Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
Doug Larson
Ahhhhh. The calendar finally turns this week to spring, which means we’re about to start the mad rush till the end of the school year. In Maine, we’ll still have snow on the ground for a few more weeks. Some of you reading this have sunshine and flowers all year round. But it doesn’t matter what the view is outside your window. Inside school, there is a familiar rhythm and sense of everything speeding up just when you’re feeling most tired. But there is also that feeling of quiet joy in looking up and realizing you’ve done it — classrooms have become communities, and students are truly comfortable in them.
Springtime means it’s time for our annual issue highlighting your favorite features from the past year. You voted with your clicks — what follows are the ten most popular articles since last April, in no particular order. Enjoy!
Brenda Power
Founder, Choice Literacy
Free for All
[For sneak peeks at our upcoming features, quotes and extra links, follow Choice Literacy on Twitter: @ChoiceLiteracy or Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ChoiceLiteracy or Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/choiceliteracy/]
Ruth Ayres catalogs her favorite types of share sessions (from old favorites to creative innovations) in writing workshops:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2190
How can you support the “outliers” in classrooms — students with unique needs or profiles who don’t neatly fit into any instructional group? Shari Frost offers some strategies:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2299
Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris share three questions teachers should ask themselves when guided reading groups aren’t going well:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2143
Tara Barnett and Kate Mills detail their process of helping students set weekly goals and then reflect on their progress every Friday:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2700
Franki Sibberson explains how scheduling big events can do important work in building the reading community:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2244
Melanie Meehan explains why a baseline assessment at the start of any writing unit is well worth the time:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2534
Katherine Sokolowski uses read alouds early in the year to help students reflect on how to be kind and thoughtful members of a classroom community:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2255
Melanie Swider discovers that conversations after read-alouds are a wonderful way for students to remember and retain the learning from shared texts:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2180
In Recess of the Mind, Scott Jones describes how thinking outside the normal time frame for writing instruction helped him reach boy writers:
http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2518
What’s the difference between a sense of calm purpose in writing workshops and an atmosphere fraught with tension? Tara Smith finds in her sixth-grade classroom it’s the structures in place (or missing) for student independence:
That’s all for this week!