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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
Finding Meaning and Joy in Teaching: A Podcast with Meenoo Rami
In a new podcast, Meenoo Rami talks about ways teachers can bring energy and joy back into their teaching.
Brave Noah
Ruth Ayres tells the story of Noah, a brave first grader with a hard home life who has few happily ever afters as a writer.
Mentor Reader: Words
Gigi McAllister writes about a quick activity for modeling word learning and fostering discussion of new vocabulary.
Expanding the Literacy Classroom with Flipped Minilessons
Katharine Hale tries some flipped minilessons in her fifth-grade classroom and explains how technology is providing new opportunities for student learning.
Poemfields
Shirl McPhillips captures beautifully the “hard knuckle” of the end of winter and the slow turn to spring in a new poem and reflection.
Word Observations
Max Brand describes how word observations can work as powerful minilessons in elementary classrooms.
Katie DiCesare on Word Learning (PODCAST)
Katie DiCesare chats with Franki Sibberson about word learning in Katie’s first-grade classroom.
Simplifying Word Study
Max Brand has suggestions for simplifying word study.
March Literacy Contracts: Nonfiction Curiosities
This month’s literacy contract for middle school students focuses on nonfiction texts and growing independence in the classroom.
Bracketology
Mary Lee Hahn uses bracketology to help her fifth-grade students explore determining importance in short texts and close reading.
The Pause That Refreshes: Write When the Conversation Gets Hot
When’s the best time for some spontaneous opinion writing? Suzy Kaback argues it’s when class conversations get hot.
So You Think You Can Combine Sentences? You Can!
Heather Rader concludes her series on sentence combining with a four-step process to help teachers explore the sentence combining craft on their own.
Writing Fiction: More Than Just a Walk in the Park
Is there room for fiction writing in middle schools in the age of the Common Core? Katie Baydo-Reed shares eight compelling reasons why fiction writing is still essential in her eighth-grade classroom.
Sentence Combining in Workshops
Heather Rader has strategies for using sentence combining in literacy workshops.
The Power of Mystery Series for Teens and Tweens
Ruth Shagoury shares her top picks of mystery series for teens and tweens.
A Tool Worth Exploring: Sentence Combining
Heather Rader begins a new series on sentence combining, an alternative to traditional drill and kill grammar instruction.
Deeper Writing: The Story Behind the Selfie
Gretchen Taylor taps into a cultural phenomenon with her seventh-grade writers to help them deepen their writing and reflection.
Making the Most of Short Texts
Mary Lee Hahn melds short texts with the Common Core in this first article in a two-part series.
no i don’t think you need to shave
Katie Baydo-Reed lays down the law for her eighth graders about capitalization and the use of periods, with excellent and hilarious results. This piece will make you laugh out loud at the gaps between the ways teachers and teenagers think.
Children’s Literature for the Olympics
The Olympics are just around the corner, and Sarah Klim has suggestions for read alouds in a new booklist.
Explanatory Grammar Moves: Getting Verbal with It
Jeff Anderson concludes his series on explanatory grammar moves by exploring participles, included in the Common Core eighth-grade standard covering the use of verbals.
Making Classics Relevant for Middle School Students
Jennifer Schwanke helps middle school students make connections between classics and their current reading.
Middle School Design: Cozy Reading Spaces
Katie Doherty has design tips for creating cozy reading spaces in middle school classrooms where there is no space or budget for a whole-class rug area.
15 Minutes on Friday: Writing on Demand with Students
Mary Lee Hahn finds 15 minutes of writing on Friday builds fluency and confidence in her fifth-grade students, and gives her a wealth of formative assessment data at the same time.
Jennifer Serravallo on Formative Assessment (PODCAST)
Franki Sibberson chats with Jennifer Serravallo about formative assessment in this podcast. Jennifer is the author of The Literacy Teacher’s Playbook, Grades 3-6: Four Steps for Turning Assessment Data into Goal-Directed Instruction.
Formative Spelling Assessment
Max Brand has developed templates for grades K-2 and 3-5 to use for formative spelling assessments.
Liberty and Dystopia: February Literacy Contracts
Megan Ginther and Holly Mueller focus their February Literacy Contracts on dystopias.
Smarter Charts (PODCAST)
In this podcast, Franki Sibberson chats with Kristi Mraz and Marjorie Martinelli (the authors of Smarter Charts) about ways teachers can keep anchor charts in their classrooms fresh and useful.
The Shape of Stories
Mary Lee Hahn explores story structure with her fifth-grade students. This is a terrific activity for helping older students understand increasingly complex story structures as they move through the intermediate grades.
Act III: Exploring Subtext with A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare and the Common Core Series)
Gretchen Schroeder concludes her Shakespeare in the Age of the Common Core Series with activities to explore subtext in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
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