito
- Ruth Ayres
- Leigh Anne Eck
- Heather Fisher
- Shari Frost
- Julie Johnson
- Suzy Kaback
- Gigi McAllister
- Shirl McPhillips
- Melanie Meehan
- Cathy Mere
- Debbie Miller
- Tara Barnett and Kate Mills
- Tammy Mulligan
- Dana Murphy
- Bitsy Parks
- David Pittman
- Brenda Power
- Heather Rader
- Matt Renwick
- Mandy Robek
- Christy Rush-Levine
- Gretchen Schroeder
- Jen Schwanke
- Brian Sepe
- Katherine Sokolowski
- Stella Villalba
- Jennifer Vincent
Grade Level
Choice Literacy Membership
Articles
Get full access to all Choice Literacy article content
Videos
Get full access to all Choice Literacy video content
Courses
Access Choice Literacy course curriculum and training
