Library
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
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.
Culturally Responsive Texts
Katrina Edwards is horrified when a student response reveals cultural gaps in her first-grade classroom library. She researches possibilities for expanding the diversity of texts, and shares an annotated bibliography to download linking different cultures and curricular possibilities.
Adjusting the Classroom Library for Student Needs
Mandy Robek realizes her classroom library isn’t working for her second graders, in part because many of the books are still too difficult for students early in the year. She explains her process of sorting and stowing books for later use.
The Big Fresh April 23, 2016 Standardized Test Unpreparation
Daily assessments are the focus of this week’s Big Fresh.
Choosing and Refining Student Goals
Katie DiCesare shares the process of having her first graders choose their literacy goals, and her role in helping them refine goals through observation and conferring.
Revising Weekly Reflections
Katherine Sokolowski revises the weekly reflection form her fifth graders use to ensure everyone is tracking goals, progress, and expectations.
A Place to Belong
Andrea Smith reflects on preparing to say goodbye to students and her teaching partner of many years. If you have a favorite colleague who is retiring, you may want to get a hankie ready before you read this one.
The Big Fresh April 16, 2016 Thought Partners
Conventions and punctuation are the focus of this week’s Big Fresh.
Developing Individualized Convention Checklists with Students
Melanie Meehan works with third graders to develop personalized conventions checklists.
Alternatives to Daily Editing as a “Bell-Ringer” Activity
The “daily edit” is a common routine in many classrooms. Shari Frost explains why this may not be an effective way to teach conventions, and offers some alternatives.
An Individualized Conventions Checklist
Melanie Meehan finds that a flexible conventions checklist that students develop according to their own needs is the best way to ensure conventions are taught in the context of authentic student work.
Deep Reading of Picture Books in Middle School
Christy Rush-Levine shows the power of using picture books with young adolescents to model close reading and deepen comprehension of sophisticated texts.
The Big Fresh April 9, 2016 Slow Swimmer
We look at modeling and mirroring in this week’s Big Fresh.
The Beauty of Imitation
Jennifer Schwanke explains how concerns about plagiarism can get in the way of recognizing the value of mimicking the styles of other writers to find our own.
Temporary Strategies
Clare Landrigan confers with a student and discovers that a tool designed to help the reader is actually hindering her learning. The experience causes her to reflect on the need for flexibility when matching strategy scaffolds to young readers.
The Big Fresh April 2, 2016 Editing with a Writer’s Eyes
Editing is the focus of this week’s Big Fresh.
Supporting Talk Around Writer’s Craft
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills help young writers move away from seeing editing as “adding more details,” and toward developing more specific language for the revision process.
May’s Menu
Maria Caplin gives her students a range of options for closing out a year of literacy learning in style.
Modeling Nonfiction Writing for English Language Learners: Part 3
Stella Villaba models nonfiction writing for her first- and second-grade English language learners, and in the process integrates vocabulary instruction into her lesson. This is the final video in a three-part series.
Strategies for Elaboration in Opinion Writing
Melanie Meehan works with fifth graders who are struggling to elaborate on themes in their opinion writing.
The Big Fresh March 26, 2016 The Mighty Minute
We present the most popular articles from the past year in this spring break edition of the Big Fresh.
The Big Fresh March 19, 2016 Long Day
Poetry is the focus of this week’s Big Fresh.
Weaving in Poetry
Gigi McAllister shares suggestions for infusing poetry throughout classrooms and the literacy curriculum all year long.
The Case for the Sonnet
Gretchen Schroeder makes a case for teaching the sonnet to teenagers in the age of texts and Twitter.
Message from Old Crow
The end of winter is upon us! Shirl McPhillips celebrates with a poem about an old crow and reflections on revising poems over time.
The Big Fresh March 12, 2016 Don’t Settle
We continue to look at word study and vocabulary in this week’s Big Fresh. This is the second installment in a two-part series.
Character Traits Through Word Sorts
Melanie Swider finds word sorts are a great way to help intermediate students master new vocabulary for describing character traits.
Modeling Nonfiction Writing for English Language Learners: Part 2
Stella Villalba models nonfiction writing for her first- and second-grade English language learners, and in the process integrates vocabulary instruction into her lesson. This is the second video in a three-part series.
Building Word Learning Routines
Cathy Mere shares tried-and-true strategies for word learning with struggling young learners.
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