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Choice Literacy Articles & Videos
The Choice Literacy library contains over 3,000 articles and 900 videos from 150+ contributors. Classic Classroom and Literacy Leadership subscribers have access to the entire library. Content is updated continuously, with five to six new features published each week.
Latest Content
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.
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.
The Big Fresh November 18, 2017 Grounded
We look at the power of teachers writing in this week’s Big Fresh.
Writers and Themes: Fifth-Grade Discussion
Acclaimed children’s book author and teacher Jennifer Richard Jacobson talks with a group of fifth graders about how writers establish a theme early in stories and then braid elements of the theme throughout the text.
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.
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.
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.
The Big Fresh November 11, 2017 What’s Your Hashtag?
We consider how to teach summaries and conclusions in this week’s Big Fresh.
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.
Writing a Strong Conclusion to a Literary Analysis Essay
Christy Rush-Levine helps eighth grader Katherine sort through tools and strategies for writing a strong conclusion to her literary analysis essay.
The Big Fresh November 4, 2017 Neighborhood Library
We look at mentor texts from many angles in this week’s Big Fresh.
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.
Girls’ Book Share in Fifth Grade
Katherine Sokolowski demonstrates how she helps a group of girls in her fifth-grade classroom learn to help each other select books based on previous experiences and tastes.
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.
The Big Fresh October 28, 2017 Blind Spots
We rethink rubrics in this week’s Big Fresh.
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.
The Big Fresh October 21, 2017 Cheese Emergency
We consider struggling learners in this week’s Big Fresh.
They Don’t Read at Home
Cathy Mere suggests strategies for working with struggling students who read very little at home.
Big Picture to Close-Up Lens: Conferring with Kellan
Katrina Edwards confers with first grader Kellan about her love of the Danny book series, moving from a "big picture" discussion of patterns in the book and Kellan's reading strategies, to close-up decoding of individual words.
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.
The Big Fresh October 14, 2017 More Heart, Less Head
We look at improving read alouds in this week’s Big Fresh.
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.
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.
More Nonfiction Read Alouds
Franki Sibberson shares strategies for incorporating more nonfiction into read-aloud times throughout the day.
First-Grade Minilesson: Emotions in Writing
Katrina Edwards reads aloud a Kate Messner mentor text to build an anchor chart on emotions with her first graders.
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