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What We Lost
I’m always looking for easy ways to help teachers write. I believe teachers need to write if they want to know how to teach writing. You don’t need to write...
Be Someone Who Writes
At a recent roundtable presentation, the facilitator asked us to think about our core beliefs when it comes to literacy, teaching, and learning. Although I agreed that everything I was...
Assessment During On-Demand Writing
It's early in the school year. We've started the activities we've planned to build a community of kids who care about each other and value learning. It's time for the...
Using Student Checklists in Literacy Intervention
I don’t know about you, but I am a list person. In fact, I adore lists in all their splendor: lists on sticky notes, on notebook paper, on whiteboards, and...
Great Books for African American Boys
When Serena saw the class list for her middle school language arts class, she knew that it was going to be a challenge. There were 18 boys in a class...
Reflecting on the L
Michelle came up to me after reading an article about tenement living in 1890s Chicago in my eighth-grade social studies class and said, “I think I learned from the article,...
Sketchnoting in Professional Development
Not too long ago, my son came home from school, threw his book on the table, and declared, “I’m never writing another reading response again!” Surprised, I asked him what...
The Evolution of a Coaching Tool Kit
My instructional coach tool kit has evolved. When I first began, I used my wheelie cart. I thought I needed to have everything, and sometimes I did need to have...
Bonding with a Collective Biography
This is the time of year when literacy coaches and school leaders bring together groups of teachers and specialists to work on collective projects all year long. If you want...
Sketching Your Way to a Big Idea
In eighth grade, our last unit of the year was a Shakespeare unit on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We used the Shakespeare Set Free text from the Folger Shakespeare Library...
Visual Expectations in the Classroom
Turn left here. Now take a slight right. As adults, we listen to commands such as these while navigating new territories. Relying on our GPS, we not only listen to...
DIY Notebooks for Literacy Coaches
Wednesdays have become my favorite coaching day of the week. Why? For the past few years on Wednesday afternoons, I have been coaching a group of literacy teachers working to...
Giving Graphic Organizers a Go
When my literacy coach fanned out five graphic organizers for text structures (description, sequence, compare/contrast, problem/solution, and cause/effect) and suggested I ask each child to try roughing out a plan...
Gradual Release of Responsibility in Small Groups
At times in our teaching careers, we’ve stepped back and realized we've been teaching too much. It happens when we’ve gradually fallen into a cycle of teaching a new minilesson...
Better Student-Led Literature Discussions
A good discussion increases the dimensions of everyone who takes part. Randolph Bourne “I can’t believe they just left her behind on purpose,” laments Danielle, gripping her book and...
Three Ways to Keep Coaching Student Centered
When I am working with a teacher in a coaching cycle, we commit to working together for a few weeks, planning, teaching, and assessing. When we first meet, they sometimes...
Kid-Watching as a Coaching Move
“So, what do you do, exactly?” people outside the field of education often ask me when I tell them I am an instructional coach. I have been answering this question...
Quick Vocabulary Practice and Assessment
If I have learned one thing from my students, it’s that any activity, no matter how fun or engaging, quickly turns into drudgery if it is overused. I especially find...
Push Pause: Dealing with Failure in the Midst
“Take out your previous argumentative essay.” “The one I passed back last week.” “With the rubric stapled to it.” “I wrote on the rubric with blue ink.” “It should be...
Super Teacher Reading Workshop
In a recent article, Brenda Power encouraged teachers to reconsider workshop routines, to “knock down” what seems to be a “load-bearing wall” of the workshop and then duck. She warned...
Balancing Reading and Talk
“Will you guys please be quiet and get back to your reading?” I heard myself asking my seventh-grade honors social studies class. It was obvious by their conversation that they...
