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A Summer Reading Camp for Middle School Students
Katherine Sokolowski has tips for a "book club" summer reading camp for middle school students.
Death in Books: Finding Our Way After Loss
Books can help children deal with the toughest challenges in life. In a new booklist, Andie Cunningham shares her top picks for stories about characters grappling with the death of a loved one.
Understanding the Middle East Through Children’s Literature (BOOKLIST)
Sheiks, harems, and terrorists — the stereotypes of the middle east from popular culture may not be realistic, but they sure are pervasive. Ruth Shagoury and Andie Cunningham find authentic alternative views to present to children in their new booklist.
Vocabulary and iPhones: A Four-Step Process for Independent Student Word Learning
Bryce Bennett develops a four-step process to help high school students use their smartphones to master difficult vocabulary while reading.
My Name Is Not Julie
Ellie Gilbert is deeply moved when her high school student connects to a text in a startling way. It’s one of those magic moments that keeps teachers coming back to classrooms, but is nearly impossible to share with others.
Understanding Adolescent Readers: A Podcast with Penny Kittle
In this podcast, Penny Kittle chats with Franki Sibberson about how to inspire a passion for reading in adolescents. A full transcript is available below the player.
Literacy in Content Areas: A Podcast with Penny Kittle
Penny Kittle talks with Franki Sibberson about how to help students grow as readers and writers throughout the curriculum.
Field Experience: Social-Emotional Learning in Workshop
Compassion and understanding are as important to workshop instruction as strategies and routines. Ruth Ayres compiled a field experience to highlight the way understanding the social-emotional needs of students (and ourselves) allows for safe learning environments.
Field Experience: Picture Books and Older Students
The value of picture books with older students is often questioned. Ruth Ayres assembled this field experience to allow insight into the depth and power of picture books for older students.
Educating the Writer’s Palate
Helping high school students understand the sophisticated literary tastes of writers is just a cookie away in Ellie Gilbert’s classroom. Ellie pairs cardamon with irony to launch the school year with a metaphor and challenge.
Worldwide Cinderellas
Erin Ocon discovers that worldwide Cinderella stories are a wonderful tool for building community and cultural awareness in her seventh-grade classroom and with English language learners. Erin describes how she uses a range of Cinderella picture books with students, and provides an extensive booklist for expanding your library.
Top 10 Technology Tools for Teachers
If you're overwhelmed with the slew of new technology tools coming out all the time (and who isn't?), you might appreciate Scott Sibberson's Top 10 Tech Tools for Teachers. You are probably using some of the tools daily, and may discover a few new ones too.
No More Excuses: Reading Workshops in Nontraditional Middle and High School Settings
Think you don’t have enough time for reader’s workshop in your classroom? Worried that you don’t have enough books to go around? Feel like you just don’t have the space for it? What if you had students, but no classroom, no books, and no set class times? Ellie Gilbert faced down all these challenges in her nontraditional high school reading workshop.
One Book/Four Hands: Mentoring Younger Readers Using Picture Books
Paul Hankins describes the power of pairing high school and elementary students in a partner reading program.
High School Students Take on a Reader’s Bill of Rights
Ellie Gilbert revisits the “rights of readers” with her high school students,revising the list based on their habits and preferences. The discussion leads to some surprising additions to the list of rights. This would be a fun activity to close out the school year, or to begin a summer program with children of almost any age.
Using Animated Short Films to Teach Inference
Here’s a problem many teachers share – students are far too literal when it comes to inferring while reading. Ellie Gilbert finds animated short films readily available on the web are a terrific tool for helping students move beyond literal interpretations of text.
Beginning with the End in Mind: Planning Ahead for Closing Activities
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite end-of-year activities that circle back to events from the start of the school year.
Pencil Plans
The care and use of the lowly pencil in classrooms says a lot about what we value and our relationships with students.
Read Alouds for the First Day of School
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite read alouds for the start of the year.
A District Film Festival: Giving Kids An Authentic Audience for Their Work
Lights, cameras, and even a red carpet! Bill Bass documents how a film festival brought high school teachers and students together, with a strong focus on connecting district goals and standards to the fun projects.
Persuasive Pamphlets
Erin Ocon and her middle-school students observe some political activists passing out pamphlets outside the building for a few moments. Voila – the pamphlet project is born. Pamphlets are the perfect genre for teaching persuasion and summary, two key skills highlighted in the Common Core.
Pamphlets on Books (Part 2 of the Persuasive Pamphlets Series)
Erin Ocon finds pamphlets are a terrific format for teaching her middle-school students persuasive writing and summary skills. In this essay she explains how to use pamphlets for book recommendations. This is the second installment in a two-part series.
Characters I Know Too Well
Books with themes of sexual abuse may be the most difficult for many of us to grapple with, if only because the issue horrifies us. Yet for some abused teens, a book may be the needed catalyst for breaking their silence about what's going on outside school. Andie Cunningham shares an annotated booklist on this tough topic.
Read Alouds for the Last Days of School
Choice Literacy readers share some of their favorite read alouds for the last days of school.
Literacy Keepsakes to Carry Home at the End of the School Year
Choice Literacy readers share their favorite gifts for students to make and take home at the end of the year.
Writing and Publishing Book Reviews with Middle School Students
What teenager doesn't enjoy critiquing everything in the world? Erin Ocon puts that judgmental passion to good use in her classroom with a book review assignment.
More Literacy Keepsakes to Carry Home at the End of the School Year
Choice Literacy readers share more of their favorite end-of-year gifts for students to make and take home.
Sarcasm Is a Useful Teaching Tool — NOT
How does sarcasm hurt students? Heather Rader counts the ways.
Getting and Giving Student Feedback
How can we help students be more reflective in our classrooms, giving us the feedback we need to make them better places for learning? Heather Rader has suggestions.
Twitter Me This: Using Cell Phones to Build Literacy Skills and a Reading Community
Lisa Koch found herself a bit irritated as her high school students would discreetly send text messages as she tried to teach them literary terms. Her solution? Tweet tweet! You can read here about her successful summer experiment of tweeting literary terms and staying in touch with students over summer reading assignments.
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