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Teaching Revision in Middle School
Christy Rush-Levine finds her middle school students are adept at planning for writing with notes and visuals, but rarely revise their drafts. She develops a minilesson sequence to help them hone their revision skills.
Tips for Student Podcasting
Mark Levine details a podcast assignment he used with his middle school students to explore civil rights topics, including software options, a template to help students get organized, and a realistic timeframe.
Making Co-Teaching Work
Kate Mills and Tara Barnett often write together about their experiences as co-teachers. They share their best advice for teachers and school administrators on how to make co-teaching partnerships between classroom teachers and special educators work.
Writing Empathy
Dana Murphy explains why teachers can have true empathy with student writers only if they write themselves, and chronicles the difference between a typical and an empathetic response in a writing conference.
What Writers Need
Mandy Robek commits to two weeks of focused daily writing, and then translates what she learns about what writers need to classroom practice.
Writing Effective Conclusions
Anadiplosis, tricolon, syntax and such — when Gretchen Schroeder's high school students are stuck in rhetorical ruts, she teaches them some new rhetorical tricks for crafting conclusions.
The Quote Collector
Are you a quote collector? Stephanie Affinito shares her love of quotes with students and also enlists them as quote collectors.
Teaching Summary with Book Blurbs
Katherine Sokolowski finds her fifth graders can give detailed retellings during conferences, but struggle to come up with succinct summaries. Writing book blurbs is her creative solution for building summarizing skills.
Using Mentor Texts Across the Writing Process
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills describe how they use one mentor text, Owl Moon, to teach multiple lessons on craft during a writing unit.
Mentor Texts for Letter Writing
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan share some of their favorite mentor texts for a unit on letter writing.
Children’s Books: Mirrors and Windows
Is your mentor text a mirror for students? Shari Frost explains the term and provides criteria for selecting mirror books.
Assessment Refresh
Christy Rush-Levine considers how her rubrics do not acknowledge different levels of support some students need to accomplish tasks. She rethinks her rubric design to include support, and in the process fosters more independence and reflection in students. Download the assessment rubric.
Resisting Rubrics
Matt Renwick explains why sometimes the best way to grow reading abilities in students is to resist rubrics.
Moves for Struggling Writers
Here are Matt Renwick's three favorite moves for helping struggling writers.
They Don’t Read at Home
Cathy Mere suggests strategies for working with struggling students who read very little at home.
Tools for Striving Writers
Sometimes a student just. won’t. write. Melanie Meehan shares her favorite tools in her bag of tricks to get the pencil or pen moving across the page.
Color-Symbol-Image: A Thinking Routine for Read Alouds
Andrea Smith uses the Color-Symbol-Image thinking routine during read alouds to promote deeper reflection among students.
Using Read Alouds to Build Fluency
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find an ingenious way in the upper elementary grades to help their struggling readers develop fluency through read alouds.
More Nonfiction Read Alouds
Franki Sibberson shares strategies for incorporating more nonfiction into read-aloud times throughout the day.
Daily Reflection Rubric
Mark Levine always has a few students each year in his middle school classroom who are stunned by their poor grades, even when they clearly aren't meeting expectations. He develops a rubric to enable students to monitor and reflect on their learning behaviors daily.
Assessment During On-Demand Writing
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills combine an engagement inventory and an on-demand writing assessment to get a full picture of skills and habits in their classroom community.
Using Student Checklists in Literacy Intervention
Stephanie Affinito explains how to use student checklists in literacy intervention.
Great Books for African American Boys
Shari Frost deals with the failure of a classic read-aloud text to reach young African American boys by finding more engaging books for them.
Reflecting on the L
Mark Levine wonders if his middle school students are spending enough time reflecting on the L in K-W-L, so he creates a form to help.
Sketching Your Way to a Big Idea
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills work with eighth graders who struggle to articulate big themes in literature. A breakthrough comes when they have the option of sketching their thoughts.
Visual Expectations in the Classroom
Heather Fisher finds the key to independence for many first graders is lots of visual reminders in classrooms.
Giving Graphic Organizers a Go
Mary Lee Hahn is skeptical about how her fifth-grade students might use graphic organizers. But once she tries them alongside students, she begins to see their utility.
Gradual Release of Responsibility in Small Groups
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills develop a process of pre-assessment, careful planning, and systematic recordkeeping to up the value of their small groups.
Better Student-Led Literature Discussions
Gigi McAllister tries student-led discussion groups in her fourth-grade classroom, with disastrous results. She regroups the following year with multiple lessons, anchor charts, and preparation to ensure success.
Quick Vocabulary Practice and Assessment
Gretchen Schroeder finds that any vocabulary routine eventually gets stale in her high school classroom. She shares a couple of favorite options for reinvigorating word learning.
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