Articles

Laying the Foundation for Genre Writing

Shari Frost helps a teacher dealing with dreadful how-to drafts from her students by sharing quality mentor texts.

Getting to Know Writers: The Inventory

A Joyful Mess

Ruth Ayres writes about the messiness of analyzing needs, celebrating achievements, and thinking about what’s next with writers in workshops.

Old-Fashioned Resources

Jennifer Schwanke cleans out a school storage area, and with advice from teachers discovers new purposes for old items she was about to discard.

Fostering Thinking Through Play

Katie DiCesare repurposes materials for her first graders to play with, and finds that encouraging play early in the year is a great tool for building reflection skills.

Getting to Know Writers: The Writing Process Survey

Dana Murphy continues her series on getting to know writers early in the year. In this installment, she explains how to use a simple six-question survey to help teachers and students explore differences in writing routines and habits.

Last Chance Workshop

Christy Rush-Levine breaks her routine of responding to student writing, and instead calls on students to guide and support peers. She shares some surprising results.

Getting to Know Writers: Introduction

Dana Murphy writes about the litmus tests we give writing teachers to analyze whether or not they are teaching the "right" way, when we might better serve students by focusing on the six truths of writing.

Digging into Research Questions

Melanie Meehan explains how helping students deepen their questioning strategies leads to more thoughtful research projects.

Making the Most of Small Groups with Jennifer Serravallo (PODCAST)

In this podcast, Jennifer Serravallo shares her “then” and “now” reflections about how guiding groups has evolved in her classroom.

Understanding Josh: The Audio Reader

Jennifer Schwanke tells the story of Josh, a special-needs student who is almost impossible to reach, until one committed teacher unlocks the key to what makes him tick as a learner.

Lester Laminack on Bullying (PODCAST)

In this podcast, Franki Sibberson chats with Lester Laminack about bullying. Lester is the author of beloved books for children and teachers including Saturdays and Teacakes and Unwrapping the Read Aloud.

“Reinventing Language Every Time You Write” with Ralph Fletcher (PODCAST)

Ralph Fletcher recognizes that many teachers love language and explains how to bring that love of words to young writers.

Writing Models with Kelly Gallagher (PODCAST)

In this podcast, Kelly Gallagher reminds us of the power of the person right next to writers when they are learning the craft.

Putting the “Gradual” Back into Gradual Release of Responsibility

If it’s not sudden release of responsibility or no release of responsibility, what does gradual look like? Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan bring this model to life.

New and Improved Nonfiction

Jennifer Schwanke remembers the days when mimeographed nonfiction pieces were rare and not welcome additions to elementary classrooms, and reflects on how much has changed.

#articleaday

Justin Stygles uses a daily nonfiction article activity as a way to build interest in nonfiction short texts, especially among reluctant readers in his classroom.

Tweets in the High School Classroom

Gretchen Schroeder finds that tweets are a terrific quick assessment tool for analyzing student understanding of everything from nonfiction texts to character development in classic literature.

The Professional Promise of Podcasts

Suzy Kaback discovers podcasts are invaluable for building her knowledge of social justice. She provides links to many of her favorite online sources to explore.

Writing for Reflection at the End of the Year

Katherine Sokolowski reflects on ways to extend the learning from an end-of-year activity all the way to the fall.

Making Plans for Summer Reading

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills begin a few days before the start of break to help students develop summer reading goals and plans.

Five Steps to Meaningful Formal Celebrations

Ruth Ayres gives a step-by-step process for closing out the school year with a meaningful writing celebration that welcomes the entire community

End-of-the-Year Reflection

Melanie Meehan shares a series of thoughtful questions to help students reflect on their process as writers, and what they need as they move into the summer and new classrooms.

Amazing Race

Gretchen Schroeder uses the format of the Amazing Race television show to help her high school students master materials for final exams and get moving throughout the school for a fun break.

Trying on Books for Reading Groups

Gigi McAllister finds taking time to have students browse texts before forming book clubs makes all the difference in the quality of the discussions.

Getting Teens Out of Reading Ruts: The Sampler

Carly Ullmer describes the activity she’s developed for getting her middle school readers out of reading ruts by sampling different authors and genres.

Graphic Novels for Beginning Readers

If you are looking to increase the quantity and quality of graphic novels for your learners in your classroom library, Shari Frost has a new booklist to get you started.

Gradual Release of the Library

Bitsy Parks explains how she designs her first-grade classroom library for “gradual release” throughout the school year in a way that allows students to build book-browsing skills.

Purposeful Partners

Tara Barnett and Kate Mills find the young learners in their classroom have mastered the art of turning and talking only with close friends. They provide practical suggestions for expanding the circle of peer response.

Hot Glue Guns

Mary Lee Hahn considers the use of Hot Glue Guns in her classroom, and moves from exasperation to appreciating the learning happening when we think kids are just messing around with peers and the tools we've given them.