Articles
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
Photovoice: Exploring Content Literacy with Images
As Suzy Kaback explores the question “How does your expertise function?” she explains the power of Photovoice and details its use in K-12 classrooms.
Not That Into Me
If you're a literacy coach, those teachers who don't want to work with you can make you feel like the wallflower at the prom or the last kid picked for the basketball team. Heather Rader has positive, proactive suggestions for making the best of an awkward situation.
Updating Reading Interviews: Technology and Changing Habits
Reading Interviews are a staple in many literacy programs – a terrific tool for learning more about the history and habits of students. Franki Sibberson explains how she has updated her reading interview to include questions about digital resources and tools.
5 Easy Steps to Becoming Active in the Blog Community
If you are beginning to involve yourself more in online networks, you might enjoy these suggestions from Mary Lee Hahn and Franki Sibberson.
The Amazing School Librarian: An Interview with John Schumacher (PODCAST)
Franki Sibberson interviews extraordinary school librarian and blogger John Schumacher in an inspiring podcast that will get you thinking in new ways about school librarians and their role in your learning community.
Lady With the Yellow Umbrella
In this poem, Shirl McPhillips writes about "learning better how to live" while finding peace and purpose in the midst of adversity.
Books Struggling Readers Can and Will Want to Read: Building the Classroom Library
Sammy is an avid reader in the classroom, but his teacher Cathy Mere notices he “accidentally” is always leaving the backpack with his intervention books behind. The challenge for classroom teachers is stocking books with titles that will interest Sammy, but still provide enough challenge and support to move him forward as a reader.
Common Core Conversations: The Half ‘n’ Half Shift for Nonfiction Reading and Writing
Colleagues and coaches, Amanda Adrian and Heather Rader, explore the upcoming shifts in English Language Arts and anticipate what it will mean for leaders, teachers and most importantly, students.
Getting Started With Twitter
Intrigue, frustration, instruction at the point of need…Franki Sibberson cycles through many common learning stages as she builds Twitter into her daily routine.
Tuesday Trades: A New Literacy Ritual in My Classroom
Tuesday Trades are a terrific way to increase peer book recommendations. Andrea Smith created this new weekly activity with her intermediate students, building on existing workshop routines.
Books, Books, Books
Parents of young children may be drawn to text tied to movies or other pop culture filler books. Trish Prentice shares a letter she sends home to families to encourage even the youngest learners to find books and authors with a little more staying power.
Great Lead Investigators
Katie Doherty turns her middle school students into lead investigators – an activity that is a terrific combination of mentor texts, group work, and connections to student writing.
Letting Go After Holding on Tight: Reflecting on the Last Days of School
Andrea Smith writes about how our instincts as parents and teachers merge to make it so hard to say goodbye at the end of the school year.
Kelly Gallagher on Readicide (PODCAST)
High school teacher and best-selling author Kelly Gallagher talks about "readicide" – what teachers and schools do to systematically kill a love of reading in students.
Acquiring Knowledge Two or Three Strategies at a Time
Amanda Adrian knows that a teachers learning new skills need accurate and timely identification of what's next as support.
Organizing a Classroom Nonfiction Library with Students
Organizing nonfiction so that kids will gobble it up is an art. Andrea Smith knows how important it is to include students in this process.
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.
A Poetry Cafe Celebration
Stella Villalba explains how her poetry cafe program brings families together for a festive event, and helps English language learners develop reading and fluency skills at the same time. This is the first installment in a two-part series.
Born Wonders: Tapping Student Interest in Animals, Babies, and Books
Cute Alert – what’s more adorable than babies or animals? Perhaps baby animals! Andrea Smith shares an addictive web resource that will instantly hook students of any age. It’s zoo postings of newborn animals from around the world, with many literacy connections.
Spring Reading Interviews (TEMPLATE)
Kindergartners may be too young for reading interviews early in the fall, but Mandy Robek finds spring reading interviews are an excellent bridge to families and summer reading suggestions.
Ubiquitous Venns, Watch Fors, and Leverage Points: Coaching for Depth
Heather Rader examines the use of Venn diagrams as a catalyst for thinking about how to coach for more depth in classrooms.
Mentor Texts to Help Students Monitor Their Actions
Mandy Robek has a delightful list of books that help students reflect upon and monitor their behavior in the classroom.
Knowing Students Beyond Test Data with Kathy Collins (PODCAST)
Yes, test data can tell us about students. And yes, there is much, much more. Kathy Collins emphasizes pulling back and getting a wider angle on students in this podcast.
Strawberries, Fun, and Student Blogging
Andrea Smith evaluates the success of her new student blogging program.
An ESL Poetry Cafe Celebration (Part II)
Stella Villalba explains how her Poetry Cafe program brings families together for a festive event, and helps English language learners develop reading and fluency skills at the same time. This is the second installment in a two-part series.
Walk Arounds: Gathering Data to Test Assumptions
Do you have a tattler in your midst? Not a child, but a teacher complaining about the work habits of a colleague? Jennifer Jones explains her proactive use of walk-arounds to gather data and confront misconceptions.
Closing Out the Year Round-Up (PART 1)
Here are some fresh and fun ideas for Closing Out the School Year from Choice Literacy Contributors Aimee Buckner, Trish Prentice, Karen Terlecky, and Stella Villalba.
What Matters Most: A Conversation with Samantha Bennett (PODCAST)
Samantha Bennett is the author of That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms That Read, Write, and Think
It May Be a Mess, But It’s Our Mess: Creating a Student-Organized Classroom Library
Jennifer McDonough explains why it’s important for her to share the sorting, categorizing, and labeling of texts with her students early in the year while organizing the classroom library.
Books with Overlooked Potential for Launching the School Year (and Ideas for Using Them with Students)
You know those books that cause us to say, “Aww…I love that book.” Well, the team at Literacyhead has us thinking about using old favorites in new ways.
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