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The Ocean Research Project: From Launch to Celebration in 10 Days
For the past few years I have attempted to make it so that research is not a one-and-done endeavor in our fifth-grade reading and writing class. Throughout the year I...
Building Excitement for Book Awards
I get excited about the American Library Association announcement of book awards at the end of January. I love to read through blogs and websites to find out which books...
Teachers Who Write
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...
The Riskiest Writing
Being a writer means taking risks. Nothing feels riskier than writing live in front of your students, yet no other writing model is more valuable. Let’s step back for a...
Get in the Pool: Teachers Who Write
I always wanted to be a writer. As a little girl, I kept notebooks and folders filled with loose-leaf pages of my latest novel. I wrote a lot of haunted-house...
The Power of Picture Book Conversations
I remember reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Scoot a few years ago. I was intrigued but overwhelmed by the medical jargon. I had passages marked to...
Research Through Picture Books
“Mrs. S, I can’t find anything in this book. Can I just use the iPad?” Blake closed his book in frustration. This is an all-too-common refrain in my classroom during...
News from the Interior
Every instant is at once a giver and a plunderer. Gaston Bachelard Now that the mockingbird claps winter from its wings, plunges, light-blind into the baptismal font of the...
Word Study Kick-Off
One of the biggest struggles teachers share is that getting word study off the ground is tricky. It should be no surprise to know, then, that many teachers admit that...
Conference Records That Stay with Kids
As I waited for the transition to writing workshop, I looked around the kindergarten classroom. It was packed! Not only was the class size large—34 five-year-olds prepared their desks for...
A Checklist for Reflection
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Soren Kierkegaard It's 4:30 p.m. on a Thursday in the dead of winter. I should go home...
“There Are Words All Over Our Hallways!”
For students who are quickly becoming independent readers, they need to see the word about ten times before it moves into their bank of easily recognized words. However, our dependent...
Teacher Guilt
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change. Gretchen Rubin A...
Professional Development Choice and Follow-Up
We have many opportunities for professional development in our district, but we are constantly grappling with the question of how to create more long-lasting instructional changes. In the moment, as...
Developing Life Skills vs. Teaching to the Test
My principal winced in trepidation while simultaneously nodding in agreement when I suggested last fall that we tackle our low test scores head-on. We started our inservice day meeting like...
The Power of Mini-Charts
I spend a lot of time making charts. I have filled multiple sketchbooks with charts over the years—anchor charts, strategy charts, and learning progressions. These sketchbooks have become invaluable to...
Easing into Writing Poetry
The poet's job is to put into words those feelings we all have that are so deep, so important, and yet so difficult to name, to tell the truth in...
Poetry Love
Our school district offers an annual Summer Writing Academy, and each year we have a different topic or focus area for the writing. When we first bounced around the idea...
Planning Next Year’s Professional Development Offerings
I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and discovered them again. Annie Dillard It’s easy to...
Beyond the Acrostic Poem
My announcing that we're going to study poetry to a class of fourth-grade students is usually met with groans and looks of fear. In the beginning of the year, I...
Benched
We’ve all watched games in which players have been benched. In my own house, we have all kinds of experiences with “riding the bench.” One of our kids isn’t athletically...
