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Integrating Short Videos into Minilessons
Katherine Sokolowski gives advice on how to add video to your literacy minilessons.
How to Notice: Mining Children’s Books for Craft Minilessons
This is the second installment in our new series on creating your own writer’s craft minilessons.
Reading Math: Starting with Visuals
Maria Caplin finds launching her math minilessons with an image helps her students read math problems in deeper ways and notice mathematical components of everyday life.
Shallow Books? Learning from a Reading Celebration
Franki Sibberson discovers we allow students to assess what reading matters most to them, we can learn a remarkable amount.
Reading Workshop in Kindergarten: When and How to Launch
Clare Landrigan and Tammy Mulligan share wise advice about launching workshops in kindergarten.
Letter to Franki Sibberson’s Students
Here is a letter Brenda Power wrote to Franki Sibberson's students about why adults observe children, if you're looking for ways to explain the presence of adult visitors in classrooms.
Grading in Literacy Workshops
Katherine Sokolowski finds grading student work in her fifth-grade classroom becomes far more interesting when students take responsibility for choosing what will be graded.
Learning to Observe: Inviting a Parent to a Tutoring Session
Max Brand brings a mother into the assessment process and teaches her what to observe as her child reads.
Multicultural Series Books
Shari Frost is alarmed when she realizes how rarely children of color are represented as main characters in book series. She decides to compile a list of multicultural series books.
Character Traits and Vocabulary Development
Gigi McAllister shares how she combines vocabulary instruction with analysis of character traits in her fourth-grade classroom.
Finding Craft Minilessons in the Children’s Books You Love
Mary Helen Gensch explains how to find craft lessons in beloved children’s books. She uses a mentor text with an engaging main character to describe the process. This is the first installment in a three-part series.
Eight Picture Books That Show (vs. Tell) How to Be Mindful
Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris continue their series on teaching mindfulness with picture books.
Slow Thinkers
Gigi McAllister realizes she is a slow thinker, and this makes her reconsider some of her classroom practices to support children who need more time to respond.
Supporting Introverts in Literacy Workshops
Kim Campbell has suggestions for ways teachers can help introverts have more say in literacy workshops.
Making Space: Entering Lessons Mindfully
Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris explain how to slow down and enter lessons more mindfully. This is the first installment in a three-part series on mindfulness in classrooms.
The Silent Period
Do you have English language learners in the silent period in your school? Stella Villalba has tips for teachers working with them.
Inform, Inspire, Instruct: Essays as Mentor Texts in High School
Kim Campbell shares her favorite nonfiction short texts to use with adolescents.
Infusing Informational Texts into Morning Meetings: Fact of the Day and Daily News Routines
Andrea Smith explains two routines, Daily News and Fact of the Day, which are key components of her morning meetings.
Shorter Research Projects: Rethinking Notetaking Strategies
Katherine Sokolowski is assigning shorter research projects in her fifth-grade classroom as a way to help students acquire notetaking skills and understand the boundaries of plagiarism.
The Weight of Stories
Some of our students lead such hard lives. Christy Rush-Levine explores how teachers can keep from being dragged into the undertow of the most difficult situations children face.
Rethinking Technology: The Power of Student Experts
It’s impossible to master all the new technology resources available in classrooms, and fortunately we don’t have to. Katherine Sokolowski enlists peers as tech experts in her fifth-grade classroom.
Peer Evaluation of Student Writing
Megan Ginther found she was spending too much time responding to student writing, and just as important, taking on too much of the responsibility for improvement. She tackled the issue by developing a new program for peer evaluation of student writing.
Using Writing Notebooks Authentically with My Fifth-Grade Students
Katherine Sokolowski reflects on a key component of her writing workshop, and finds ways for using writing notebooks more authentically.
My Middle Schoolers Still Can’t Spell!: Focusing on Individual Students
Gretchen Taylor concludes her two-part series on spelling instruction in middle school. In this installment, Gretchen visits a colleague in the primary grades to get advice and practical insight.
Rethinking Grammar Instruction in High School
What conventions can be taught in a way that sticks with older adolescents? Gretchen Schroeder slows down and focuses to improve her instruction.
Writing Homework
If your students are already comfortable with an unstructured requirement of 20-30 minutes of reading each night, you may find adding 10 minutes of writing at home works wonders in fostering writing skills. Katherine Sokolowski explains how the assignment works in her classroom.
The Power of Reading Habits
Gretchen Taylor’s overscheduled middle school students have almost no time for reading outside the classroom. She finds that some reflective inquiry helps them build reading habits at home.
Helping Parents Talk with Students
Helping parents learn to talk with their children about what’s going on in the classroom may be more valuable than any homework teachers assign. Max Brand shares some practical tips and prompts he gives to families to launch conversations at the dinner table or in the car.
Word Work Basics
Max Brand explains the basics of word work, including a list of reflective questions teachers can ask themselves and students.
My Middle Schoolers Can’t Spell!
Gretchen Taylor has a common teacher's lament about spelling, so she decides to do something about it. This is the first installment in a two-part series.
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