Article Content Type: Article
Results
Collaborative Brainstorming
“Turn to those around your table and talk for a moment about where your thinking is right now." This is a phrase that I often utter as I lead professional...
Engaging a Room Full of Third Graders
In one of the classrooms, whenever I teach, and whenever I observe, and whenever their teacher and I teach together, we have a room full of quiet, compliant kids. But...
Invitations for Narrative Writing
I remember the stunning memoir written by a high school freshman titled “I Don’t Want to Write About Last Summer.” In it she captured the highs and lows of her...
The Honeymoon Is Over
“The honeymoon is definitely over.” This is what I heard walking back into my office a few weeks ago after dismissal. Pausing to soak it all in, I realized I’d...
No Cookies: Reflection and Celebration
At the beginning of the year, I started a coaching cycle right away with one of our district’s fourth-grade teachers. We had studied the data of the cohort heading her...
The Morning Story
Today is Monday. It is sunny. We will have music. I bet you recognize that bit of prose. It is often called “the morning story.” When I was a first...
The Common Core and Parents: Building Bridges, Not Walls
One of our challenges at our school is parent involvement. We are paying particular attention to the feel and tone of our parent conferences. Holding up the mirror is not...
A Complicated Relationship with Standards
I have a complicated relationship with the Common Core State Standards. As our district’s writing specialist, I have come to terms with them for the most part, and I think...
Resources for Quick-Writes
Last summer I stumbled across Linda Rief’s book, 100 Quickwrites: Fast and Effective Freewriting Exercises That Build Students’ Confidence, Develop Their Fluency, and Bring Out the Writer in Every Student....
Back to Basics: Choice
Choice 1: Do you want your milk in the red glass or the blue glass? Choice 2: Do you want to read the book about trains or the book about...
Reorganizing the Classroom Library
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. Jorge Luis Borges It’s Monday morning in my fourth-grade classroom, always a busy time for returning and...
Moving Beyond Bed-to-Bed Stories in First Grade
First I went on the play structure and then I went on the swings and then I saw a butterfly and then I saw my friends and then we drove...
Using Webcomics in Classrooms
I’ve always been a supporter of graphic novels in the classroom for a variety of reasons. Graphic novels can support your struggling readers, but they are more than that. They...
Reading Pictures in High School
A picture is worth a thousand words—we’ve all heard the old adage. As a language arts teacher, I am apt to believe that this isn’t always the case, but it’s...
Visual Reading for Writing
Just recently, I was babysitting my five-year-old nephew Ellis. He is a bright kid who loves playing outside, anything related to Star Wars, and books. One of my favorite things...
Close Reading for Comparison in Fifth Grade
I am always on the lookout for a great picture book to use in a minilesson. One skill my fifth graders struggle with is comparison, in texts, across texts, which...
Literary Analysis and Authenticity in Middle School
Literary analysis essays are scary. They sound so serious and formal. Although I know it is the style of writing that will be required of my eighth graders most often...
Close Encounters with Text: Reading Many Ways
I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now. Jaqueline Woodson Getting children to pay attention as they are reading requires front-end work on task...
“Are We Gonna Watch the Movie?”
“Are we gonna watch the movie?” What English teacher hasn’t heard this question at least a thousand times? Whenever I begin a whole-class study of a novel, I am invariably...
Embracing Standards in Creative Ways
I am learning to let go of my frustration over new standards that leave a gaping hole between where we were in the past and where we need to be...
Core Memories and Gotcha Moments
The popular Disney Pixar movie Inside Out delves into the idea of “core memories”—those things that have happened to us that have had such an effect that they will forever...
