Choice Lit Topic: Community Building
It’s one of the big paradoxes of literacy instruction – students best learn how to read and write independently when they have a strong community of support in classrooms. How teachers build those thoughtful, kind, and challenging classroom communities is explained in these resources.
Results
Shallow Books? Learning from a Reading Celebration
I remember my first children’s literature class as an undergraduate majoring in elementary education. I had always been a reader, but hadn’t really thought much about children’s books since I’d...
Multicultural Series Books
There were about 20 emails in my inbox that morning in March. They all had the same subject line: “Where are the people of color in children’s books?” The emails...
Infusing Informational Texts into Morning Meetings: Fact of the Day and Daily News Routines
Children thrive when they belong to a community that is welcoming, full of new learning, and built around consistent structures and expectations. Classroom rituals and routines reassure each child entering...
The Weight of Stories
I walk into the house at the end of the day and set down my bag, releasing the weight of my laptop, books, and stacks of paper, but my shoulders...
The Power of Reading Habits
This year, for the first time in my career, I taught teenagers—seventh graders whose reading, thanks to a looping arrangement, I’d been able to nurture the previous year. The heart...
Student-Generated Blends Chart in First Grade
At the start of each year, my first-grade students and I often sit down together near our chart stand to practice interactive writing. They sit clumped on the floor with...
Spreading Out the Fun
Upon the completion of each school year, I always have the same feeling: I want to start over again right away so that this time I might get things “right.”...
What Kenny Taught Me
A language arts classroom can be a difficult place for young learners who struggle to sit quietly. Tradition tells us that in a school setting, reading and writing requires focus,...
Books for Brain Breaks
The bathroom. I couldn’t believe we were talking about the bathroom during my teacher evaluation last year. I thought I had a great plan for using the bathroom. My kindergarten...
Quick Transitions in Second Grade
This video is less than one minute long, highlighting two different quick kinesthetic moves Sean Moore uses with his second-grade learners to help them refocus and move between instruction segments....
Independence in Writing Workshop
Beth Lawson uses writing workshop chores and simple transition strategies to help her students work independently. After the minilesson, Beth gives peer-editing assignments to students from drafting to proofing, so...
Community Board: Invitations to Independence
Our Community Area is a large space where we gather for meetings, lessons, and read-alouds. It gives students an unobstructed view of the Smartboard for shared texts and e-books; the...
A Strong Foundation: Books and Media for Launching Literacy Workshops
Beginnings are important, whether it is building a new relationship, building a home, or starting a new school year. Lucy Calkins talks about building invisible structures so that the deeper,...
Getting to Know You: Brown Bag Objects
Getting to know you, Getting to know all about you. Getting to like you, Getting to hope you like me. “Getting to Know You” from The King and I is...
Shoebox Autobiographies
An important part of building a sense of community in any classroom is taking time to get to know each other as individuals. Whether you are teaching kindergartners or adult...
The Case Against Management Systems
Recently I spoke at a local university to a group of student teachers, just as I do every spring. When I asked their supervisor what topics they needed me to...
First Shared Text: Fishing for Many Meanings with Adolescents
Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. —Henry David Thoreau My husband, Mark, is an expert fisherman. I have...
“I Used To, and Now I”: An Early Year Minilesson
I’ve always done a minilesson early in the fall where I talk to my students about myself as a reader and writer. I’ve done this lesson for more than 10...
Six-Word Memoirs
Recently I learned about six-word memoirs while I was in an orientation for the Southern Maine Writing Project Invitational Institute. Our task was to interview someone we did not know well...
Candy Memoirs
Why is it that high school teachers think they must start the year by going over rules and procedures? It must be something that is taught in that same methods...
Launching Writing Workshop: Mentor Texts
Writing is more than crafting an opinion, a narrative, or an informational piece to meet a standard. As I think about launching a writing workshop unit in second grade, I...
