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
“Who I Am” Early in the Year
ARTICLE: Tara Barnett and Kate Mills start with the poem “Where I’m From” to build community through literacy at the start of the year. VIDEO: Katie Doherty leads her sixth-grade...
Sustaining (Not Just Building) Community Online
Some teachers had spent a wonderful day with me exploring instructional possibilities for using tools (i.e., Flipgrid, Kialo, Padlet) to meet, poll, see, and connect with our students as thinkers...
Fact or Fiction?
Surely if alternative facts are untrue they should be called Ficts? Alan Dapre “Did you read that in nonfiction?” It was early February, and our fourth graders were learning...
Routines for Building Gratitude
It was a particularly dreary Northwest winter morning. It had rained all night, and as I hustled to the car to leave for school, I noticed puddles of standing water...
Management and Middle School Workshops
I had the class gathered around the screen at the front of the room. I was going for a coach’s-huddle sort of feel, hoping they would all lean in and...
Call Me by My Name
Sometimes we forget. We forget that middle schoolers don’t wake up on school days and start plotting their teachers’ demise. We forget that second graders aren’t being naughty when they...
Everyday Celebrations and Traditions
I was working at a table in the hall outside my classroom. I got the treat of not only noticing everyone who walked down the hall as they slowed down...
Making Our Writing Public
About 10 years ago I reached out to the Farnum Writing Center at Colby College and asked if they would like to partner with our student writers and respond to...
Letting Go in the Remote Learning World
Having 72 hours to shift from face-to-face instruction toward online, remote learning challenged me in unexpected ways. Just when I thought I knew how to be a principal, I got...
Don’t Force Vulnerability
Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen. Brené Brown I found myself among a group of moms who were complaining about their kids’ homework assignments. I...
Creating a Safe Space in Middle School
I have never felt more uncomfortable as a professional than I did this past summer in a session led by Chad Everett at the Lead Learners Summer Institute. That session...
Kindergarten and Middle School Poetry Partnership
When I taught fourth grade in a kindergarten through fourth-grade building, it was nothing to create an activity that involved lower grades. I strongly believed then as I do now...
Trauma and Literacy
When I was between the ages of eight and 10, two things happened. First, it stopped raining. There was a two-year drought that dried up the entire state of Ohio....
Getting Started with Lunchtime Author Groups
Gigi McAllister helps a group of fourth graders evaluate questions for fostering good group discussions.
Appointment Clocks
Although there are many benefits to using groups in the classroom, sometimes the dynamics can be overwhelming or problematic. An easy alternative, especially when time is a factor, is using...
Community Timeline Project
In seventh-grade language arts we are constantly looking for ways to bring the community to our students. With our schedule, that is often difficult. One way we manage to accomplish...
Reading and Writing for the 100th Day of School
“I don’t believe this!” I mumbled to myself as I left the classroom. I was leaving after a meeting with Allie, who was completing a teaching internship, and her cooperating...
Reinforcing Workshop Norms
In this quick video, Dana Murphy shows how she leads her fifth graders with a kinesthetic reminder of workshop norms before beginning independent work.
Circle Share
It had been an intense day of finishing the rough drafts of our memoirs. My students were really putting themselves on the page, and I had been moved nearly to...
Minimizing Interruptions During Workshops
I have two young children at home, so believe me, I am accustomed to interruptions. I am used to the call of “Moooommmm!” right when I sit down to fold...
Raising Student Voices: Mentor Texts
I’ve never really gotten over watching A Muslim and Jewish Girl’s Bold Poetry Slam on YouTube. Amina Iro and Hannah Halpern share their poem about the way the world sees...
