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Launching a Fiction Writing Unit with Fifth Graders
Towards the end of the school year my students start to get a little bit antsy. I try to find units to teach in reading and writing that give them...
What Can Charlie Do?: The Value of Response Journals in Preschool Classrooms
In the fall, Charlie’s drawing was of a single typical tadpole-like person. He formed a shaky version of C, the first letter in his name. His verbal story was: “C....
Summer Reading Round-Up (Part 1)
When we talk with educators about their summers we hear anticipation of June-July-August joys: time to sleep in, time for vacationing, and time for eating lunch and using the restroom...
Independent Reading By the Numbers Is NOT Text Complexity
If we’re not talking to kids about what they’re reading, then it doesn’t matter what kind of book they choose. It’s the thinking and talking that help students unravel a...
Football Field Writing
Several years ago, I stumbled across high school teacher Jim Burke’s blog and a post titled Teaching at the 18-Yard Line. Jim describes an exercise in visualization about the future...
Death in Books: Finding Our Way After Loss
My father died last fall. While his death was sudden, I continue to feel glad he is no longer suffering. Alzheimer’s was his unfortunate companion for years. He rarely knew...
Grouping Struggling Students for Word Study: A Case Study
Word study is the favored, go-to instructional strategy for all struggling learners. Teachers run to it so often that most struggling learners have been thoroughly steeped in phonics by the...
Using Shared Writing to Build Argument Skills
Belinda was feeling rather discouraged. She had just finished reading drafts of her students’ argumentative writing. After several minilessons and conferences, most of her fourth graders were still not supporting...
Madness, the Spring Slump, and High School Readers
I have worked hard over the past ten years to create a culture of reading in my 11th and 12th grade English classes. From book passes to book talks to...
Our Favorite Online Reading and Writing Tools Round-Up (Part 2)
Our tech-savvy contributors remind us that learning with technology should be embedded with sound instructional practice and have new ideas for how that can be done. If you missed Part...
Subheading Literacy: Nothing “Sub” About It
Subheadings do a lot of work in informational text; they are crucial comprehension touchstones. Similar to chapter headings, white space, and illustrations in narrative text, subheadings alert us to pause,...
Introducing the Writing Common Core Standards: Planning for Professional Development
When I began to plan for how introducing the Common Core State Standards in Writing with a key group of leaders in our district, I kept these words of wisdom...
Triangulating: The Importance of Multiple Data Points When Assessing Students
We went to a professional development session a few years ago with Elizabeth City and she gave us a name for something we have always believed - the importance of...
Dear Teacher, Dear Principal
Often there is confusion about the role of an instructional coach. These letters are intended to clarify the position, as well as reveal the genuine desire of a coach to...
Introducing the Common Core Standards in Writing (Part 2)
Facilitating big-picture professional development in writing for teacher leaders takes careful time and planning to make the best use of everyone’s time. We began our morning with this objective: “We...
Busywork?: From Classroom Assistant to Agent of Change
It’s the day before school starts, hours before the kindergarten classrooms will be filled with parents and students excited to meet their very first teachers at a meet and greet...
Curriculum Work: Making Meaning Together
To make dreams apparent to others and to align people with them requires not just mere explanations or clarification but the creation of meaning. ...
Ask Me – I’m Not the Expert
If nothing else, children should leave school with a sense that if they act, and act strategically, they can accomplish their goals. I call this feeling a sense of agency....
Heather Sisson’s Coaching Space
Literacy coach Heather Sisson has a shelf of resources available to teachers in her coaching space. A simple checkout system puts everything from cooperative learning books to mentor texts...
Teacher and Coach Common Quiet Signals
Each teacher has one or more special signals to get students’ attention. When literacy coach Heather Rader began working with second-grade teacher Sean Moore she noted how he asked students...
Making Assumptions
It had been a rough morning. I'd spent the last two and a half hours in jaw-tightening silence, watching a novice teacher making misstep after misstep in his classroom. In...
